Projects / Programmes
A Possibility of Categorial Ontology
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.10.00 |
Humanities |
Philosophy |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H001 |
Humanities |
Philosophy |
onotology, categories, states of affairs, properties, relations, naturalism, causality
Researchers (3)
| no. |
Code |
Name and surname |
Research area |
Role |
Period |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
04095 |
PhD Bojan Borstner |
Philosophy |
Head |
1998 - 2000 |
373 |
| 2. |
06070 |
PhD Nenad Miščević |
Philosophy |
Researcher |
1998 - 2000 |
390 |
| 3. |
04779 |
PhD Marija Švajncer |
Philosophy |
Researcher |
1998 - 2000 |
795 |
Organisations (1)
Abstract
The research project A Possibility of Categorial Ontology represents an attempt to built an ontological position which is based on development of sciences. Old questions about categories of the world, an ontological explanation, a difference between realistic and nominalistic position, individuals and their structures, status of properties and relations, essences and accidencies, facts and states of affairs, a mereology and ingredients of the world, necessities and possibilities, existences and subsistencies are included. We do not rely our analyses on the history of ideas but we’ll try to constitute a new and philosophical relevant categorial ontology of the world as a totality of evrything that is in space and time.
It is based on a hypothesis that the world is the world of states of affairs. Individuals, properties and relations are brought together in states of affairs (Wittgenstein has called them facts). However, states of affairs do not exist just in a case there are their constituents - individuals, properties and relations. Properties and relations depend on individuals and are found only in states of affairs - properties are properties of individuals and relations are relations holding between individuals. The existence of the individual a and the property F does not ensure that a is F. There has to be a truth-maker for this truth that a is F - the states of affairs of a’s being F. It is also clear that a and F are not parts of state of affairs but constituents and therefore it is possible that two different states of affairs have the very same constituents - if a has R to b and b has R to a and R is non-symmetrical then there are two independent states of affairs.
The second assumption is the thesis that the questions which (and how many) individuals, properties and relations exist is decidable (if it is decidable at all) only a posteriori, empirically, on the basis of total science. Properties and relations are not identical with meanings of predicates (monadic, dyadic, ...) and no simple relation between predicates and properties and relations can be assumed. Therefore, there are also properties and relations as existent in the world - we defend a kind of aristotelian metaphysical realism.
Our third hypothesis is about naturalism - nothing at all exists except the single world of space and time - and causality - there exist only entities which can act causally. Inexistence of the causal relations between entities is a good reason for rejecting their existence. We can use this also against Lewis’ theory of modality - why should we accept a causally impotent and metaphysically suspect apparatus of actuality of possible worlds which does no more than systemize the facts about modality. We’ll start from naturalist basis and enrich the space-time world with modal features which are only combinations of actuals. Such modal features are more attractive candidates for the truth-makers of modal truths We’ll use the same strategy in the case of mathematics. Mathematics is concerned with a wider domain than that domain which is the object of the natural sciences to describe and categorize. The natural sciences are concerned with the actual world and mathematics is concerned with all possible worlds. We’ll try to explain numbers as special inner relations between structural universals and sets as special forms of states of affairs.
The final task of our researches is a list of ontological categories that will include all what there is in the world.
