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193-435: Ontology 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

386-400: 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 is disputed. A traditionally influential characterization asserts that ontology

579-412: A paradeigma is meant to guide an audience would be exemplified by the role of a personal accountant. It is not the job of a personal accountant to tell a client exactly what (and what not) to spend money on, but to aid in guiding a client as to how money should be spent based on the client's financial goals. Anaximenes defined paradeigma as "actions that have occurred previously and are similar to, or

772-745: A system of 12 categories , divided into the four classes: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. More recent theories of categories were proposed by C. S. Peirce , Edmund Husserl , Samuel Alexander , Roderick Chisholm , and E. J. Lowe . Many philosophers rely on the contrast between concrete and abstract objects . According to a common view, concrete objects, like rocks, trees, and human beings, exist in space and time, undergo changes, and impact each other as cause and effect. They contrast with abstract objects, like numbers and sets , which do not exist in space and time, are immutable, and do not engage in causal relations. Particulars are individual entities and include both concrete objects, like Aristotle,

965-437: 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

1158-432: 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

1351-410: A century) led to a theory of atomic structure that accounts well for the bulk properties of matter; see, for example, Brady's General Chemistry . According to P J Smith, this ability of science to back off, move sideways, and then advance is characteristic of the natural sciences, but contrasts with the position in some social sciences, notably economics. This apparent ability does not guarantee that

1544-467: A change in how a given society goes about organizing and understanding reality. A "dominant paradigm" refers to the values, or system of thought, in a society that are most standard and widely held at a given time. Dominant paradigms are shaped both by the community's cultural background and by the context of the historical moment. Hutchin outlines some conditions that facilitate a system of thought to become an accepted dominant paradigm: The word paradigm

1737-410: A community of practitioners, i.e., In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , Kuhn saw the sciences as going through alternating periods of normal science , when an existing model of reality dominates a protracted period of puzzle-solving, and revolution , when the model of reality itself undergoes sudden drastic change. Paradigms have two aspects. Firstly, within normal science, the term refers to

1930-568: 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

2123-502: 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

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2316-410: A direct view of the bedrock of reality itself, and obscuring the possibility that there might be other, alternative imageries hidden behind it. The conviction that the current paradigm is reality tends to disqualify evidence that might undermine the paradigm itself; this in turn leads to a build-up of unreconciled anomalies. It is the latter that is responsible for the eventual revolutionary overthrow of

2509-476: A discipline's core model of reality has happened in a more evolutionary manner, with individual scientists exploring the usefulness of alternatives in a way that would not be possible if they were constrained by a paradigm. Imre Lakatos suggested (as an alternative to Kuhn's formulation) that scientists actually work within research programmes . In Lakatos' sense, a research programme is a sequence of problems, placed in order of priority. This set of priorities, and

2702-400: A fire, is always followed by another phenomenon, like a feeling of pain. According to nomic regularity theories, regularities manifest as laws of nature studied by science. Counterfactual theories focus not on regularities but on how effects depend on their causes. They state that effects owe their existence to the cause and would not occur without them. According to primitivism, causation

2895-452: A framework of concepts, results, and procedures within which subsequent work is structured. Normal science proceeds within such a framework or paradigm. A paradigm does not impose a rigid or mechanical approach, but can be taken more or less creatively and flexibly. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a paradigm as "a pattern or model, an exemplar; a typical instance of something, an example". The historian of science Thomas Kuhn gave

3088-414: A gradual continuum. The word metaphysics has its origin in the ancient Greek words metá ( μετά , meaning ' after ' , ' above ' , and ' beyond' ' ) and phusiká ( φυσικά ), as a short form of ta metá ta phusiká , meaning ' what comes after the physics ' . This is often interpreted to mean that metaphysics discusses topics that, due to their generality and comprehensiveness, lie beyond

3281-422: A higher degree of existence than matter, which can only imperfectly reflect Platonic forms. Another key concern in metaphysics is the division of entities into distinct groups based on underlying features they share. Theories of categories provide a system of the most fundamental kinds or the highest genera of being by establishing a comprehensive inventory of everything. One of the earliest theories of categories

3474-568: A key role in ethics regarding the moral responsibility people have for what they do. Identity is a relation that every entity has to itself as a form of sameness. It refers to numerical identity when the very same entity is involved, as in the statement "the morning star is the evening star " (both are the planet Venus ). In a slightly different sense, it encompasses qualitative identity, also called exact similarity and indiscernibility , which occurs when two distinct entities are exactly alike, such as perfect identical twins. The principle of

3667-475: A long history in metaphysics, meta-metaphysics has only recently developed into a systematic field of inquiry. Metaphysicians often regard existence or being as one of the most basic and general concepts. To exist means to form part of reality , distinguishing real entities from imaginary ones. According to the orthodox view, existence is a property of properties: if an entity exists then its properties are instantiated. A different position states that existence

3860-450: A long period during which no competing alternative has shown itself capable of resolving the anomaly. He also presented cases in which a dominant paradigm had withered away because its lost credibility when viewed against changes in the wider intellectual milieu. Kuhn himself did not consider the concept of paradigm as appropriate for the social sciences. He explains in his preface to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that he developed

4053-411: 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

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4246-569: A paradigm can only apply to a system that is not in its final stage. Beyond its use in the physical and social sciences, Kuhn's paradigm concept has been analysed in relation to its applicability in identifying 'paradigms' with respect to worldviews at specific points in history. One example is Matthew Edward Harris' book The Notion of Papal Monarchy in the Thirteenth Century: The Idea of Paradigm in Church History . Harris stresses

4439-464: A paradigm, research programme, research tradition, and/ or professional imagery. These structures will be motivating research, providing it with an agenda, defining what is and is not anomalous evidence, and inhibiting debate with other groups that fall under the same broad disciplinary label. (A good example is provided by the contrast between Skinnerian radical behaviourism and personal construct theory (PCT) within psychology. The most significant of

4632-525: 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

4825-445: 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

5018-479: A priori methods have been the dominant approach. They rely on rational intuition and abstract reasoning from general principles rather than sensory experience . A posteriori approaches, by contrast, ground metaphysical theories in empirical observations and scientific theories. Some metaphysicians incorporate perspectives from fields such as physics , psychology , linguistics , and history into their inquiry. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive: it

5211-475: A priori reasoning and view metaphysics as a practice continuous with the empirical sciences that generalizes their insights while making their underlying assumptions explicit. This approach is known as naturalized metaphysics and is closely associated with the work of Willard Van Orman Quine . He relies on the idea that true sentences from the sciences and other fields have ontological commitments , that is, they imply that certain entities exist. For example, if

5404-522: 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

5597-600: A scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly: a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind ." The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (2008) attributes the following description of the term in the history and philosophy of science to Thomas Kuhn 's 1962 work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions : Kuhn suggests that certain scientific works, such as Newton's Principia or John Dalton's New System of Chemical Philosophy (1808), provide an open-ended resource:

5790-465: A single cloud is an overlay of countless clouds, one for each cloud-like collection of water droplets. Mereological moderatists hold that certain conditions must be met for a group of entities to compose a whole, for example, that the entities touch one another. Mereological nihilists reject the idea of wholes altogether, claiming that there are no clouds or tables but only particles that are arranged cloud-wise or table-wise. A related mereological problem

5983-401: A situation relevant to an ontological issue and then employing counterfactual thinking to assess the consequences of this situation. For example, some ontologists examine the relation between mind and matter by imagining creatures identical to humans but without consciousness . Metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality . It

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6176-400: 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

6369-402: A statement is possibly true if it is true in at least one possible world, whereas it is necessarily true if it is true in all possible worlds. Modal realists argue that possible worlds exist as concrete entities in the same sense as the actual world, with the main difference being that the actual world is the world we live in while other possible worlds are inhabited by counterparts . This view

6562-464: A substratum, also called bare particular , together with various properties. The substratum confers individuality to the particular while the properties express its qualitative features or what it is like. This approach is rejected by bundle theorists , who state that particulars are only bundles of properties without an underlying substratum. Some bundle theorists include in the bundle an individual essence, called haecceity , to ensure that each bundle

6755-461: A term from German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 's theodicy , many metaphysicians use the concept of possible worlds to analyze the meaning and ontological ramifications of modal statements. A possible world is a complete and consistent way the totality of things could have been. For example, the dinosaurs were wiped out in the actual world but there are possible worlds in which they are still alive. According to possible world semantics,

6948-467: 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

7141-499: 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,

7334-401: A truthmaker for the statement "a tomato is red". Based on this observation, it is possible to pursue metaphysical research by asking what the truthmakers of statements are, with different areas of metaphysics being dedicated to different types of statements. According to this view, modal metaphysics asks what makes statements about what is possible and necessary true while the metaphysics of time

7527-621: A unified dimension rather than as independent dimensions. Empirically focused metaphysicians often rely on scientific theories to ground their theories about the nature of reality in empirical observations. Similar issues arise in the social sciences where metaphysicians investigate their basic concepts and analyze their metaphysical implications. This includes questions like whether social facts emerge from non-social facts, whether social groups and institutions have mind-independent existence, and how they persist through time. Metaphysical assumptions and topics in psychology and psychiatry include

7720-399: Is a basic concept that cannot be analyzed in terms of non-causal concepts, such as regularities or dependence relations. One form of primitivism identifies causal powers inherent in entities as the underlying mechanism. Eliminativists reject the above theories by holding that there is no causation. Mind encompasses phenomena like thinking , perceiving , feeling , and desiring as well as

7913-555: 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

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8106-435: Is a fundamental aspect of reality, meaning that besides facts about what is the case, there are additional facts about what could or must be the case. A different view argues that modal truths are not about an independent aspect of reality but can be reduced to non-modal characteristics, for example, to facts about what properties or linguistic descriptions are compatible with each other or to fictional statements . Borrowing

8299-403: 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

8492-521: Is a property of individuals, meaning that it is similar to other properties, such as shape or size. It is controversial whether all entities have this property. According to Alexius Meinong , there are nonexistent objects , including merely possible objects like Santa Claus and Pegasus . A related question is whether existence is the same for all entities or whether there are different modes or degrees of existence. For instance, Plato held that Platonic forms , which are perfect and immutable ideas, have

8685-410: 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

8878-427: 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

9071-425: 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

9264-442: Is a well-known principle that gives preference to simple theories, in particular, those that assume that few entities exist. Other principles consider explanatory power , theoretical usefulness, and proximity to established beliefs. Despite its status as one of the main branches of philosophy, metaphysics has received numerous criticisms questioning its legitimacy as a field of inquiry. One criticism argues that metaphysical inquiry

9457-436: Is also still used to indicate a pattern or model or an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype . The term is frequently used in this sense in the design professions. Design Paradigms or archetypes comprise functional precedents for design solutions. The best known references on design paradigms are Design Paradigms: A Sourcebook for Creative Visualization , by Wake, and Design Paradigms by Petroski. This term

9650-430: Is also used in cybernetics . Here it means (in a very wide sense) a (conceptual) protoprogram for reducing the chaotic mass to some form of order. Note the similarities to the concept of entropy in chemistry and physics. A paradigm there would be a sort of prohibition to proceed with any action that would increase the total entropy of the system. To create a paradigm requires a closed system that accepts changes. Thus

9843-425: Is apparent from his analogy between a paradigm shift and the flip-over involved in some optical illusions. However, he subsequently diluted his commitment to incommensurability considerably, partly in the light of other studies of scientific development that did not involve revolutionary change. One of the examples of incommensurability that Kuhn used was the change in the style of chemical investigations that followed

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10036-572: 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

10229-698: 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

10422-440: Is controversial and various alternatives have been suggested, for example, that possible worlds only exist as abstract objects or are similar to stories told in works of fiction . Space and time are dimensions that entities occupy. Spacetime realists state that space and time are fundamental aspects of reality and exist independently of the human mind. Spacetime idealists, by contrast, hold that space and time are constructs of

10615-471: 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

10808-435: 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

11001-401: Is determined. Hard determinists infer from this that there is no free will, whereas libertarians conclude that determinism must be false. Compatibilists offer a third perspective, arguing that determinism and free will do not exclude each other, for instance, because a person can still act in tune with their motivation and choices even if they are determined by other forces. Free will plays

11194-400: Is divided into subdisciplines based on the perspective they take. Metaphysical cosmology examines changeable things and investigates how they are connected to form a world as a totality extending through space and time. Rational psychology focuses on metaphysical foundations and problems concerning the mind, such as its relation to matter and the freedom of the will. Natural theology studies

11387-427: 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 a property while being east of

11580-436: Is fundamentally neither material nor mental and suggest that matter and mind are both derivative phenomena. A key aspect of the mind–body problem is the hard problem of consciousness or how to explain that physical systems like brains can produce phenomenal consciousness. The status of free will as the ability of a person to choose their actions is a central aspect of the mind–body problem. Metaphysicians are interested in

11773-420: Is impossible because humans lack the cognitive capacities needed to access the ultimate nature of reality. This line of thought leads to skepticism about the possibility of metaphysical knowledge. Empiricists often follow this idea, like Hume, who argued that there is no good source of metaphysical knowledge since metaphysics lies outside the field of empirical knowledge and relies on dubious intuitions about

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11966-434: Is interested in the truthmakers of temporal statements about the past, present, and future. A closely related topic concerns the nature of truth. Theories of truth aim to determine this nature and include correspondence , coherence , pragmatic , semantic , and deflationary theories . Metaphysicians employ a variety of methods to develop metaphysical theories and formulate arguments for and against them. Traditionally,

12159-468: Is made up of only one kind. According to idealism , everything is mental, including physical objects, which may be understood as ideas or perceptions of conscious minds. Materialists, by contrast, state that all reality is at its core material. Some deny that mind exists but the more common approach is to explain mind in terms of certain aspects of matter, such as brain states, behavioral dispositions , or functional roles. Neutral monists argue that reality

12352-600: 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

12545-454: 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

12738-419: Is no consensus about the validity of these criticisms and whether they affect metaphysics as a whole or only certain issues or approaches in it. For example, it could be the case that certain metaphysical disputes are merely verbal while others are substantive. Metaphysics is related to many fields of inquiry by investigating their basic concepts and relation to the fundamental structure of reality. For example,

12931-453: 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

13124-441: 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

13317-410: 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

13510-464: Is now generally seen as too limited. Some examples of contemporary paradigm shifts include: Kuhn's idea was, itself, revolutionary in its time. It caused a major change in the way that academics talk about science; and, so, it may be that it caused (or was part of) a "paradigm shift" in the history and sociology of science. However, Kuhn would not recognize such a paradigm shift. Being in the social sciences, people can still use earlier ideas to discuss

13703-399: 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

13896-411: Is one of the oldest branches of philosophy . The precise nature of metaphysics is disputed and its characterization has changed in the course of history. Some approaches see metaphysics as a unified field and give a wide-sweeping definition by understanding it as the study of "fundamental questions about the nature of reality" or as an inquiry into the essences of things. Another approach doubts that

14089-424: 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

14282-408: Is opposed by so-called serious metaphysicians , who contend that metaphysical disputes are about substantial features of the underlying structure of reality. A closely related debate between ontological realists and anti-realists concerns the question of whether there are any objective facts that determine which metaphysical theories are true. A different criticism, formulated by pragmatists , sees

14475-457: Is possible to combine elements from both. The method a metaphysician chooses often depends on their understanding of the nature of metaphysics, for example, whether they see it as an inquiry into the mind-independent structure of reality, as metaphysical realists claim, or the principles underlying thought and experience, as some metaphysical anti-realists contend. A priori approaches often rely on intuitions—non-inferential impressions about

14668-459: 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

14861-448: Is rejected by probabilistic theories , which claim that the cause merely increases the probability that the effect occurs. This view can explain that smoking causes cancer even though this does not happen in every single case. The regularity theory of causation , inspired by David Hume 's philosophy, states that causation is nothing but a constant conjunction in which the mind apprehends that one phenomenon, like putting one's hand in

15054-505: 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

15247-418: Is studied by mereology . The problem of the many is a philosophical question about the conditions under which several individual things compose a larger whole. For example, a cloud is made up of many droplets without a clear boundary, raising the question of which droplets form part of the cloud. According to mereological universalists, every collection of entities forms a whole. This means that what seems to be

15440-441: 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 ,

15633-406: Is the cause and the spill is the effect. Besides the single-case causation between particulars in this example, there is also general-case causation expressed in statements such as "smoking causes cancer". The term agent causation is used when people and their actions cause something. Causation is usually interpreted deterministically, meaning that a cause always brings about its effect. This view

15826-415: 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

16019-417: Is the most basic inquiry upon which all other branches of philosophy depend in some way. Metaphysics is traditionally understood as a study of mind-independent features of reality. Starting with Immanuel Kant 's critical philosophy , an alternative conception gained prominence that focuses on conceptual schemes rather than external reality. Kant distinguishes transcendent metaphysics, which aims to describe

16212-515: 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,

16405-401: Is the usual developmental pattern of mature science" (p. 12). Paradigm shifts tend to appear in response to the accumulation of critical anomalies as well as in the form of the proposal of a new theory with the power to encompass both older relevant data and explain relevant anomalies. New paradigms tend to be most dramatic in sciences that appear to be stable and mature, as in physics at

16598-429: Is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the fundamental categories of human understanding. Some philosophers, including Aristotle , designate metaphysics as first philosophy to suggest that it is more fundamental than other forms of philosophical inquiry. Metaphysics encompasses a wide range of general and abstract topics. It investigates

16791-566: 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

16984-401: Is unique. Another proposal for concrete particulars is that they are individuated by their space-time location. Concrete particulars encountered in everyday life, like rocks, tables, and organisms, are complex entities composed of various parts. For example, a table is made up of a tabletop and legs, each of which is itself made up of countless particles. The relation between parts and wholes

17177-465: Is whether there are simple entities that have no parts, as atomists claim, or whether everything can be endlessly subdivided into smaller parts, as continuum theorists contend. Universals are general entities, encompassing both properties and relations , that express what particulars are like and how they resemble one another. They are repeatable, meaning that they are not limited to a unique existent but can be instantiated by different particulars at

17370-455: 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

17563-614: 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

17756-500: The Upanishads in ancient India , Daoism in ancient China , and pre-Socratic philosophy in ancient Greece . During the subsequent medieval period in the West, discussions about the nature of universals were influenced by the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. The modern period saw the emergence of various comprehensive systems of metaphysics, many of which embraced idealism . In

17949-632: 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

18142-501: 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

18335-585: 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

18528-492: The concepts of space, time, and change , and their connection to causality and the laws of nature . Other topics include how mind and matter are related , whether everything in the world is predetermined , and whether there is free will . Metaphysicians use various methods to conduct their inquiry. Traditionally, they rely on rational intuitions and abstract reasoning but have more recently also included empirical approaches associated with scientific theories. Due to

18721-450: 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

18914-404: 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

19107-503: The 1900 Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the technical use of paradigm only in the context of grammar) and of rhetoric (as a term for an illustrative parable or fable ). In linguistics , Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) used paradigm to refer to a class of elements with similarities (as opposed to syntagma – a class of elements expressing relationship. ). The Merriam-Webster Online dictionary defines one usage of paradigm as "a philosophical and theoretical framework of

19300-404: The 20th century, traditional metaphysics in general and idealism in particular faced various criticisms, which prompted new approaches to metaphysical inquiry. Metaphysics is the study of the most general features of reality , including existence , objects and their properties , possibility and necessity, space and time , change, causation , and the relation between matter and mind . It

19493-621: The Eiffel Tower, or a specific apple, and abstract objects, like the number 2 or a specific set in mathematics. Also called individuals , they are unique, non-repeatable entities and contrast with universals , like the color red, which can at the same time exist in several places and characterize several particulars. A widely held view is that particulars instantiate universals but are not themselves instantiated by something else, meaning that they exist in themselves while universals exist in something else. Substratum theory analyzes each particular as

19686-514: The English language through the Latin word metaphysica . The nature of metaphysics can also be characterized in relation to its main branches. An influential division from early modern philosophy distinguishes between general and special or specific metaphysics. General metaphysics, also called ontology , takes the widest perspective and studies the most fundamental aspects of being. It investigates

19879-503: 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

20072-402: The abstract nature of its topic, metaphysics has received criticisms questioning the reliability of its methods and the meaningfulness of its theories. Metaphysics is relevant to many fields of inquiry that often implicitly rely on metaphysical concepts and assumptions. The roots of metaphysics lie in antiquity with speculations about the nature and origin of the universe, like those found in

20265-453: The accepted standard model theory the experiment would test for. To illustrate the point, an experiment to test for the mass of neutrinos or the decay of protons (small departures from the model) is more likely to receive money than experiments that look for the violation of the conservation of momentum, or ways to engineer reverse time travel. Mechanisms similar to the original Kuhnian paradigm have been invoked in various disciplines other than

20458-505: The account is veridical at any one time, of course, and most modern philosophers of science are fallibilists . However, members of other disciplines do see the issue of incommensurability as a much greater obstacle to evaluations of "progress"; see, for example, Martin Slattery's Key Ideas in Sociology . Opaque Kuhnian paradigms and paradigm shifts do exist. A few years after the discovery of

20651-422: 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

20844-424: The associated set of preferred techniques, is the positive heuristic of a programme. Each programme also has a negative heuristic ; this consists of a set of fundamental assumptions that – temporarily, at least – takes priority over observational evidence when the two appear to conflict. This latter aspect of research programmes is inherited from Kuhn's work on paradigms, and represents an important departure from

21037-430: The average person thinks about an issue. For example, common-sense philosophers have argued that mereological nihilism is false since it implies that commonly accepted things, like tables, do not exist. Conceptual analysis , a method particularly prominent in analytic philosophy , aims to decompose metaphysical concepts into component parts to clarify their meaning and identify essential relations. In phenomenology ,

21230-526: The concept of paradigm precisely to distinguish the social from the natural sciences. While visiting the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1958 and 1959, surrounded by social scientists, he observed that they were never in agreement about the nature of legitimate scientific problems and methods. He explains that he wrote this book precisely to show that there can never be any paradigms in

21423-404: The concepts of truth , truth-bearer , and truthmaker to conduct their inquiry. Truth is a property of being in accord with reality. Truth-bearers are entities that can be true or false, such as linguistic statements and mental representations. A truthmaker of a statement is the entity whose existence makes the statement true. For example, the fact that a tomato exists and that it is red acts as

21616-763: The correctness of specific claims or general principles. For example, arguments for the A-theory of time , which states that time flows from the past through the present and into the future, often rely on pre-theoretical intuitions associated with the sense of the passage of time. Some approaches use intuitions to establish a small set of self-evident fundamental principles, known as axioms , and employ deductive reasoning to build complex metaphysical systems by drawing conclusions from these axioms. Intuition-based approaches can be combined with thought experiments , which help evoke and clarify intuitions by linking them to imagined situations. They use counterfactual thinking to assess

21809-452: The different areas of metaphysics share a set of underlying features and provides instead a fine-grained characterization by listing all the main topics investigated by metaphysicians. Some definitions are descriptive by providing an account of what metaphysicians do while others are normative and prescribe what metaphysicians ought to do. Two historically influential definitions in ancient and medieval philosophy understand metaphysics as

22002-544: The discovery of electrostatic photography , xerography and the quartz clock . Kuhn pointed out that it could be difficult to assess whether a particular paradigm shift had actually led to progress, in the sense of explaining more facts, explaining more important facts, or providing better explanations, because the understanding of "more important", "better", etc. changed with the paradigm. The two versions of reality are thus incommensurable . Kuhn's version of incommensurability has an important psychological dimension. This

22195-496: The divine and its role as the first cause. The scope of special metaphysics overlaps with other philosophical disciplines, making it unclear whether a topic belongs to it or to areas like philosophy of mind and theology . Applied metaphysics is a relatively young subdiscipline. It belongs to applied philosophy and studies the applications of metaphysics, both within philosophy and other fields of inquiry. In areas like ethics and philosophy of religion , it addresses topics like

22388-399: The elementary account of how science works . According to this, science proceeds through repeated cycles of observation, induction, hypothesis-testing, etc., with the test of consistency with empirical evidence being imposed at each stage. Paradigms and research programmes allow anomalies to be set aside, where there is reason to believe that they arise from incomplete knowledge (about either

22581-474: The end of the 19th century. At that time, a statement generally attributed to physicist Lord Kelvin famously claimed, "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." Five years later, Albert Einstein published his paper on special relativity , which challenged the set of rules laid down by Newtonian mechanics , which had been used to describe force and motion for over two hundred years. In this case,

22774-492: 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

22967-687: The fault of metaphysics not in its cognitive ambitions or the meaninglessness of its statements, but in its practical irrelevance and lack of usefulness. Martin Heidegger criticized traditional metaphysics, saying that it fails to distinguish between individual entities and being as their ontological ground. His attempt to reveal the underlying assumptions and limitations in the history of metaphysics to "overcome metaphysics" influenced Jacques Derrida 's method of deconstruction . Derrida employed this approach to criticize metaphysical texts for relying on opposing terms, like presence and absence, which he thought were inherently unstable and contradictory. There

23160-427: 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

23353-447: The features that all entities share and how entities can be divided into different categories . Categories are the most general kinds, such as substance, property, relation , and fact . Ontologists research which categories there are, how they depend on one another, and how they form a system of categories that provides a comprehensive classification of all entities. Special metaphysics considers being from more narrow perspectives and

23546-552: 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

23739-407: 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

23932-485: 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 a specific ontological theory within this discipline. It can also mean an inventory or

24125-468: The fundamental structure of mind-independent reality. The concepts of possibility and necessity convey what can or must be the case, expressed in modal statements like "it is possible to find a cure for cancer" and "it is necessary that two plus two equals four". Modal metaphysics studies metaphysical problems surrounding possibility and necessity, for instance, why some modal statements are true while others are false. Some metaphysicians hold that modality

24318-427: 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

24511-473: The history of science. Perhaps the greatest barrier to a paradigm shift, in some cases, is the reality of paradigm paralysis : the inability or refusal to see beyond the current models of thinking. This is similar to what psychologists term confirmation bias and the Semmelweis reflex . Examples include rejection of Aristarchus of Samos' , Copernicus ', and Galileo 's theory of a heliocentric solar system,

24704-404: The human mind, created to organize and make sense of reality. Spacetime absolutism or substantivalism understands spacetime as a distinct object, with some metaphysicians conceptualizing it as a container that holds all other entities within it. Spacetime relationism sees spacetime not as an object but as a network of relations between objects, such as the spatial relation of being next to and

24897-426: The idea of "social paradigm" in the context of social sciences. He identified the basic components of a social paradigm. Like Kuhn, Handa addressed the issue of changing paradigm; the process popularly known as " paradigm shift ". In this respect, he focused on social circumstances that precipitate such a shift and the effects of the shift on social institutions, including the institution of education. This broad shift in

25090-418: The incumbent paradigm, and its replacement by a new one. Kuhn used the expression paradigm shift (see below) for this process, and likened it to the perceptual change that occurs when our interpretation of an ambiguous image "flips over" from one state to another. (The rabbit-duck illusion is an example: it is not possible to see both the rabbit and the duck simultaneously.) This is significant in relation to

25283-443: The indiscernibility of identicals is widely accepted and holds that numerically identical entities exactly resemble one another. The converse principle, known as identity of indiscernibles or Leibniz's Law, is more controversial and states that two entities are numerically identical if they exactly resemble one another. Another distinction is between synchronic and diachronic identity. Synchronic identity relates an entity to itself at

25476-415: The individual sciences by studying the most general and abstract aspects of reality. The individual sciences, by contrast, examine more specific and concrete features and restrict themselves to certain classes of entities, such as the focus on physical things in physics , living entities in biology , and cultures in anthropology . It is disputed to what extent this contrast is a strict dichotomy rather than

25669-588: 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

25862-409: The issue of incommensurability (see below). An example of a currently accepted paradigm would be the standard model of physics. The scientific method allows for orthodox scientific investigations into phenomena that might contradict or disprove the standard model; however grant funding would be proportionately more difficult to obtain for such experiments, depending on the degree of deviation from

26055-601: 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

26248-417: 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

26441-527: The many ways these two sub-disciplines of psychology differ concerns meanings and intentions. In PCT, they are seen as the central concern of psychology; in radical behaviourism, they are not scientific evidence at all, as they cannot be directly observed.) Such considerations explain the conflict between the Kuhn/ Dogan view, and the views of others (including Larry Laudan, see above), who do apply these concepts to social sciences. Handa, M.L. (1986) introduced

26634-469: The meaning of a statement is given by the procedure used to verify it, usually through the observations that would confirm it. Based on this controversial assumption, they argue that metaphysical statements are meaningless since they make no testable predictions about experience. A slightly weaker position allows metaphysical statements to have meaning while holding that metaphysical disagreements are merely verbal disputes about different ways to describe

26827-501: The method of eidetic variation is used to investigate essential structures underlying phenomena . This method involves imagining an object and varying its features to determine which ones are essential and cannot be changed. The transcendental method is a further approach and examines the metaphysical structure of reality by observing what entities there are and studying the conditions of possibility without which these entities could not exist. Some approaches give less importance to

27020-734: The mind used to order experience by classifying entities. Natural and social kinds are often understood as special types of universals. Entities belonging to the same natural kind share certain fundamental features characteristic of the structure of the natural world. In this regard, natural kinds are not an artificially constructed classification but are discovered, usually by the natural sciences, and include kinds like electrons , H 2 O , and tigers. Scientific realists and anti-realists disagree about whether natural kinds exist. Social kinds, like money and baseball , are studied by social metaphysics and characterized as useful social constructions that, while not purely fictional, do not reflect

27213-432: The mirror-neurons that provide a hard-wired basis for the human capacity for empathy, the scientists involved were unable to identify the incidents that had directed their attention to the issue. Over the course of the investigation, their language and metaphors had changed so that they themselves could no longer interpret all of their own earlier laboratory notes and records. However, many instances exist in which change in

27406-419: 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

27599-672: 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

27792-889: The natural sciences rely on concepts such as law of nature , causation, necessity, and spacetime to formulate their theories and predict or explain the outcomes of experiments. While scientists primarily focus on applying these concepts to specific situations, metaphysics examines their general nature and how they depend on each other. For instance, physicists formulate laws of nature, like laws of gravitation and thermodynamics , to describe how physical systems behave under various conditions. Metaphysicians, by contrast, examine what all laws of nature have in common, asking whether they merely describe contingent regularities or express necessary relations. New scientific discoveries have also influenced existing metaphysical theories and inspired new ones. Einstein's theory of relativity , for instance, prompted various metaphysicians to conceive space and time as

27985-405: 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

28178-462: The nature of existence , the features all entities have in common, and their division into categories of being . An influential division is between particulars and universals . Particulars are individual unique entities, like a specific apple. Universals are general features that different particulars have in common, like the color red . Modal metaphysics examines what it means for something to be possible or necessary. Metaphysicians also explore

28371-414: The new paradigm reduces the old to a special case in the sense that Newtonian mechanics is still a good model for approximation for speeds that are slow compared to the speed of light . Many philosophers and historians of science, including Kuhn himself, ultimately accepted a modified version of Kuhn's model, which synthesizes his original view with the gradualist model that preceded it. Kuhn's original model

28564-401: The object is present, not the object as a whole. Change means that an earlier part is qualitatively different from a later part. For example, when a banana ripens, there is an unripe part followed by a ripe part. Causality is the relation between cause and effect whereby one entity produces or affects another entity. For instance, if a person bumps a glass and spills its contents then the bump

28757-471: The objective features of reality beyond sense experience, from critical metaphysics, which outlines the aspects and principles underlying all human thought and experience. Philosopher P. F. Strawson further explored the role of conceptual schemes, contrasting descriptive metaphysics, which articulates conceptual schemes commonly used to understand the world, with revisionary metaphysics, which aims to produce better conceptual schemes. Metaphysics differs from

28950-420: 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

29143-584: The ontological foundations of moral claims and religious doctrines. Beyond philosophy, its applications include the use of ontologies in artificial intelligence , economics , and sociology to classify entities. In psychiatry and medicine , it examines the metaphysical status of diseases . Meta-metaphysics is the metatheory of metaphysics and investigates the nature and methods of metaphysics. It examines how metaphysics differs from other philosophical and scientific disciplines and assesses its relevance to them. Even though discussions of these topics have

29336-531: The opposite of, those which we are now discussing". The original Greek term παράδειγμα ( paradeigma ) was used by scribes in Greek texts (such as Plato 's dialogues Timaeus [ c. 360 BCE] and Parmenides ) as one possibility for the model or the pattern that the demiurge supposedly used to create the cosmos. The English-language term paradigm has technical meanings in the fields of grammar (as applied, for example, to declension and conjugation –

29529-480: 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, a view referred to as moral nihilism . Monocategorical theories say that there

29722-460: The past. From the perspective of the B-series theory, time is static, and events are ordered by the temporal relations earlier-than and later-than without any essential difference between past, present, and future. Eternalism holds that past, present, and future are equally real, whereas presentism asserts that only entities in the present exist. Material objects persist through time and change in

29915-582: The philosophy of science. These include: the idea of major cultural themes, worldviews (and see below), ideologies , and mindsets . They have somewhat similar meanings that apply to smaller and larger scale examples of disciplined thought. In addition, Michel Foucault used the terms episteme and discourse , mathesis, and taxinomia, for aspects of a "paradigm" in Kuhn's original sense. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , Kuhn wrote that "the successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution

30108-476: The physical sciences and in historical organisations such as the Church is that the former, unlike the latter, requires technical expertise rather than repeating statements. In other words, after scientific training through what Kuhn calls ' exemplars ', one could not genuinely believe that, to take a trivial example, the earth is flat , whereas thinkers such as Giles of Rome in the thirteenth century wrote in favour of

30301-422: The pope, then could easily write similarly glowing things about the king. A writer such as Giles would have wanted a good job from the pope; he was a papal publicist. However, Harris writes that 'scientific group membership is not concerned with desire, emotions, gain, loss and any idealistic notions concerning the nature and destiny of humankind...but simply to do with aptitude, explanation, [and] cold description of

30494-480: The possible consequences of these situations. For example, to explore the relation between matter and consciousness, some theorists compare humans to philosophical zombies —hypothetical creatures identical to humans but without conscious experience . A related method relies on commonly accepted beliefs instead of intuitions to formulate arguments and theories. The common-sense approach is often used to criticize metaphysical theories that deviate significantly from how

30687-434: The primarily sociological importance of paradigms, pointing towards Kuhn's second edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . Although obedience to popes such as Innocent III and Boniface VIII was widespread, even written testimony from the time showing loyalty to the pope does not demonstrate that the writer had the same worldview as the Church, and therefore pope, at the centre. The difference between paradigms in

30880-508: The process, like a tree that grows or loses leaves. The main ways of conceptualizing persistence through time are endurantism and perdurantism . According to endurantism, material objects are three-dimensional entities that are wholly present at each moment. As they change, they gain or lose properties but otherwise remain the same. Perdurantists see material objects as four-dimensional entities that extend through time and are made up of different temporal parts . At each moment, only one part of

31073-403: 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

31266-757: The questions about the relation between body and mind, whether the nature of the human mind is historically fixed, and what the metaphysical status of diseases is. Metaphysics is similar to both physical cosmology and theology in its exploration of the first causes and the universe as a whole. Key differences are that metaphysics relies on rational inquiry while physical cosmology gives more weight to empirical observations and theology incorporates divine revelation and other faith-based doctrines. Historically, cosmology and theology were considered subfields of metaphysics.         Conceptual scheme Paradigm comes from Greek παράδειγμα ( paradeigma ); "pattern, example, sample"; from

31459-464: The realm beyond sensory experience. A related argument favoring the unreliability of metaphysical theorizing points to the deep and lasting disagreements about metaphysical issues, suggesting a lack of overall progress. Another criticism holds that the problem lies not with human cognitive abilities but with metaphysical statements themselves, which some claim are neither true nor false but meaningless . According to logical positivists , for instance,

31652-448: The realm of physics and its focus on empirical observation. Metaphysics may have received its name by a historical accident when Aristotle's book on this subject was published. Aristotle did not use the term metaphysics but his editor (likely Andronicus of Rhodes ) may have coined it for its title to indicate that this book should be studied after Aristotle's book published on physics : literally ' after physics ' . The term entered

31845-433: The relation between free will and causal determinism —the view that everything in the universe, including human behavior, is determined by preceding events and laws of nature. It is controversial whether causal determinism is true, and, if so, whether this would imply that there is no free will. According to incompatibilism , free will cannot exist in a deterministic world since there is no true choice or control if everything

32038-425: 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

32231-431: The same time, whereas diachronic identity is about the same entity at different times, as in statements like "the table I bought last year is the same as the table in my dining room now". Personal identity is a related topic in metaphysics that uses the term identity in a slightly different sense and concerns questions like what personhood is or what makes someone a person. Various contemporary metaphysicians rely on

32424-440: 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

32617-559: The same time. For example, the particulars Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi instantiate the universal humanity , similar to how a strawberry and a ruby instantiate the universal red . A topic discussed since ancient philosophy, the problem of universals consists in the challenge of characterizing the ontological status of universals. Realists argue that universals are real, mind-independent entities that exist in addition to particulars. According to Platonic realists , universals exist independently of particulars, which implies that

32810-418: The science of the first causes and as the study of being qua being, that is, the topic of what all beings have in common and to what fundamental categories they belong. In the modern period, the scope of metaphysics expanded to include topics such as the distinction between mind and body and free will . Some philosophers follow Aristotle in describing metaphysics as "first philosophy", suggesting that it

33003-404: 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

33196-517: The sentence "some electrons are bonded to protons" is true then it can be used to justify that electrons and protons exist. Quine used this insight to argue that one can learn about metaphysics by closely analyzing scientific claims to understand what kind of metaphysical picture of the world they presuppose. In addition to methods of conducting metaphysical inquiry, there are various methodological principles used to decide between competing theories by comparing their theoretical virtues. Ockham's Razor

33389-401: The set of exemplary experiments that are likely to be copied or emulated. Secondly, underpinning this set of exemplars are shared preconceptions, made prior to – and conditioning – the collection of evidence. These preconceptions embody both hidden assumptions and elements that Kuhn describes as quasi-metaphysical. The interpretations of the paradigm may vary among individual scientists. Kuhn

33582-463: The social arena, in turn, changes the way the individual perceives reality. Another use of the word paradigm is in the sense of " worldview ". For example, in social science, the term is used to describe the set of experiences, beliefs and values that affect the way an individual perceives reality and responds to that perception. Social scientists have adopted the Kuhnian phrase "paradigm shift" to denote

33775-434: The social sciences in his essay, particularly in sociology, political science and political anthropology. However, both Kuhn's original work and Dogan's commentary are directed at disciplines that are defined by conventional labels (such as "sociology"). While it is true that such broad groupings in the social sciences are usually not based on a Kuhnian paradigm, each of the competing sub-disciplines may still be underpinned by

33968-473: The social sciences. Mattei Dogan , a French sociologist, in his article "Paradigms in the Social Sciences", develops Kuhn's original thesis that there are no paradigms at all in the social sciences since the concepts are polysemic , involving the deliberate mutual ignorance between scholars and the proliferation of schools in these disciplines. Dogan provides many examples of the non-existence of paradigms in

34161-417: 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 ,

34354-399: The substantive topic, or some aspect of the theories implicitly used in making observations). Larry Laudan has also made two important contributions to the debate. Laudan believed that something akin to paradigms exist in the social sciences (Kuhn had contested this, see below); he referred to these as research traditions . Laudan noted that some anomalies become "dormant", if they survive

34547-507: The temporal relation of coming before . In the metaphysics of time, an important contrast is between the A-series and the B-series . According to the A-series theory, the flow of time is real, meaning that events are categorized into the past, present, and future. The present continually moves forward in time and events that are in the present now will eventually change their status and lie in

34740-472: 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

34933-408: The underlying faculties responsible for these phenomena. The mind–body problem is the challenge of clarifying the relation between physical and mental phenomena. According to Cartesian dualism , minds and bodies are distinct substances. They causally interact with each other in various ways but can, at least in principle, exist on their own. This view is rejected by monists , who argue that reality

35126-475: The universal red would continue to exist even if there were no red things. A more moderate form of realism , inspired by Aristotle, states that universals depend on particulars, meaning that they are only real if they are instantiated. Nominalists reject the idea that universals exist in either form. For them, the world is composed exclusively of particulars. Conceptualists offer an intermediate position, stating that universals exist, but only as concepts in

35319-440: The verb παραδείκνυμι ( paradeiknumi ); "exhibit, represent, expose"; and that from παρά ( para ); "beside, beyond"; and δείκνυμι ( deiknumi ); "to show, to point out". In classical (Greek-based) rhetoric , a paradeigma aims to provide an audience with an illustration of a similar occurrence. This illustration is not meant to take the audience to a conclusion; however, it is used to help guide them to get there. One way of how

35512-553: 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

35705-405: The word its contemporary meaning when he adopted the word to refer to the set of concepts and practices that define a scientific discipline at any particular period of time . In his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (first published in 1962), Kuhn defines a scientific paradigm as: "universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions to

35898-463: The work of Lavoisier on atomic theory in the late 18th century. In this change, the focus had shifted from the bulk properties of matter (such as hardness, colour, reactivity, etc.) to studies of atomic weights and quantitative studies of reactions. He suggested that it was impossible to make the comparison needed to judge which body of knowledge was better or more advanced. However, this change in research style (and paradigm) eventually (after more than

36091-806: 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

36284-419: The world. According to this view, the disagreement in the metaphysics of composition about whether there are tables or only particles arranged table-wise is a trivial debate about linguistic preferences without any substantive consequences for the nature of reality. The position that metaphysical disputes have no meaning or no significant point is called metaphysical or ontological deflationism . This view

36477-452: 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

36670-485: 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

36863-404: Was at pains to point out that the rationale for the choice of exemplars is a specific way of viewing reality: that view and the status of "exemplar" are mutually reinforcing. For well-integrated members of a particular discipline, its paradigm is so convincing that it normally renders even the possibility of alternatives unconvincing and counter-intuitive. Such a paradigm is opaque , appearing to be

37056-419: 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

37249-448: Was proposed by Aristotle, who outlined a system of 10 categories . He argued that substances (e.g. man and horse), are the most important category since all other categories like quantity (e.g. four), quality (e.g. white), and place (e.g. in Athens) are said of substances and depend on them. Kant understood categories as fundamental principles underlying human understanding and developed

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