Abstract

The development of a well-articulated metaontological theory is the central theme of this dissertation. I define metaontology as the theoretical enterprise whose primary goal is to analyze and compare ontologies. A fully articulated metaontological theory would contain the following components: a theory of ontological reduction, an account of the notions of ontological dependence and priority, a comprehensive theory of ontological commitment, a clear definition of an ontological framework, a semantic interpretation for interframework existential statements, a general method for ontologically dissecting and analyzing the entities posted by any ontology, an account of the notions of ontological commensurability and incommensurability, a method for articulating embedded ontologies, and an analysis of the dominant cognitive values underlying ontologies. ;In chapters one through three, I develop a comprehensive theory of ontological commitment that incorporates systematically theories of ontological reduction and dependence. I argue that in many cases ontologies should be understood not as sets of objects but rather as structured sets and my theory of ontological commitment is more successful than Quine's in providing us with a true understanding of a theory's commitments. In chapter three I present a higher order type-theoretic intensional logic for my theory, provide formal definitions of six relations of ontological dependence and priority, and satisfy components five and seven. In the fourth chapter two examples of how my metaontological theory could be concretely applied are discussed and components four and six are satisfied. I do not discuss components eight and nine systematically in this work. ;The purpose of metaontology is to facilitate the analysis and comparison of ontological frameworks. Ultimately, by providing insights into the internal structure of ontologies, it can help ontologists attain a better understanding of ontology as a theoretical enterprise