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Fundamental Ontology
In ''Being and Time'', the philosopher Martin Heidegger made the distinction between ontical and ontological, or between beings and "being" as such. He labeled this the "Ontological Difference." It is from this distinction that he developed the concept of "Fundamental Ontology." The history of ontology in Western philosophy is, in Heidegger's terms, ontical, whereas ontology ought to designate fundamental ontology. He says this "ontological inquiry" is required to understand the basis of the sciences.Martin Heidegger, ''Being and Time'', §3. Background Traditional ontology asks "Why is there anything?" whereas Heidegger's "Fundamental Ontology" asks "What does it mean for something to be?," writes Taylor Carman (2003). Heidegger's "fundamental ontology" is fundamental relative to traditional ontology in that it concerns "what any understanding of entities necessarily presupposes, namely, our understanding of that in virtue of which entities are entities," Carman writes. This "on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Being And Time
''Being and Time'' (german: Sein und Zeit) is the 1927 '' magnum opus'' of German philosopher Martin Heidegger and a key document of existentialism. ''Being and Time'' had a notable impact on subsequent philosophy, literary theory and many other fields. Though controversial, its stature in intellectual history has been compared with works by Kant and Hegel. The book attempts to revive ontology through an analysis of Dasein, or "being-in-the-world." It is also noted for an array of neologisms and complex language, as well as an extended treatment of "authenticity" as a means to grasp and confront the unique and finite possibilities of the individual. Background Richard Wolin notes that the work "implicitly adopted the critique of mass society” epitomized earlier by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.Wolin, R."Martin Heidegger—German philosopher" '' Encyclopædia Britannica'', November 18, 2009. "Elitist complaints about the "dictatorship of public opinion" were common currency t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
20th-century Philosophy
Contemporary philosophy is the present period in the history of Western philosophy beginning at the early 20th century with the increasing professionalization of the discipline and the rise of analytic and continental philosophy. The phrase "contemporary philosophy" is a piece of technical terminology in philosophy that refers to a specific period in the history of Western philosophy (namely the philosophy of the 20th and 21st centuries). However, the phrase is often confused with modern philosophy (which refers to an earlier period in Western philosophy), postmodern philosophy (which refers to some philosophers' criticisms of modern philosophy), and with a non-technical use of the phrase referring to any recent philosophic work. Professionalization Process Professionalization is the social process by which any trade or occupation establishes the group norms of conduct, acceptable qualifications for membership of the profession, a professional body or association to ov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exist on the most fundamental level. Ontologists often try to determine what the categories or highest kinds are and how they form a system of categories that encompasses classification of all entities. Commonly proposed categories include substances, properties, relations, states of affairs and events. These categories are characterized by fundamental ontological concepts, including particularity and universality, abstractness and concreteness, or possibility and necessity. Of special interest is the concept of ontological dependence, which determines whether the entities of a category exist on the most fundamental level. Disagreements within ontology are often about whether entities belonging to a certain category exist and, if so, how th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meta-ontology
Meta-ontology is the study of the field of inquiry known as Ontology. The goal of meta-ontology is to clarify what ontology is about and how to interpret the meaning of ontological claims. Different meta-ontological theories disagree on what the goal of ontology is and whether a given issue or theory lies within the scope of ontology. There is no universal agreement whether meta-ontology is a separate field of inquiry besides ontology or whether it is just one branch of ontology. Meta-ontological realists hold that there are objective answers to the basic questions of ontology. According to the Quinean approach, the goal of ontology is to determine what exists and what doesn't exist. The neo-Aristotelian approach asserts that the goal of ontology is to determine which entities are fundamental and how the non-fundamental entities depend on them. Meta-ontological anti-realists, on the other hand, deny that there are objective answers to the basic questions of ontology. One example of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foundation Ontology
In information science, an upper ontology (also known as a top-level ontology, upper model, or foundation ontology) is an ontology (in the sense used in information science) which consists of very general terms (such as "object", "property", "relation") that are common across all domains. An important function of an upper ontology is to support broad semantic interoperability among a large number of domain-specific ontologies by providing a common starting point for the formulation of definitions. Terms in the domain ontology are ranked under the terms in the upper ontology, e.g., the upper ontology classes are superclasses or supersets of all the classes in the domain ontologies. A number of upper ontologies have been proposed, each with its own proponents. Library classification systems predate upper ontology systems. Though library classifications organize and categorize knowledge using general concepts that are the same across all knowledge domains, neither system is a replac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dasein
''Dasein'' () (sometimes spelled as Da-sein) is the German word for 'existence'. It is a fundamental concept in the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Heidegger uses the expression ''Dasein'' to refer to the experience of being that is peculiar to human beings. Thus it is a form of being that is aware of and must confront such issues as personhood, mortality and the dilemma or paradox of living in relationship with other humans while being ultimately alone with oneself. Heidegger's reinterpretation In German, ''Dasein'' is the vernacular term for "existence", as in "I am pleased with my existence" (''Ich bin mit meinem Dasein zufrieden''). The term was used by several philosophers before Heidegger, most notably Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, with the meaning of "determined being" (''bestimmtes Sein''), ''The union of Being and Nothing'' (''Quality''). It is derived from ''da-sein'', which literally means "being-there"/"there-being"J. Childers/G. Hentzi eds., ''The Columb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transcendental Idealism
Transcendental idealism is a philosophical system founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's epistemological program is found throughout his '' Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781). By ''transcendental'' (a term that deserves special clarification) Kant means that his philosophical approach to knowledge transcends mere consideration of sensory evidence and requires an understanding of the mind's innate modes of processing that sensory evidence. In the "Transcendental Aesthetic" section of the ''Critique of Pure Reason,'' Kant outlines how space and time are pure forms of human intuition contributed by our own faculty of sensibility. Space and time do not have an existence "outside" of us, but are the "subjective" forms of our sensibility and hence the necessary ''a priori'' conditions under which the objects we encounter in our experience can appear to us at all. Kant describes time and space as "empirically real" but ''transcendentally ideal.'' Kant ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scientists. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied or even considered consciousness. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and at other times, an aspect of mind. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and volition. Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling or perception. It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, or self-awareness either continuously changing or not. The disparate range of research, notions and speculations raises a curiosity about whether the right questions are being asked. Examples of the range of descriptions, definitions or explanations are: simple wakefulness, one's sense of selfhood or sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Immanence
The doctrine or theory of immanence holds that the divine encompasses or is manifested in the material world. It is held by some philosophical and metaphysical theories of divine presence. Immanence is usually applied in monotheistic, pantheistic, pandeistic, or panentheistic faiths to suggest that the spiritual world permeates the mundane. It is often contrasted with theories of transcendence, in which the divine is seen to be outside the material world. Major faiths commonly devote significant philosophical efforts to explaining the relationship between immanence and transcendence but do so in different ways, such as: * casting immanence as a characteristic of a transcendent God (common in Abrahamic religions), * subsuming immanent personal gods in a greater transcendent being (such as with Brahman in Hinduism), or * approaching the question of transcendence as something which can only be answered through an appraisal of immanence. Western Esotericism Another meanin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Essence
Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the entity or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity. The concept originates rigorously with Aristotle (although it can also be found in Plato), who used the Greek expression ''to ti ên einai'' (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι, literally meaning "the what it was to be" and corresponding to the scholastic term quiddity) or sometimes the shorter phrase ''to ti esti'' (τὸ τί ἐστι, literally meaning "the what it is" and corresponding to the scholastic term haecceity) for the same idea. This phrase presented such difficulties for its Latin translators that they coined the word ''essentia'' (English "essence") ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phenomenon
A phenomenon ( : phenomena) is an observable event. The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in this part of his philosophy, in which phenomenon and noumenon serve as interrelated technical terms. Far predating this, the ancient Greek Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus also used ''phenomenon'' and ''noumenon'' as interrelated technical terms. Common usage In popular usage, a ''phenomenon'' often refers to an extraordinary event. The term is most commonly used to refer to occurrences that at first defy explanation or baffle the observer. According to the ''Dictionary of Visual Discourse'':In ordinary language 'phenomenon/phenomena' refer to any occurrence worthy of note and investigation, typically an untoward or unusual event, person or fact that is of special significance or otherwise notable. Philosophy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
