The four causes or four explanations are, in Aristotelian thought , four fundamental types of answer to the question "why?" in analysis of change or movement in nature: the material , the formal , the efficient , and the final . Aristotle wrote that "we do not have knowledge of a thing until we have grasped its why, that is to say, its cause." While there are cases in which classifying a "cause" is difficult, or in which "causes" might merge, Aristotle held that his four "causes" provided an analytical scheme of general applicability.
144-548: Aristotle's word aitia ( αἰτία ) has, in philosophical scholarly tradition, been translated as 'cause'. This peculiar, specialized, technical, usage of the word 'cause' is not that of everyday English language. Rather, the translation of Aristotle's αἰτία that is nearest to current ordinary language is "explanation." In Physics II.3 and Metaphysics V.2, Aristotle holds that there are four kinds of answers to "why" questions: The four "causes" are not mutually exclusive. For Aristotle, several, preferably four, answers to
288-495: A " legal " context, what or who is " responsible ," mostly but not always in a bad sense of "guilt" or "blame." Alternatively, it could mean "to the credit of" someone or something. The appropriation of this word by Aristotle and other philosophers reflects how the Greek experience of legal practice influenced the concern in Greek thought to determine what is responsible. The word developed other meanings, including its use in philosophy in
432-460: A "principle") with form and only insofar as it underlies change. Matter and form are analogical terms. Book II identifies "nature" ( physis ) as "a source or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily" (1.192b21). Thus, those entities are natural which are capable of starting to move, e.g. growing, acquiring qualities, displacing themselves, and finally being born and dying. Aristotle contrasts natural things with
576-438: A book is made up of two covers and the pages between them. Each of these components is itself constituted of smaller parts, like molecules , atoms , and elementary particles . Mereology studies the relation between parts and wholes. One position in mereology says that every collection of entities forms a whole. According to another view, this is only the case for collections that fulfill certain requirements, for instance, that
720-433: A bundle that includes the properties yellow, sour, and round. According to traditional bundle theory, the bundled properties are universals, meaning that the same property may belong to several different bundles. According to trope bundle theory, properties are particular entities that belong to a single bundle. Some ontologies focus not on distinct objects but on interrelatedness. According to relationalism, all of reality
864-496: A certain kind of dividing, then this cannot come about unless the saw has teeth of a certain kind; and these cannot be unless it is of iron." According to Aristotle, once a final "cause" is in place, the material, efficient and formal "causes" follow by necessity. However, he recommends that the student of nature determine the other "causes" as well, and notes that not all phenomena have an end, e.g., chance events. Aristotle saw that his biological investigations provided insights into
1008-493: A collection of surviving manuscripts known as the Corpus Aristotelicum , attributed to the 4th-century BC philosopher Aristotle . It is a collection of treatises or lessons that deals with the most general (philosophical) principles of natural or moving things, both living and non-living, rather than physical theories (in the modern sense) or investigations of the particular contents of the universe. The chief purpose of
1152-570: A comprehensive inventory of reality in which every entity belongs to exactly one category. Some philosophers, like Aristotle , say that entities belonging to different categories exist in distinct ways. Others, like John Duns Scotus , insist that there are no differences in the mode of being, meaning that everything exists in the same way . A related dispute is whether some entities have a higher degree of being than others, an idea already found in Plato 's work. The more common view in contemporary philosophy
1296-438: A continuum out of discrete or indivisible points or moments). Among other things, this implies that there can be no definite (indivisible) moment when a motion begins. This discussion, together with that of speed and the different behavior of the four different species of motion, eventually helps Aristotle answer the famous paradoxes of Zeno , which purport to show the absurdity of motion's existence. Book VII briefly deals with
1440-504: A different sense, for example, as abstract or fictional objects. Scientific realists say that the scientific description of the world is an accurate representation of reality. It is of particular relevance in regard to things that cannot be directly observed by humans but are assumed to exist by scientific theories, like electrons, forces, and laws of nature. Scientific anti-realism says that scientific theories are not descriptions of reality but instruments to predict observations and
1584-446: A horse eats grass: the horse changes the grass into itself; the grass as such does not persist in the horse, but some aspect of it – its matter – does. Matter is not specifically described, but consists of whatever is apart from quality or quantity and that of which something may be predicated. Matter in this understanding does not exist independently (i.e. as a substance ), but exists interdependently (i.e. as
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#17328730718271728-412: A major subfield of applied ontology, studies social kinds, like money , gender , society , and language . It aims to determine the nature and essential features of these concepts while also examining their mode of existence. According to a common view, social kinds are useful constructions to describe the complexities of social life. This means that they are not pure fictions but, at the same time, lack
1872-509: A more abstract sense. About a century before Aristotle, the anonymous author of the Hippocratic text On Ancient Medicine had described the essential characteristics of a cause as it is considered in medicine: We must, therefore, consider the causes of each [medical] condition to be those things which are such that, when they are present, the condition necessarily occurs, but when they change to another combination, it ceases. Aristotle used
2016-584: A page. Additionally, the Bekker numbers give the page and column (a or b) used in the Prussian Academy of Sciences' edition of Aristotle's works, instigated and managed by Bekker himself. These are evident in the 1831 2-volume edition. Bekker's line numbers may be given. These are often given, but unless the edition is the Academy's, they do match any line counts. Book I introduces Aristotle's approach to nature, which
2160-526: A person thinks about the Loch Ness Monster then the Loch Ness Monster is the intentional object of this thought . People can think about existing and non-existing objects. This makes it difficult to assess the ontological status of intentional objects . Ontological dependence is a relation between entities. An entity depends ontologically on another entity if the first entity cannot exist without
2304-448: A preliminary discipline that provides a complete inventory of reality while metaphysics examines the features and structure of the entities in this inventory. Another conception says that metaphysics is about real being while ontology examines possible being or the concept of being. It is not universally accepted that there is a clear boundary between metaphysics and ontology. Some philosophers use both terms as synonyms. The etymology of
2448-462: A priority order according to which "matter is made perfect by the form, form is made perfect by the agent, and agent is made perfect by the finality." Hence, the finality is the cause of causes or, equivalently, the queen of causes. In his philosophical writings, Aristotle used the Greek word αἴτιον ( aition ), a neuter singular form of an adjective . The Greek word had meant, perhaps originally in
2592-463: A property while being east of is a relation, as in " Kathmandu is a city" and "Kathmandu is east of New Delhi ". Relations are often divided into internal and external relations . Internal relations depend only on the properties of the objects they connect, like the relation of resemblance . External relations express characteristics that go beyond what the connected objects are like, such as spatial relations. Substances play an important role in
2736-791: A purer sense of the word) I call Magic, on account of the broadness of the ways it moves in, and its greater command over nature. Explanations in terms of final causes remain common in evolutionary biology . Francisco J. Ayala has claimed that teleology is indispensable to biology since the concept of adaptation is inherently teleological. In an appreciation of Charles Darwin published in Nature in 1874, Asa Gray noted "Darwin's great service to Natural Science" lies in bringing back teleology "so that, instead of Morphology versus Teleology, we shall have Morphology wedded to Teleology." Darwin quickly responded, "What you say about Teleology pleases me especially and I do not think anyone else has ever noticed
2880-491: A quantitative and qualitative sense. In his Advancement of Learning (1605), Francis Bacon wrote that natural science "doth make inquiry, and take consideration of the same natures : but how? Only as to the material and efficient causes of them, and not as to the forms." Using the terminology of Aristotle, Bacon demands that, apart from the " laws of nature " themselves, the causes relevant to natural science are only efficient causes and material causes , or, to use
3024-524: A real part of objects. Relational ontologies are common in certain forms of nominalism that reject the existence of universal properties. Hierarchical ontologies state that the world is organized into levels. Entities on all levels are real but low-level entities are more fundamental than high-level entities. This means that they can exist without high-level entities while high-level entities cannot exist without low-level entities. One hierarchical ontology says that elementary particles are more fundamental than
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#17328730718273168-461: A role. It is commonly recognised that Aristotle's conception of nature is teleological in the sense that Nature exhibits functionality in a more general sense than is exemplified in the purposes that humans have. Aristotle observed that a telos does not necessarily involve deliberation, intention, consciousness, or intelligence: This is most obvious in the animals other than man: they make things neither by art nor after inquiry or deliberation. That
3312-426: A seed has the eventual adult plant as its end (i.e., as its telos ) if and only if the seed would become the adult plant under normal circumstances. In Physics II.9, Aristotle hazards a few arguments that a determination of the end (i.e., final cause) of a phenomenon is more important than the others. He argues that the end is that which brings it about, so for example "if one defines the operation of sawing as being
3456-464: A selection of one continuous text, but typically gives notes stating the alternative sections of text. Determining which text is to be presented as "original" is a detailed scholarly investigation. The recension is often known by its scholarly editor's name. In reverse chronological order: A commentary differs from a note in being a distinct work analyzing the language and subsumed concepts of some other work classically notable. A note appears within
3600-402: A slightly different sense, monism contrasts with pluralism as a view not about the number of basic types but the number of entities. In this sense, monism is the controversial position that only a single all-encompassing entity exists in all of reality. Pluralism is more commonly accepted and says that several distinct entities exist. The historically influential substance-attribute ontology
3744-476: A source of activities is more typically to the genera of natural kinds (the secondary substance ). But, contra Plato , Aristotle attempts to resolve a philosophical quandary that was well understood in the fourth century. The Eudoxian planetary model sufficed for the wandering stars , but no deduction of terrestrial substance would be forthcoming based solely on the mechanical principles of necessity, (ascribed by Aristotle to material causation in chapter 9). In
3888-495: A species does something "in order to" achieve survival are teleological. The validity or invalidity of such statements depends on the species and the intention of the writer as to the meaning of the phrase "in order to." Sometimes it is possible or useful to rewrite such sentences so as to avoid teleology. Some biology courses have incorporated exercises requiring students to rephrase such sentences so that they do not read teleologically. Nevertheless, biologists still frequently write in
4032-410: A specific ontological theory within this discipline. It can also mean an inventory or a conceptual scheme of a particular domain, such as the ontology of genes . In this context, an inventory is a comprehensive list of elements. A conceptual scheme is a framework of the key concepts and their relationships. Ontology is closely related to metaphysics but the exact relation of these two disciplines
4176-468: A theory of reality but as a game governed by rules of string manipulation. Modal realism is the theory that in addition to the actual world, there are countless possible worlds as real and concrete as the actual world. The primary difference is that the actual world is inhabited by us while other possible worlds are inhabited by our counterparts . Modal anti-realists reject this view and argue that possible worlds do not have concrete reality but exist in
4320-431: A tree (agent); it has these dimensions because it is to be used by humans (end). Aristotle distinguished between intrinsic and extrinsic causes. Matter and form are intrinsic causes because they deal directly with the object, whereas efficient and finality causes are said to be extrinsic because they are external. Thomas Aquinas demonstrated that only those four types of causes can exist and no others. He also introduced
4464-502: A tree, a car, and a planet. They have causal powers and can affect each other, like when a car hits a tree and both are deformed in the process. Abstract objects, by contrast, are outside space and time, such as the number 7 and the set of integers . They lack causal powers and do not undergo changes. The existence and nature of abstract objects remain subjects of philosophical debate. Concrete objects encountered in everyday life are complex entities composed of various parts. For example,
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4608-509: A view referred to as moral nihilism . Monocategorical theories say that there is only one fundamental category, meaning that every single entity belongs to the same universal class. For example, some forms of nominalism state that only concrete particulars exist while some forms of bundle theory state that only properties exist. Polycategorical theories, by contrast, hold that there is more than one basic category, meaning that entities are divided into two or more fundamental classes. They take
4752-503: A way which can be read as implying teleology even if that is not the intention. Tinbergen's four questions , named after the ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen and based on Aristotle's four causes, are complementary categories of explanations for animal behaviour . They are also commonly referred to as levels of analysis . The four questions are on: In The Question Concerning Technology , echoing Aristotle, Martin Heidegger describes
4896-476: Is drag force , ∝ ρ v 2 {\displaystyle \propto \rho v^{2}} . In this case, the terminal velocity is C ( W ρ ) 1 / 2 {\displaystyle C\left({\frac {W}{\rho }}\right)^{1/2}} A recension is a selection of a specific text for publication. The manuscripts on a given work attributed to Aristotle offer textual variants. One recension makes
5040-450: Is "equally co-responsible" for producing a craft item, in Heidegger's terms "bringing forth" the thing into existence. Waddington cites Lovitt's description of this bringing forth as "a unified process." Physics (Aristotle) The Physics ( Greek : Φυσικὴ ἀκρόασις Phusike akroasis ; Latin : Physica , or Naturales Auscultationes , possibly meaning " Lectures on nature ") is a named text, written in ancient Greek, collated from
5184-558: Is a comprehensive framework for the standardized representation of gene-related information across species and databases. Formal ontology is the study of objects in general while focusing on their abstract structures and features. It divides objects into different categories based on the forms they exemplify. Formal ontologists often rely on the tools of formal logic to express their findings in an abstract and general manner. Formal ontology contrasts with material ontology, which distinguishes between different areas of objects and examines
5328-404: Is a polycategorical theory. It says that reality is at its most fundamental level made up of unanalyzable substances that are characterized by universals, such as the properties an individual substance has or relations that exist between substances. The closely related to substratum theory says that each concrete object is made up of properties and a substratum. The difference is that the substratum
5472-412: Is a related method in phenomenological ontology that aims to identify the essential features of different types of objects. Phenomenologists start by imagining an example of the investigated type. They proceed by varying the imagined features to determine which ones cannot be changed, meaning they are essential. The transcendental method begins with a simple observation that a certain entity exists. In
5616-401: Is beautiful. George Holmes Howison highlights "final causation" in presenting his theory of metaphysics, which he terms "personal idealism", and to which he invites not only man, but all (ideal) life: Here, in seeing that Final Cause – causation at the call of self-posited aim or end – is the only full and genuine cause, we further see that Nature, the cosmic aggregate of phenomena and
5760-574: Is between analytic and speculative ontology. Analytic ontology examines the types and categories of being to determine what kinds of things could exist and what features they would have. Speculative ontology aims to determine which entities actually exist, for example, whether there are numbers or whether time is an illusion. Metaontology studies the underlying concepts, assumptions, and methods of ontology. Unlike other forms of ontology, it does not ask "what exists" but "what does it mean for something to exist" and "how can people determine what exists". It
5904-649: Is closely related to fundamental ontology , an approach developed by philosopher Martin Heidegger that seeks to uncover the meaning of being. The term realism is used for various theories that affirm that some kind of phenomenon is real or has mind-independent existence. Ontological realism is the view that there are objective facts about what exists and what the nature and categories of being are. Ontological realists do not make claims about what those facts are, for example, whether elementary particles exist. They merely state that there are mind-independent facts that determine which ontological theories are true. This idea
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6048-563: Is composed of eight books, which are further divided into chapters. This system is of ancient origin, now obscure. In modern languages, books are referenced with Roman numerals, standing for ancient Greek capital letters (the Greeks represented numbers with letters, e.g. A for 1). Chapters are identified by Arabic numerals, but the use of the English word "chapter" is strictly conventional. Ancient "chapters" (capita) are generally very short, often less than
6192-474: Is controversial whether a more substantial analysis of the concept or meaning of being is possible. One proposal understands being as a property possessed by every entity. Critics argue that a thing without being cannot have properties. This means that properties presuppose being and cannot explain it. Another suggestion is that all beings share a set of essential features. According to the Eleatic principle , "power
6336-436: Is denied by ontological anti-realists, also called ontological deflationists, who say that there are no substantive facts one way or the other. According to philosopher Rudolf Carnap , for example, ontological statements are relative to language and depend on the ontological framework of the speaker. This means that there are no framework-independent ontological facts since different frameworks provide different views while there
6480-408: Is different from all the others in lacking matter; being pure form, it is also in an eternal actuality, not being imperfect in any respect; hence needing not to move. This is demonstrated by describing the celestial bodies thus: the first things to be moved must undergo an infinite, single and continuous movement, that is, circular. This is not caused by any contact but (integrating the view contained in
6624-521: Is different from what we mean today by this word, not only to the extent that it belongs to antiquity whereas the modern physical sciences belong to modernity, rather above all it is different by virtue of the fact that Aristotle's "physics" is philosophy, whereas modern physics is a positive science that presupposes a philosophy.... This book determines the warp and woof of the whole of Western thinking, even at that place where it, as modern thinking, appears to think at odds with ancient thinking. But opposition
6768-507: Is disputed. A traditionally influential characterization asserts that ontology is a subdiscipline of metaphysics. According to this view, metaphysics is the study of various aspects of fundamental reality, whereas ontology restricts itself to the most general features of reality. This view sees ontology as general metaphysics, which is to be distinguished from special metaphysics focused on more specific subject matters, like God , mind , and value . A different conception understands ontology as
6912-399: Is essential if an entity must have it; it is accidental if the entity can exist without it. For instance, having three sides is an essential property of a triangle, whereas being red is an accidental property. Relations are ways how two or more entities stand to one another. Unlike properties, they apply to several entities and characterize them as a group. For example, being a city is
7056-591: Is inappropriate to say that something properly becomes, from not-man, man: generation and corruption are not kinesis in the full sense. Book VI discusses how a changing thing can reach the opposite state, if it has to pass through infinite intermediate stages. It investigates by rational and logical arguments the notions of continuity and division , establishing that change—and, consequently, time and place—are not divisible into indivisible parts; they are not mathematically discrete but continuous, that is, infinitely divisible (in other words, that you cannot build up
7200-474: Is invariably comprised of a decisive, and often even perilous, dependence. Without Aristotle's Physics there would have been no Galileo . Bertrand Russell says of Physics and On the Heavens (which he believed was a continuation of Physics ) that they were: ...extremely influential, and dominated science until the time of Galileo ... The historian of philosophy, accordingly, must study them, in spite of
7344-408: Is made of (for example, the wood of a house), formal cause explains the form which a thing follows to become that thing (the plans of an architect to build a house), efficient cause is the actual source of the change (the physical building of the house), and final cause is the intended purpose of the change (the final product of the house and its purpose as a shelter and home). Of particular importance
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#17328730718277488-603: Is material. This means that mental phenomena, such as beliefs, emotions, and consciousness, either do not exist or exist as aspects of matter, like brain states. Idealists take the converse perspective, arguing that everything is mental. They may understand physical phenomena, like rocks, trees, and planets, as ideas or perceptions of conscious minds. Neutral monism occupies a middle ground by saying that both mind and matter are derivative phenomena. Dualists state that mind and matter exist as independent principles, either as distinct substances or different types of properties . In
7632-456: Is necessary that three plus two equals five". Possibility and necessity contrast with actuality, which describes what is the case, as in " Doha is the capital of Qatar ". Ontologists often use the concept of possible worlds to analyze possibility and necessity. A possible world is a complete and consistent way how things could have been. For example, Haruki Murakami was born in 1949 in the actual world but there are possible worlds in which he
7776-455: Is no objectively right or wrong framework. In a more narrow sense, realism refers to the existence of certain types of entities. Realists about universals say that universals have mind-independent existence. According to Platonic realists , universals exist not only independent of the mind but also independent of particular objects that exemplify them. This means that the universal red could exist by itself even if there were no red objects in
7920-445: Is no single standard method; the diverse approaches are studied by metaontology . Conceptual analysis is a method to understand ontological concepts and clarify their meaning. It proceeds by analyzing their component parts and the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a concept applies to an entity. This information can help ontologists decide whether a certain type of entity, such as numbers, exists. Eidetic variation
8064-412: Is not characterized by properties: it is a featureless or bare particular that merely supports the properties. Various alternative ontological theories have been proposed that deny the role of substances as the foundational building blocks of reality. Stuff ontologies say that the world is not populated by distinct entities but by continuous stuff that fills space. This stuff may take various forms and
8208-459: Is not the same as substance . Matter has parallels with substance in so far as primary matter serves as the substratum for simple bodies which are not substance: sand and rock (mostly earth), rivers and seas (mostly water), atmosphere and wind (mostly air and then mostly fire below the moon). In this traditional terminology, 'substance' is a term of ontology , referring to really existing things; only individuals are said to be substances (subjects) in
8352-450: Is not what has nothing outside it that is infinite, but what always has something outside it" (6.206b33-207a1-2). Book IV discusses the preconditions of motion: place ( topos , chapters 1-5), void ( kenon , chapters 6-9), and time ( khronos , chapters 10-14). The book starts by distinguishing the various ways a thing can "be in" another. He likens place to an immobile container or vessel: "the innermost motionless boundary of what contains"
8496-402: Is often conceived as infinitely divisible. According to process ontology , processes or events are the fundamental entities. This view usually emphasizes that nothing in reality is static, meaning that being is dynamic and characterized by constant change. Bundle theories state that there are no regular objects but only bundles of co-present properties. For example, a lemon may be understood as
8640-460: Is present but not the others. According to perdurantists, change means that an earlier part exhibits different qualities than a later part. When a tree loses its leaves, for instance, there is an earlier temporal part with leaves and a later temporal part without leaves. Differential ontology is a poststructuralist approach interested in the relation between the concepts of identity and difference . It says that traditional ontology sees identity as
8784-508: Is relational at its most fundamental level. Ontic structural realism agrees with this basic idea and focuses on how these relations form complex structures. Some structural realists state that there is nothing but relations, meaning that individual objects do not exist. Others say that individual objects exist but depend on the structures in which they participate. Fact ontologies present a different approach by focusing on how entities belonging to different categories come together to constitute
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#17328730718278928-444: Is that a thing either exists or not with no intermediary states or degrees. The relation between being and non-being is a frequent topic in ontology. Influential issues include the status of nonexistent objects and why there is something rather than nothing . A central distinction in ontology is between particular and universal entities. Particulars, also called individuals , are unique, non-repeatable entities, like Socrates ,
9072-480: Is the final cause or purpose ( telos ). It is a common mistake to conceive of the four causes as additive or alternative forces pushing or pulling; in reality, all four are needed to explain (7.198a22-25). What we typically mean by cause in the modern scientific idiom is only a narrow part of what Aristotle means by efficient cause. He contrasts purpose with the way in which "nature" does not work, chance (or luck), discussed in chapters 4, 5, and 6. (Chance working in
9216-403: Is the density of the surrounding fluid (such as air, fire, or water), n > 0 {\displaystyle n>0} is a constant, and C {\displaystyle C} is a constant depending on the shape of the object. This is correct for the terminal velocity of falling objects in fluid in a constant gravitational field, in the case where most of the fluid resistance
9360-417: Is the mark of being", meaning that only entities with causal influence truly exist. A controversial proposal by philosopher George Berkeley suggests that all existence is mental. He expressed this immaterialism in his slogan "to be is to be perceived". Depending on the context, the term being is sometimes used with a more limited meaning to refer only to certain aspects of reality. In one sense, being
9504-425: Is the philosophical study of being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality . As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of reality and every entity within it. To articulate the basic structure of being, ontology examines what all things have in common. It also investigates how they can be grouped into basic types, such as
9648-593: Is the primary place of a body (4.212a20). Unlike space, which is a volume co-existent with a body, place is a boundary or surface. He teaches that, contrary to the Atomists and others, a void is not only unnecessary, but leads to contradictions, e.g., making locomotion impossible. Time is a constant attribute of movements and, Aristotle thinks, does not exist on its own but is relative to the motions of things. Tony Roark describes Aristotle's view of time as follows: Aristotle defines time as "a number of motion with respect to
9792-518: Is the relation between a ground and the facts it explains. An ontological commitment of a person or a theory is an entity that exists according to them. For instance, a person who believes in God has an ontological commitment to God . Ontological commitments can be used to analyze which ontologies people explicitly defend or implicitly assume. They play a central role in contemporary metaphysics when trying to decide between competing theories. For example,
9936-627: Is to be based on principles, causes, and elements. Before offering his particular views, he engages previous theories, such as those offered by Melissus and Parmenides. Aristotle's own view comes out in Ch. 7 where he identifies three principles: substances, opposites, and privation. Chapters 3 and 4 are among the most difficult in all of Aristotle's works and involve subtle refutations of the thought of Parmenides, Melissus and Anaxagoras. In chapter 5, he continues his review of his predecessors, particularly how many first principles there are. Chapter 6 narrows down
10080-571: Is unchanging and permanent, in contrast to becoming, which implies change. Another contrast is between being, as what truly exists, and phenomena , as what appears to exist. In some contexts, being expresses the fact that something is while essence expresses its qualities or what it is like. Ontologists often divide being into fundamental classes or highest kinds, called categories of being . Proposed categories include substance, property , relation , state of affairs , and event . They can be used to provide systems of categories, which offer
10224-447: Is why people wonder whether it is by intelligence or by some other faculty that these creatures work, – spiders, ants, and the like... It is absurd to suppose that purpose is not present because we do not observe the agent deliberating. Art does not deliberate. If the ship-building art were in the wood, it would produce the same results by nature. If, therefore, purpose is present in art, it is present also in nature. According to Aristotle,
10368-574: The Metaphysics , bk. XII ) by love and aspiration. The works of Aristotle are typically influential to the development of Western science and philosophy . The citations below are not given as any sort of final modern judgement on the interpretation and significance of Aristotle, but are only the notable views of some moderns. Martin Heidegger writes: The Physics is a lecture in which he seeks to determine beings that arise on their own, τὰ φύσει ὄντα, with regard to their being. Aristotelian "physics"
10512-456: The Quine–Putnam indispensability argument defends mathematical Platonism , asserting that numbers exist because the best scientific theories are ontologically committed to numbers. Possibility and necessity are further topics in ontology. Possibility describes what can be the case, as in "it is possible that extraterrestrial life exists". Necessity describes what must be the case, as in "it
10656-619: The Taj Mahal , and Mars . Universals are general, repeatable entities, like the color green , the form circularity , and the virtue courage . Universals express aspects or features shared by particulars. For example, Mount Everest and Mount Fuji are particulars characterized by the universal mountain . Universals can take the form of properties or relations. Properties describe the characteristics of things. They are features or qualities possessed by an entity. Properties are often divided into essential and accidental properties . A property
10800-636: The Vaisheshika school, distinguishes between six categories: substance , quality, motion, universal, individuator, and inherence. Immanuel Kant 's transcendental idealism includes a system of twelve categories, which Kant saw as pure concepts of understanding. They are subdivided into four classes: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. In more recent philosophy, theories of categories were developed by C. S. Peirce , Edmund Husserl , Samuel Alexander , Roderick Chisholm , and E. J. Lowe . The dispute between constituent and relational ontologies concerns
10944-502: The ancient period with speculations about the nature of being and the source of the universe, including ancient Indian , Chinese , and Greek philosophy . In the modern period, philosophers conceived ontology as a distinct academic discipline and coined its name. Ontology is the study of being. It is the branch of philosophy that investigates the nature of existence , the features all entities have in common, and how they are divided into basic categories of being . It aims to discover
11088-585: The categories of particulars and universals . Particulars are unique, non-repeatable entities, like the person Socrates . Universals are general, repeatable entities, like the color green . Another contrast is between concrete objects existing in space and time, like a tree, and abstract objects existing outside space and time, like the number 7. Systems of categories aim to provide a comprehensive inventory of reality, employing categories such as substance , property , relation , state of affairs , and event . Ontologists disagree about which entities exist on
11232-451: The history of philosophy , various ontological theories based on several fundamental categories have been proposed. One of the first theories of categories was suggested by Aristotle , whose system includes ten categories: substance, quantity , quality , relation, place, date, posture, state, action, and passion. An early influential system of categories in Indian philosophy, first proposed in
11376-404: The social sciences . Applied ontology is of particular relevance to information and computer science , which develop conceptual frameworks of limited domains . These frameworks are used to store information in a structured way, such as a college database tracking academic activities. Ontology is relevant to the fields of logic , theology , and anthropology . The origins of ontology lie in
11520-416: The 4 elements could explain most of the rising and falling motions of objects with different densities. The velocity of falling objects is equal to C ( W ρ ) n {\displaystyle C\left({\frac {W}{\rho }}\right)^{n}} , where W {\displaystyle W} is the weight of the object, ρ {\displaystyle \rho }
11664-475: The Aristotelian and Thomistic tradition, that finality has been greatly misunderstood. Indeed, without finality, efficient causality becomes inexplicable. Finality thus understood is not purpose but that end towards which a thing is ordered. When a match is rubbed against the side of a matchbox, the effect is not the appearance of an elephant or the sounding of a drum, but fire. The effect is not arbitrary because
11808-456: The Enlightenment , centuries before modern science made good on atomist intuitions , a nominal allegiance to mechanistic materialism gained popularity despite harboring Newton's action at distance , and comprising the native habitat of teleological arguments : Machines or artifacts composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other with their order imposed from without. Thus,
11952-528: The Origin of Species , and after. Contrary to Ayala 's position, Ernst Mayr states that "adaptedness... is a posteriori result rather than an a priori goal-seeking." Various commentators view the teleological phrases used in modern evolutionary biology as a type of shorthand. For example, S. H. P. Madrell writes that "the proper but cumbersome way of describing change by evolutionary adaptation [may be] substituted by shorter overtly teleological statements" for
12096-552: The Rings , and people, like the Monkey King in the novel Journey to the West . Some philosophers say that fictional objects are abstract objects and exist outside space and time. Others understand them as artifacts that are created as the works of fiction are written. Intentional objects are entities that exist within mental states , like perceptions , beliefs , and desires . For example, if
12240-443: The actions of humans is tuche and in unreasoning agents automaton .) Something happens by chance when all the lines of causality converge without that convergence being purposefully chosen, and produce a result similar to the teleologically caused one. In chapters 7 through 9, Aristotle returns to the discussion of nature. With the enrichment of the preceding four chapters, he concludes that nature acts for an end, and he discusses
12384-423: The actually infinite in any form, including infinite bodies, substances, and voids. Aristotle here says the only type of infinity that exists is the potentially infinite. Aristotle characterizes this as that which serves as "the matter for the completion of a magnitude and is potentially (but not actually) the completed whole" (207a22-23). The infinite, lacking any form, is thereby unknowable. Aristotle writes, "it
12528-415: The agent or efficient "cause" ( κινοῦν , kinoûn ) of an object as that which causes change and drives transient motion (such as a painter painting a house) (see Aristotle, Physics II 3, 194b29). In many cases, this is simply the thing that brings something about. For example, in the case of a statue, it is the person chiseling away which transforms a block of marble into a statue. According to Lloyd, of
12672-422: The analysis of concepts and experience , the use of intuitions and thought experiments , and the integration of findings from natural science . Formal ontology is the branch of ontology investigating the most abstract features of objects. Applied ontology employs ontological theories and principles to study entities belonging to a specific area. For example, social ontology examines basic concepts used in
12816-544: The annotated work on the same page or in a separate list. Commentaries are typically arranged by lemmas, or quotes from the notable work, followed by an analysis of the author of the commentary. The commentaries on every work of Aristotle are a vast and mainly unpublished topic. They extend continuously from the death of the philosopher, representing the entire history of Graeco-Roman philosophy. There are thousands of commentators and commentaries known wholly or more typically in fragments of manuscripts. The latter especially occupy
12960-519: The artificial: artificial things can move also, but they move according to what they are made of, not according to what they are. For example, if a wooden bed were buried and somehow sprouted as a tree, it would be according to what it is made of, not what it is. Aristotle contrasts two senses of nature: nature as matter and nature as form or definition. By "nature", Aristotle means the natures of particular things and would perhaps be better translated "a nature." In Book II, however, his appeal to "nature" as
13104-433: The before and after" ( Phys. 219b1–2), by which he intends to denote motion's susceptibility to division into undetached parts of arbitrary length, a property that it possesses both by virtue of its intrinsic nature and also by virtue of the capacities and activities of percipient souls. Motion is intrinsically indeterminate, but perceptually determinable, with respect to its length. Acts of perception function as determiners;
13248-420: The being of the agent cause is in the effect in a lesser or equal degree, this is a causa fiendi . Furthermore, the second principle also establishes a qualitative link: the cause can only transmit its own essence to the effect. For example, a dog cannot transmit the essence of a feline to its young, but only that of a dog. The principle is equivalent to that of Causa aequat effectum (cause equals effect) in both
13392-409: The causes of things, especially into the final cause: We should approach the investigation of every kind of animal without being ashamed, since in each one of them there is something natural and something beautiful. The absence of chance and the serving of ends are found in the works of nature especially. And the end, for the sake of which a thing has been constructed or has come to be, belongs to what
13536-483: The cosmic bond of their law which in the mood of vague and inaccurate abstraction we call Force, is after all only an effect... Thus teleology, or the Reign of Final Cause, the reign of ideality, is not only an element in the notion of Evolution, but is the very vital cord in the notion. The conception of evolution is founded at last and essentially in the conception of Progress: but this conception has no meaning at all except in
13680-420: The definition of change based on Aristotle's notions of potentiality and actuality . Change, he says, is the actualization of a thing's ability insofar as it is able. The rest of the book (chapters 4-8) discusses the infinite ( apeiron , the unlimited). He distinguishes between the infinite by addition and the infinite by division, and between the actually infinite and potentially infinite. He argues against
13824-494: The entities in the collection touch one another. The problem of material constitution asks whether or in what sense a whole should be considered a new object in addition to the collection of parts composing it. Abstract objects are closely related to fictional and intentional objects . Fictional objects are entities invented in works of fiction . They can be things, like the One Ring in J. R. R. Tolkien 's book series The Lord of
13968-418: The fact that hardly a sentence in either can be accepted in the light of modern science. Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli considers Aristotle's physics as a correct and non-intuitive special case of Newtonian physics for the motion of matter in fluid after it has reached terminal velocity (steady state). His theory disregards the initial phase of acceleration, which is too short to be observed by
14112-430: The features characteristic of a specific area. Examples are ideal spatial beings in the area of geometry and living beings in the area of biology. Descriptive ontology aims to articulate the conceptual scheme underlying how people ordinarily think about the world. Prescriptive ontology departs from common conceptions of the structure of reality and seeks to formulate a new and better conceptualization. Another contrast
14256-555: The following step, it studies the ontological repercussions of this observation by examining how it is possible or which conditions are required for this entity to exist. Another approach is based on intuitions in the form of non-inferential impressions about the correctness of general principles. These principles can be used as the foundation on which an ontological system is built and expanded using deductive reasoning . A further intuition-based method relies on thought experiments to evoke new intuitions. This happens by imagining
14400-409: The form of systems of categories, which list the highest genera of being to provide a comprehensive inventory of everything. The closely related discussion between monism and dualism is about the most fundamental types that make up reality. According to monism, there is only one kind of thing or substance on the most basic level. Materialism is an influential monist view; it says that everything
14544-437: The formulation which became famous later, natural phenomena require scientific explanation in terms of matter and motion. In The New Organon , Bacon divides knowledge into physics and metaphysics : From the two kinds of axioms which have been spoken of arises a just division of philosophy and the sciences, taking the received terms (which come nearest to express the thing) in a sense agreeable to my own views. Thus, let
14688-400: The foundational building blocks of the world and characterize reality as a whole in its most general aspects. In this regard, ontology contrasts with individual sciences like biology and astronomy , which restrict themselves to a limited domain of entities, such as living entities and celestial phenomena. In some contexts, the term ontology refers not to the general study of being but to
14832-433: The four causes as follows: Heidegger explains that "[w]hoever builds a house or a ship or forges a sacrificial chalice reveals what is to be brought forth, according to the terms of the four modes of occasioning." The educationist David Waddington comments that although the efficient cause, which he identifies as "the craftsman," might be thought the most significant of the four, in his view each of Heidegger's four causes
14976-438: The four causes to provide different answers to the question, "because of what?" The four answers to this question illuminate different aspects of how a thing comes into being or of how an event takes place. Aristotle considers the material "cause" ( ὕλη , hū́lē ) of an object as equivalent to the nature of the raw material out of which the object is composed. (The word "nature" for Aristotle applies to both its potential in
15120-414: The four causes, only this one is what is meant by the modern English word "cause" in ordinary speech. Aristotle defines the end, purpose, or final "cause" ( τέλος , télos ) as that for the sake of which a thing is done. Like the form, this is a controversial type of explanation in science; some have argued for its survival in evolutionary biology , while Ernst Mayr denied that it continued to play
15264-427: The history of ontology as the particular entities that underlie and support properties and relations. They are often considered the fundamental building blocks of reality that can exist on their own, while entities like properties and relations cannot exist without substances. Substances persist through changes as they acquire or lose properties. For example, when a tomato ripens, it loses the property green and acquires
15408-588: The internal structure of concrete particular objects. Constituent ontologies say that objects have an internal structure with properties as their component parts. Bundle theories are an example of this position: they state that objects are bundles of properties. This view is rejected by relational ontologies, which say that objects have no internal structure, meaning that properties do not inhere in them but are externally related to them. According to one analogy, objects are like pin-cushions and properties are pins that can be stuck to objects and removed again without becoming
15552-515: The investigation of forms, which are (in the eye of reason at least, and in their essential law) eternal and immutable, constitute Metaphysics ; and let the investigation of the efficient cause, and of matter, and of the latent process, and the latent configuration (all of which have reference to the common and ordinary course of nature, not to her eternal and fundamental laws) constitute Physics . And to these let there be subordinate two practical divisions: to Physics, Mechanics; to Metaphysics, what (in
15696-603: The level at which it exists. The ontological theories of endurantism and perdurantism aim to explain how material objects persist through time. Endurantism is the view that material objects are three-dimensional entities that travel through time while being fully present in each moment. They remain the same even when they gain or lose properties as they change. Perdurantism is the view that material objects are four-dimensional entities that extend not just through space but also through time. This means that they are composed of temporal parts and, at any moment, only one part of them
15840-563: The light of a goal; there can be no goal unless there is a Beyond for everything actual; and there is no such Beyond except through a spontaneous ideal. The presupposition of Nature, as a system undergoing evolution, is therefore the causal activity of our Pure Ideals. These are our three organic and organizing conceptions called the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. However, Edward Feser argues, in line with
15984-418: The macroscopic objects they compose, like chairs and tables. Other hierarchical theories assert that substances are more fundamental than their properties and that nature is more fundamental than culture. Flat ontologies, by contrast, deny that any entity has a privileged status, meaning that all entities exist on the same level. For them, the main question is only whether something exists rather than identifying
16128-648: The match is ordered towards the end of fire which is realized through efficient causes. In their biosemiotic study, Stuart Kauffman , Robert K. Logan et al. (2007) remark: Our language is teleological. We believe that autonomous agents constitute the minimal physical system to which teleological language rightly applies. In the Scholasticism , the efficient causality was governed by two principles: Thomas in this regard distinguished between causa fiendi (cause of occurring, of only beginning to be) and causa essendi (cause of being and also of beginning to be) When
16272-420: The more basic term by first characterizing things in terms of their essential features and then elaborating differences based on this conception. Differential ontologists, by contrast, privilege difference and say that the identity of a thing is a secondary determination that depends on how this thing differs from other things. Object-oriented ontology belongs to the school of speculative realism and examines
16416-672: The most basic level. Platonic realism asserts that universals have objective existence. Conceptualism says that universals only exist in the mind while nominalism denies their existence. There are similar disputes about mathematical objects , unobservable objects assumed by scientific theories, and moral facts . Materialism says that, fundamentally, there is only matter while dualism asserts that mind and matter are independent principles. According to some ontologists, there are no objective answers to ontological questions but only perspectives shaped by different linguistic practices. Ontology uses diverse methods of inquiry . They include
16560-568: The naked eye. Galileo 's inclined plane experiment bypasses the issue, as it slows down acceleration enough to allow observing the initial phase of acceleration by the naked eye. The five elements explain forms of observed motions. Ether explains circular motion in the sky, earth and water explains downward motion, and fire and air explains upward motion. To explain downward motion, instead of postulating one element, he proposed two, because wood moves up in water but down in air, while earth moves down in both water and air. The complex interaction between
16704-416: The name of matter, and the changes in it. Both causes must be stated by the physicist, but especially the end; for that is the cause of the matter, not vice versa; and the end is 'that for the sake of which', and the beginning starts from the definition or essence… In chapter 3, Aristotle presents his theory of the four causes (material, efficient, formal, and final ). Material cause explains what something
16848-406: The nature and role of objects. It sees objects as the fundamental building blocks of reality. As a flat ontology, it denies that some entities have a more fundamental form of existence than others. It uses this idea to argue that objects exist independently of human thought and perception. Methods of ontology are ways of conducting ontological inquiry and deciding between competing theories. There
16992-547: The number of principles to two or three. He presents his own account of the subject in chapter 7, where he first introduces the word matter (Greek: hyle ) to designate fundamental essence (ousia). He defines matter in chapter 9: "For my definition of matter is just this—the primary substratum of each thing, from which it comes to be without qualification, and which persists in the result." Matter in Aristotle's thought is, however, defined in terms of sensible reality; for example,
17136-422: The objective or mind-independent reality of natural phenomena like elementary particles, lions, and stars. In the fields of computer science , information science , and knowledge representation , applied ontology is interested in the development of formal frameworks to encode and store information about a limited domain of entities in a structured way. A related application in genetics is Gene Ontology , which
17280-466: The others can be reduced. Book VII.1-3 also exist in an alternative version, not included in the Bekker edition . Book VIII (which occupies almost a fourth of the entire Physics , and probably constituted originally an independent course of lessons) discusses two main topics, though with a wide deployment of arguments: the time limits of the universe , and the existence of a Prime Mover — eternal, indivisible, without parts and without magnitude. Isn't
17424-399: The outcomes of experiments. Moral realists claim that there exist mind-independent moral facts. According to them, there are objective principles that determine which behavior is morally right. Moral anti-realists either claim that moral principles are subjective and differ between persons and cultures, a position known as moral relativism , or outright deny the existence of moral facts,
17568-403: The point." Francis Darwin and T. H. Huxley reiterate this sentiment. The latter wrote that "the most remarkable service to the philosophy of Biology rendered by Mr. Darwin is the reconciliation of Teleology and Morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both, which his view offers." James G. Lennox states that Darwin uses the term 'Final Cause' consistently in his Species Notebook , On
17712-697: The primary sense. Secondary substance, in a different sense, also applies to man-made artifacts. Aristotle considers the formal "cause" ( εἶδος , eîdos ) as describing the pattern or form which when present makes matter into a particular type of thing, which we recognize as being of that particular type. By Aristotle's own account, this is a difficult and controversial concept . It links with theories of forms such as those of Aristotle's teacher, Plato , but in Aristotle's own account (see his Metaphysics ), he takes into account many previous writers who had expressed opinions about forms and ideas, but he shows how his own views differ from them. Aristotle defines
17856-406: The property red . States of affairs are complex particular entities that have several other entities as their components. The state of affairs "Socrates is wise" has two components: the individual Socrates and the property wise . States of affairs that correspond to reality are called facts . Facts are truthmakers of statements, meaning that whether a statement is true or false depends on
18000-427: The question "why" have to be given to explain a phenomenon and especially the actual configuration of an object. For example, if asking why a table is such and such, an explanation in terms of the four causes would sound like this: This table is solid and brown because it is made of wood (matter); it does not collapse because it has four legs of equal length (form); it is as it is because a carpenter made it, starting from
18144-693: The raw material and its ultimate finished form. In a sense this form already existed in the material: see potentiality and actuality .) Whereas modern physics looks to simple bodies, Aristotle's physics took a more general viewpoint, and treated living things as exemplary. Nevertheless, he argued that simple natural bodies such as earth, fire, air, and water also showed signs of having their own innate sources of motion, change, and rest. Fire, for example, carries things upwards, unless stopped from doing so. Things formed by human artifice, such as beds and cloaks, have no innate tendency to become beds or cloaks. In traditional Aristotelian philosophical terminology, material
18288-404: The relationship of the moved to his mover, which Aristotle describes in substantial divergence with Plato ' s theory of the soul as capable of setting itself in motion ( Laws book X, Phaedrus , Phaedo ). Everything which moves is moved by another. He then tries to correlate the species of motion and their speeds, with the local change (locomotion, phorà ) as the most fundamental to which
18432-523: The result is determinate units of kinetic length, which is precisely what a temporal unit is. Books V and VI deal with how motion occurs. Book V classifies four species of movement, depending on where the opposites are located. Movement categories include quantity (e.g. a change in dimensions, from great to small), quality (as for colors: from pale to dark), place (local movements generally go from up downwards and vice versa), or, more controversially, substance. In fact, substances do not have opposites, so it
18576-429: The sake of saving space, but that this "should not be taken to imply that evolution proceeds by anything other than from mutations arising by chance, with those that impart an advantage being retained by natural selection." However, Lennox states that in evolution as conceived by Darwin, it is true both that evolution is the result of mutations arising by chance and that evolution is teleological in nature. Statements that
18720-426: The same features, such as perfect identical twins. This is also called exact similarity and indiscernibility . Numerical identity, by contrast, means that there is only a single entity. For example, if Fatima is the mother of Leila and Hugo then Leila's mother is numerically identical to Hugo's mother. Another distinction is between synchronic and diachronic identity. Synchronic identity relates an entity to itself at
18864-441: The same time. Diachronic identity relates an entity to itself at different times, as in "the woman who bore Leila three years ago is the same woman who bore Hugo this year". There are different and sometimes overlapping ways to divide ontology into branches. Pure ontology focuses on the most abstract topics associated with the concept and nature of being. It is not restricted to a specific domain of entities and studies existence and
19008-407: The second entity. For instance, the surface of an apple cannot exist without the apple. An entity is ontologically independent if it does not depend on anything else, meaning that it is fundamental and can exist on its own. Ontological dependence plays a central role in ontology and its attempt to describe reality on its most fundamental level. It is closely related to metaphysical grounding , which
19152-406: The source of an apparent thing's activities is not the whole itself, but its parts. While Aristotle asserts that the matter (and parts) are a necessary cause of things – the material cause – he says that nature is primarily the essence or formal cause (1.193b6), that is, the information, the whole species itself. The necessary in nature, then, is plainly what we call by
19296-420: The structure of reality as a whole. Pure ontology contrasts with applied ontology , also called domain ontology. Applied ontology examines the application of ontological theories and principles to specific disciplines and domains, often in the field of science. It considers ontological problems in regard to specific entities such as matter , mind , numbers , God , and cultural artifacts. Social ontology ,
19440-476: The underlying facts. Events are particular entities that occur in time, like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first moon landing . They usually involve some kind of change, like the lawn becoming dry. In some cases, no change occurs, like the lawn staying wet. Complex events, also called processes , are composed of a sequence of events. Concrete objects are entities that exist in space and time, such as
19584-463: The universe eternal, has it had a beginning, will it ever end? Aristotle's response, as a Greek, could hardly be affirmative, never having been told of a creatio ex nihilo, but he also has philosophical reasons for denying that motion had not always existed, on the grounds of the theory presented in the earlier books of the Physics . Eternity of motion is also confirmed by the existence of a substance which
19728-505: The vaults of institutions formerly responsible for copying them, such as monasteries. The process of publishing them is slow and ongoing. Below is a brief representative bibliography of published commentaries on Aristotle's Physics available on or through the Internet. Like the topic itself, they are perforce multi-cultural, but English has been favored, as well as the original languages, ancient Greek and Latin. Ontology Ontology
19872-423: The way that necessity is present in natural things. For Aristotle, the motion of natural things is determined from within them, while in the modern empirical sciences, motion is determined from without (more properly speaking: there is nothing to have an inside). In order to understand "nature" as defined in the previous book, one must understand the terms of the definition. To understand motion, book III begins with
20016-556: The word ontology traces back to the ancient Greek terms ὄντως ( ontos , meaning ' being ' ) and λογία ( logia , meaning ' study of ' ), literally, ' the study of being ' . The ancient Greeks did not use the term ontology , which was coined by philosophers in the 17th century. Being, or existence , is the main topic of ontology. It is one of the most general and fundamental concepts, encompassing all of reality and every entity within it. In its broadest sense, being only contrasts with non-being or nothingness. It
20160-540: The work is to discover the principles and causes of (and not merely to describe) change, or movement, or motion (κίνησις kinesis ), especially that of natural wholes (mostly living things, but also inanimate wholes like the cosmos). In the conventional Andronicean ordering of Aristotle's works, it stands at the head of, as well as being foundational to, the long series of physical, cosmological and biological treatises, whose ancient Greek title, τὰ φυσικά, means "the [writings] on nature" or " natural philosophy ". The Physics
20304-808: The world is entirely composed of particular objects. Mathematical realism , a closely related view in the philosophy of mathematics , says that mathematical facts exist independently of human language, thought, and practices and are discovered rather than invented. According to mathematical Platonism, this is the case because of the existence of mathematical objects , like numbers and sets. Mathematical Platonists say that mathematical objects are as real as physical objects, like atoms and stars, even though they are not accessible to empirical observation . Influential forms of mathematical anti-realism include conventionalism, which says that mathematical theories are trivially true simply by how mathematical terms are defined, and game formalism , which understands mathematics not as
20448-452: The world. Aristotelian realism, also called moderate realism , rejects this idea and says that universals only exist as long as there are objects that exemplify them. Conceptualism , by contrast, is a form of anti-realism, stating that universals only exist in the mind as concepts that people use to understand and categorize the world. Nominalists defend a strong form of anti-realism by saying that universals have no existence. This means that
20592-487: The world. Facts, also known as states of affairs, are complex entities; for example, the fact that the Earth is a planet consists of the particular object the Earth and the property being a planet . Fact ontologies state that facts are the fundamental constituents of reality, meaning that objects, properties, and relations cannot exist on their own and only form part of reality to the extent that they participate in facts. In
20736-420: Was born at a different date. Using this idea, possible world semantics says that a sentence is possibly true if it is true in at least one possible world. A sentence is necessarily true if it is true in all possible worlds. In ontology, identity means that two things are the same. Philosophers distinguish between qualitative and numerical identity. Two entities are qualitatively identical if they have exactly
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