Ontology

“ But once exclude matter per se from the pale both of our knowledge and of our ignorance, and an ontology becomes, for the first time, possible. Because in answer to the question, What is real and absolute Being? we must either reply, It is that which we know, in which case it will be object plus subject, because this is the only Knowable ”

“ If we are cognisant of Absolute Existence, it must be object plus subject, because this, and this alone, is what any intelligence can know. If we are ignorant of Absolute Existence, it must be still object plus subject, because we can be ignorant only of what can be known—and object plus subject is what alone can be known. Thus the concluding truth of the ontology is demonstratively established, and comes out all the same whether we claim a knowledge, or avow an ignorance, of that which truly exists. ”

“ General metaphysics treats of the constituents, attributes, and properties of being in general, and is called ontology. Ontology is considered as a necessary preparation for the study of special metaphysics, which, from the knowledge of being in general, descends to the examination of the different classes and genera of beings in particular. Our men of science, accustomed as they are to the inductive method, do not approve of this form of proceeding. ”

“ As described [11] , Uberon includes a large number of axioms to ensure both internal consistency and consistency with other ontologies. We require that the ontology always satisfy these conditions. In addition, we require checks that the ontology did not violate certain syntactic conditions (e.g. every class should have exactly one label and no more than one text definition) . Some of these checks are difficult to run locally on the ontology developer’s machine, so we made use of the OBO library Jenkins Continuous Integration server [49] . ”

“ Ontology treats of Ens in its largest sense, with all its properties quatenus Ens, including Unum, Multa, Idem, Diversum, Posterius, Prius, Genus, Species, Totum, Partes, &c. Now Ontology is with Aristotle a purely objective science; that is, a science wherein the subjective is dropt out of sight and no account taken of it, or wherein (to state the same fact in the language of relativity) the believing and reasoning subject is supposed constant. Ontology is the most comprehensive among all the objective sciences. ”

“ The system is thus advancing in strength towards the position where ontology lies intrenched; it is drawing closer and closer its lines of circumvallation around the encampment of Absolute Existence, and has already driven in its outposts. ”

“ In treating upon 'apprehension,' he introduces, as indeed he was obliged to do, from the department of metaphysics, several speculations on 'generalisation' and 'abstractions,' and from ontology (the science which explains the most general conceptions respecting the phenomena of nature) he borrows the leading principles of definition. ”

“ Further, I advanced an explicit standard whereby to decide what the ontological commitments of a theory are. But the question what ontology actually to adopt still stands open, and the obvious counsel is tolerance and an experimental spirit. Let us by all means see how much of the physicalistic conceptual scheme can be reduced to a phenomenalistic one; still, physics also naturally demands pursuing, irreducible in toto though it be. Let us see how, or to what degree, natural science may be rendered independent of platonistic mathematics ”

“ Proposed changes to the core are submitted through the Uberon tracker [39] and vetted by the larger community. Because it is very important to this community and “scientific good practice” to keep track of contributions and to facilitate further discussion regarding design or definitions, a more sophisticated approach to attribution is needed. Contributions to the ontology are marked as metadata in the ontology, at the level of classes, axioms, and the ontology itself, using references to design documents and to individuals using database-cross-reference or ORCID IDs. ”

“ The contradictions corrected in the ontology have now to be considered.
The opinions entertained by natural thinking and to some extent by psychology on the subject of "Being."22. Natural thinking has an ontology of its own. It asserts the absolute existence of material things per se, if not, also, the absolute existence of immaterial minds per se. Psychology is less consistent. At times it makes common cause with ordinary thinking, and adopts and confirms "the science of Being," which it receives at the hand ”

“ That it is possible by a chain of syllogisms to gain a conviction more positive than any conviction immediately derived from the senses, is the assumption which every metaphysical argument tacitly makes. The endeavour by one school to establish an Ontology, and the assertion by another, that we cannot prove the existence of noumena, alike take for granted that demonstration has a validity exceeding that of intuition. ”

“ The section called ontology naturally comes first,—but is truly last in order§ 54. From what has been already said about the principles or first elements of philosophy being the last to show themselves, it is obvious that this is a science which naturally comes to us end foremost. The difficulty is, so to turn round the whole huge machinery as to get its beginning towards us. But what is the end which comes to us first, but which we must so turn round as to make it revolve away from us, and come to us last? It is this—announced in the form of a question—What is truth? ”

“ The system of ontologism differs from it by proposing a totally different ontology, which is made the basis of an essentially different philosophy. The advocates of that system call themselves ontologists, as claiming to be the only philosophers who understand rightly real being and the relation of intelligence to it as the object of its intuition and knowledge. ”

“ "You cannot answer Berkeley, even if you have annihilated Kant, and yet, perforce, you assume that Berkeley is wrong when you affirm that science proves the non-existence of God, or, as much to the point, the existence of matter.--You know I granted the reality of matter only in order to make myself intelligible to your understanding. Be positive scientists, if you please; but ontology has no place in positive science, so leave it alone. ”

“ Epistemology is thus concerned with the truth and certitude of human knowledge; with the subjective conditions and the scope and limits of its validity; with the subjective or mental factors involved in knowing.28 Ontology is concerned with the objects of knowledge, with reality considered in the widest, deepest, and most fundamental aspects under which it is conceived by the human mind: with the being and becoming of reality, its possibility and its actuality, its essence and its existence, its unity and plurality ”

“ For an adequate basis for agreement among mathematicians can be found simply in the rules which govern the manipulation of the notations—these syntactical rules being, unlike the notations themselves, quite significant and intelligible. [9]
I have argued that the sort of ontology we adopt can be consequential—notably in connection with mathematics, although this is only an example. Now how are we to adjudicate among rival ontologies? Certainly the answer is not provided by the semantical formula “To be is to be the value of a variable” ”

“ What he claims is, that in the analysis of consciousness we detect a class of facts or ideas which are not psychological or subjective, but really ontological, and do actually carry us out of the region of psychology into that of ontology. ”

“ How do those objects comprise and operate within larger religious assemblages and objects? How does one interpret the relevance of said objects for either the practitioners or the other objects? These questions are not to be ignored simply because object-oriented ontology places metaphysical analysis before that of epistemology. One simply proceeds with the conviction that there are real objects to be studied, and they are not enslaved to the human cogito and gaze. Humans are important, but they are not central. ”

“ To cite Harman, ‘the interaction between cotton and fire belongs on the same footing as human interaction with both cotton and fire.’ [27] Human encounters with other objects are no more special than those of bacteria or household furniture with those objects. Fourth, objects are external to their relations. This is perhaps one of the stranger premises of object-oriented ontology. Many people’s intuitions and many theories suggest that the objects of the world are constituted through their relations with other objects. ”

“ Its principles are merely principles of the exposition of phenomena, and the proud name of an ontology, which professes to present synthetical cognitions à priori of things in general in a systematic doctrine, must give place to the modest title of analytic of the pure understanding.
Thought is the act of referring a given intuition to an object. If the mode of this intuition is unknown to us, the object is merely transcendental, and the conception of the understanding is employed only transcendentally, that is, to produce unity in the thought of a manifold in general. ”

“ This division explores and explains the laws both of knowing and of the known—in other words, the conditions of the conceivable; laying out the necessary laws, as the laws of all knowing, and all thinking, and the contingent laws as the laws of our knowing and of our thinking. This section of the science is properly termed the epistemology—the doctrine or theory of knowing, just as ontology is the doctrine or theory of being (λόγος τῆς ἐπιστήμης—the science of true knowing) . ”

“ Thus we see that whatever is real is ontologically true; that ontological truth is really identical with real being; that, applied to the latter, it is not a mere extrinsic denomination, but signifies an intrinsic, positive aspect of reality, viz. the real, essential, or transcendental relation of all real being to Mind or Intellect: a relation which is logically or conceptually distinct from the notion of reality considered in itself. ”

“ When the acorn grows into the oak the whole process has its ontological truth; that of the acorn changes, not into falsity, but into another truth, that of the oak.170 We see, then, that as things change, their truth does not change in the sense of being lost or giving place to falsity: the truth of one state changes to the truth of another while the ontological truth of the changing reality perseveres immutably. ”

“ Whence does the human mind derive these ideal types, these concepts or definitions of the nature of things? It derives them from actually experienced reality by abstraction, comparison, generalization, and reflection on the data of its experience.163 Hence it follows that the ontological truth of things is not known by the mind antecedently to the formation of the mental type. ”

“ Hence, in so far as a reality becomes an actual object of human knowledge it has formal ontological truth in relation both to the human mind and to the Divine Mind; while antecedently to human thought it is fundamentally true, or intelligible, to the human mind, and of course formally true in relation to the Divine Mind. ”

“ Thus while in the ontological order all substances, whether we think of them as universal or as individual, are the ultimate subjects of inhesion for all real accidents, in the logical order it is only the individual substance that is the ultimate subject of attribution for all logical predicates. ”

“ For, since men form different and divergent and conflicting conceptions as to the natures of things, and so have different views and standards of truth for things, ontological truth would seem, according to the exposition just outlined, to be not one but manifold, not immutable but variable: consequences which surely cannot be admitted? The answer to this difficulty will lead us to a deeper and more fundamental conception of what ontological truth really is. ”

“ Although, therefore, ontological truth is for us proximately and immediately the conformity of reality with our own conceptions, it is primarily and fundamentally the essential conformity of all reality with the Divine Mind. All reality, actual and possible, including the Divine Essence itself, is actually comprehended by the Divine Mind, is actually in conformity with the exemplar ideas in the Divine Mind, and has therefore ontological truth even independently of its relation to created minds ”

“ A fair degree of effort is required to build and maintain ontologies and the relationships between them and this effort must be informed and guided by collaborative interactions with the curators. Some domains, such as behavior, which is minimally represented in the GO, remain poorly represented by ontologies. ”

“ But since all truths are concerned with realities they must have ultimately real reasons, i.e. explanatory principles inherent in the realities themselves. The knowledge of these real or ontological principles of things is the logical reason of our understanding of the things themselves. ”

“ This shows, more strongly than ever, how extensive a knowledge of the properties of objects is necessary for making a good classification of them. And as it is one of the uses of such a classification that by drawing attention to the properties on which it is founded, and which, if the classification be good, are marks of many others, it facilitates the discovery of those others; we see in what manner our knowledge of things, and our classification of them, tend mutually and indefinitely to the improvement of each other. ”