Abstract
Ontology cannot be left to the natural sciences, if only because it deals also with hypothetical and fictional objects. It pivots about proto-categorical issues relating to the features of objects of any and all kinds. This brings into its range issues that test the limits of knowledge by asking questions that are inherently unanswerable (for example: “What is an instance of an occurrence that no one ever mentions?”). And it raises issues of norms and values that science (in its usual configuration) does not address.
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Notes
We can, of course, refer to such individuals and even to some extent describe them. But what we cannot do is to identify them in the sense specified in #7 above.
A uniquely characterizing description on the order of “the tallest person in the room” will single out a particular individual without specifically identifying him.
Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, sect. 57. Compare the following passage from Charles Sanders Peirce: “For my part, I cannot admit the proposition of Kant—that there are certain impassable bound to human knowledge. … The history of science affords illustrations enough of the folly of saying that this, that, or the other can never be found out. Auguste Comte said that it was clearly impossible for man ever to learn anything of the chemical constitution of the fixed stars, but before his book had reached its readers the discovery which he had announced as impossible had been made. Legendre said of a certain proposition in the theory of numbers that, while it appeared to be true, it was most likely beyond the powers of the human mind to prove it; yet the next writer on the subject gave six independent demonstrations of the theorem.” (Peirce 1931–1958)
On this issue see Rescher (1985).
References
Peirce CS (1931–1958) Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, 2nd edn. vol VI. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, sect. 6.556
Rescher N (1985) The strife of systems. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh
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Rescher, N. Ontology in Cognitive Perspective. Axiomathes 18, 25–36 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-007-9029-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-007-9029-5