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Ontology
Definitions
- 1 The branch of metaphysics that addresses the nature or essential characteristics of being and of things that exist; the study of being qua being. uncountable
"[Martin] Heidegger's concern […] was with ontology, the nature of beings, above all humans. The central question for him was "What is being? What is it for something to be?" He tackled this question not by way of the sciences, but by way of an examination of our prescientific daily life. We are, he argued, not cut off from the world by our mental processes: we are "in the world", in direct contact with our surroundings."
- 2 the metaphysical study of the nature of being and existence wordnet
- 3 In a subject view, or a world view, the set of conceptual or material things or classes of things that are recognised as existing, or are assumed to exist in context, and their interrelations; in a body of theory, the ontology comprises the domain of discourse, the things that are defined as existing, together with whatever emerges from their mutual implications. uncountable
"Meronym: taxonomy"
- 4 (computer science) a rigorous and exhaustive organization of some knowledge domain that is usually hierarchical and contains all the relevant entities and their relations wordnet
- 5 The theory of a particular philosopher or school of thought concerning the fundamental types of entity in the universe. countable
"The answer to the controversial question of whether Aristotle's ontology includes non-substantial particulars, then, is that it does."
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- 6 A logical system involving theory of classes, developed by Stanislaw Lesniewski (1886-1939). countable, uncountable
- 7 A structure of concepts or entities within a domain, organized by relationships; a system model. countable
Etymology
Learned borrowing from New Latin ontologia (1606, Ogdoas Scholastica, by Jacob Lorhard (Lorhardus), from Ancient Greek ὤν, ὄντος (ṓn, óntos, “being”), present participle of εἰμί (eimí, “being, existing, essence”) + λόγος (lógos, “account”). By surface analysis, onto- + -logy. First known English use 1663: Archelogia philosophica nova; or, New principles of Philosophy. Containing Philosophy in general, Metaphysicks or Ontology, Dynamilogy or a Discourse of Power, Religio Philosophi or Natural Theology, Physicks or Natural philosophy, by Gideon Harvey (1636–1702), London, Thomson, 1663. Popularized as a philosophical term by German philosopher Christian Wolff (1679–1754).
See also for "ontology"
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