I have no idea how to go about determining the "nature of being". I don't really even know what "nature of being" means (going by a simple definition of what ontology is supposed to be about?). I'm not even sure there is anything really there, in the way I experience things. Not that I think there is absolutely nothing, or just nihilistic solipsism. I'm just not sure if 'existence' is an added quality to...things....labelling things as 'experiences' may also just be a label/addition.The problem is how you are going to arrive at an epistemology with no notion whatsoever of ontology. While I agree that speculating on ontology in detail isn't useful, we need to at least consider the question of what information is. If we don't want to conclude that information isn't real (which would lead to Solipism) then there must be something ontological to this information. — Echarmion
It's really mind boggling for me personally. I kind of have a sense of what knowledge is...or knowing. Seems the same as awareness or experience, or at least in that area. But 'being' I don't know. I'm leaning toward it being some kind of illusion. 'Being' doesn't seem self evident to me in the same way knowing does.↪Yohan And what exactly do you think ontology is, or what the word means - that makes a difference. The word itself appears from its roots to mean knowledge of being - so far so good. But being itself has no differentia. And thus it is more than a little difficult to figure out just what "knowledge" of being is knowledge of. What do you say? — tim wood
Doesn't your position depend on ontological conclusions about the way things fundamentally are? Doesnt' any epistemological position?So....no, ontology is irrelevant; — Mww
Doesn't your position depend on ontological conclusions about the way things fundamentally are? — Coben
Several ways to go here. This one seems best: can you provide an example of an ontological conclusion? Beyond the obvious one of course: which I am thinking is the only possible one, namely that the thing considered is. ,Doesn't your position depend on ontological conclusions about the way things fundamentally are? Doesn't any epistemological position? — Coben
You're not a physicalist? Now perhaps you're not, but physicalism is an ontological monism. One that has been part of science for quite a while. One would hope that do some degree they do not claim to KNOW it is correct, but believe in it and it is part of the foundational assumptions that support their work. (of course scientists can have and do have other ontologies) If you think they are incorrect for having this as an ontology, it would seem to me you have two approaches: one epistemological, the other ontological. I don't think one have an epistemology without an ontology. You have to be taking a stand, say an empiricist one, or a rationalist one, that has inherent it it how subjects relate to objects, what perception is (given what the universe is), what subjects and objects are, etc. So, I think one is fighting fire with fire. This is obviously more clear if one differs from the scientists on ontological grounds directly.I don’t know how things fundamentally are, but only as I think them to be. — Mww
One does not need to be certain of an ontology to have an ontology. Scientists may be physicalists without assuming that it will in a thousand years be the accepted ontology of science.There is nothing in my determinations which promise the correctness of them, except the laws of logic. — Mww
I don’t know how things fundamentally are, but only as I think them to be.
— Mww
You're not a physicalist? — Coben
I don't think one have an epistemology without an ontology. You have to be taking a stand, say an empiricist one, or a rationalist one, that has inherent it it how subjects relate to objects, — Coben
The very reasons you think one cannot know for certain what reality is made of or what your thoughts are has an ontology in it....
.....Most people have, for example, some kind of model of perception that has ontologies in it. — Coben
Sure, that it is. But what else, as ontology?you are committing to an ontology. — Harry Hindu
But not this, unless you can provide some examples of how - that is, educate.or the way something is or is not, — Harry Hindu
Wilkommen zu das Lichtung (aka "TPF"). :mask:To Dasein or not to Dasein, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler to become open to the disclosure of being as such
Or to take up arms against a sea of ontological claims
And by opposing end them. To remain pre-ontological. — Octopus Knight
You could be an idealist, for example, instead.I don’t know how things fundamentally are, but only as I think them to be.
— Mww
You're not a physicalist?
— Coben
That I think a way for an object to be necessarily presupposes the reality of it, which makes explicit my acceptance of the physicalist domain. — Mww
The mere assumption/conclusion that there are subjects and objects is an onlological assumption/conclusion. Perhaps there is just a kind of phenomenalism or experiencism. That the whole idea of subject -> perception -> external world is not correct. Whether it is or not is an ontological conclusion/assertion.The manner by which subjects and objects relate to each other is a logical condition, and no determination of the fundamental nature of either is given by their mere relation. — Mww
I gave a short shot at that above.Please explain, bearing in mind the keyword fundamental. — Mww
I am not sure if we are talking past each or not. Let me go back a step.If ontology is knowledge of being, as the word says, functioning as so many other -ology words function, then, it would seem to me, all you can affirm is that something is. — tim wood
Could you be specific here with an example?Several ways to go here. This one seems best: can you provide an example of an ontological conclusion? Beyond the obvious one of course: which I am thinking is the only possible one, namely that the thing considered is. — tim wood
But we have at least two parts to the overall philosophical project of ontology, on our preliminary understanding of it: first, say what there is, what exists, what the stuff is reality is made out of, secondly, say what the most general features and relations of these things are.
You could be an idealist, for example — Coben
The mere assumption/conclusion that there are subjects and objects is an onlological assumption/conclusion. — Coben
Could you be specific here with an example?.... It seems to me that scientists, for example, work with ontological conclusions. Not merely that things are - — Coben
Ontological proposition: Jupiter is. Going beyond that is going beyond ontology in terms of what "ontology" says. — tim wood
Do you mean every philosopher is an idealist, in the philosophical sene?Yes, but the question inquires after what I am not, not what I might be. Any rational agency demonstrating a faculty for discursive understanding is an idealist. — Mww
You really think you can have a language including categories of things (like judgments) without already having some kind of ontology? I can't see how that works. I don't see how you can decide how you can have knowledge of things, if you have no idea what things are. Since any epistemology is going to be designed to work GIVEN the way things are and how subjects relate to them and then what subjects are. There are chicken and egg aspects to this, and both likely came into being together and influenced each other.But it isn’t; one cannot assume anything without thinking something antecedent to it, and one cannot conclude anything that isn’t a judgement about something antecedent to it. Both thought and judgement are members of the epistemological domain, insofar as knowledge is its end. — Mww
If by 'from post-modern academics' you mean they consider he ding an sich the unknowable aspect ofthe external object, I am not sure why we need to assume they are right. But even that formulation has problems, since it posits external objects with aspects that are unknowable and then, ti would seem, other aspects that are knowable.The only reason for there to even be an ontological domain at all, is, initially, because the discursive understanding requires external objects to which its conceptions relate despite the impossibility of knowing the fundamental nature of such objects, and, more importantly, from post-modern academics, the invalid representation of the ding an sich as the unknowable aspect of any external object. — Mww
Yes. As noted above. There is the word, and how some people define the word. Two different things. And to my way of thinking, a good thing to remember when when people doing "ontology" claim that they're doing ontology.Not according to most definitions I find, including the one I quoted. — Coben
I don't get the scare quotes, how would you know, given what you've said, is going on in the external word. Those people would be part of the ding an sich. And also what they are doing is. And then even 'is' is utterly empty. I can understand a skeptical position not being convinced. I don't get on what ground you make assertions about things and people that are not you.a good thing to remember when when people doing "ontology" claim that they're doing ontology. — tim wood
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