Understanding Ontology: Being, Essence, and Existence
Understanding Ontology: Everything That Is
Ontology: Everything is what it is. What I can grasp through the capture of perception, touch, and sight may or may not coincide with reality. Let’s consider grasping reality as the things we see. That is something ontological because we know what we grasp. We reached it by perception.
For example, considering beings clarifies the reality we live in. We can think of things as real or unreal. We need terms to define the realities of dentistry, to define more clearly the real definitions. We need an ontology of terms that are part of technical and colloquial language.
Key Concepts in Ontology
Being: Has two meanings: one refers to existence (you are), and the other designates the relationship between a subject and a predicate (i.e., the apple is red).
Substance / Accident: The substance is what has its own existence (an object), and an accident, a quality, needs a substance to exist. (Example: we can say that “the car is red”; the car is the substance, and red is the accident, because no one has seen a color if it is not on an object.)
Matter / Form: Matter is what something is made of, and form is its structure. (e.g., a panel; the matter is the wood, and its shape is round.)
Essence / Existence: When something exists, it has its essence. It is one thing, and another is how we know it. Ontology is what something is, and how I know it is epistemology. For example, I know someone, but I know the being of each. Everyone can create their own world.
I know the being of a thing (a slate) and it may coincide with reality. Know her epistemology from ontology. Know it or not there are things out there. Ex: if I say k in Canada are to 20th bajo0 I have not seen xo can be real.
God as an Ontological Problem
If something is put there by something else, then everything has a cause (the principle of causality). An uncaused cause: For example, I break something; who broke it? Me! And the cause is that it is broken.
God moves without being moved, not the effect of any cause because he has no beginning or end. It is assumed there is no one more perfect than him because he is supreme, the cause of the causes, i.e., the first cause.
Methods of Inquiry
Maieutic Method: Extracting questions and answers.
Physical Methods (Empirical Experience) – Rational Reason: First empirical, then extractable and playable, so reasonable. From there, experience and get to know the truth.
Empirical Methods: The sciences are experiencing because they are empiricists. What can be seen today may be different tomorrow because of different experiences. Not everything can be proven definitively because you can see it one way and then another. For example, a universal thing, an experiment, can be real.
Transcendental Method: Based on your experience. Anything can be attached to a category (accidents…). Something is not experienced; that is, we classify it in something, playing with the mind, reason, and experience. Mentally, you put something in your experience. It is neither rational nor empirical, but a little of both. Take some of both. Accept reality and include a category. For example, classify beings as people and bikes as vehicles. The table is one thing, the chair is another… they do not serve the same purpose.
Methods and Models of Philosophical Knowledge
It analyzes the concepts that language uses, the delimiters. Control according to my conscience. When we are asleep, we can be playing something, but we are not aware. However, when we awaken and experience, we can touch, test, and try.
- Awareness of something experienced is something phenomenal.
- Analyze what is human and good.
- Precise linguistic concepts, defined.
- Notes are not abstract things; for example, you cannot observe the cause, but you can observe the board.
- Opposed to rationalism.