Showing papers on "Ontology (information science) published in 1985"

Parts and Moments: Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology

Abstract: Barry Smith and Kevin Mulligan Pieces of a Theory § 1 From Aristotle to Brentano § 2 Stumpf’s Theory of Psychological Parts § 3 Husserl’s 3rd Logical Investigation: Formal Ontology of the Part-Whole Relation § 4 The Theory of Material A priori Structures; Phenomenology and Formal Ontology § 5 The Influence of the Logical Investigations on Logical Grammar and Linguistics: Husserl and Leśniewski § 6 Further Developments: Kohler, Lewin, Rausch Notes

Plato's Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved

Abstract: The Description for this book, Plato's Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved, will be forthcoming.

Franz Brentano on the Ontology of Mind

Abstract: Franz Brentano’s ‘philosophy of mind’ still means, as far as most philosophers are concerned, no more than a peculiarly influential account of intentionality. In fact, in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Brentano has provided an account of mental phenomena which ranks with any to be found in the literature of philosophy. It differs as much from the conceptcentered Kantian approaches to ‘reason’ or ‘understanding’ as from more recent approaches, centred on the language used to report or to express ’propositional attitudes’, in being an ontology of mind, concerned with the description of the entities which are involved in mental experience and of the relations between them. With the posthumous publication of a series of lectures given in Vienna in 1890-91 we now possess a clear account of the ontology, and of the methods, underlying Brentano’s numerous and subtle descriptions of mental phenomena, at least at one highly fruitful stage in his career. What follows is a detailed exposition of this work, together with a brief critical coda. It is divided into the following parts:

The Ontology of Science: An Essay towards a Complete Description of the Universe

Abstract: L'A. propose une ontologie moniste fondee sur le concept d'" energie-idee ". Il vise a fournir une conception unifiee de l'univers qui depasse les divergences scientifiques a partir de bases metaphysiques

Ontology and Explanation in Historical Linguistics

Abstract: Watkins has argued forcefully and effectively that metaphysical principles can play important, influential and critical roles in unifying theoretical developments within particular traditions of empirical research.’ This insight has now become commonplace in the philosophy and history of science. Lakatos has insisted on the importance of ’hard-core’ assumptions in guiding and setting limits to developments in scientific research programmes, while Kuhn has argued that empirical research almost always takes place within a framework of unquestioned ‘paradigmatic’ assumptions about the phenomena under investigation.2 2 Lakatos’ discussion of these matters is particularly clear. He has argued that the metaphysical principles which unify developments in a particular research programme can play both positive and negative roles in influencing the conduct of research. ‘Hard-core’ metaphysical principles can play a positive, heuristic role in a research programme by providing a schematic model of the phenomena under investigation-a model which empirical research clarifies and specifies, but does not articulate ex nihilo.3 And these principles can play a negative, critical role by ruling out ’a priori’ certain conceivable alternative models of the phenomena under investigation.4 4

Ontology and Chicago Sociology: A New Approach to the History of Social Science

Abstract: It is a challenge even to summarize the goals of this complex and ambitious book, which constitutes the merger of two original dissertations on the history of sociology. Chapters 7-9 are drawn from Smith’s study of the small-group sociology of a sociology department, a tracing of personal contacts and remembered lines of influence among faculty and students at Chicago in the 1920s and early 1930s. The bulk of the book is taken up by various aspects of Lewis’ ‘metatheoretical’ study of major American pragmatists, classifying them according to their allegiance to realist or nominalist ontologies. Other chapters define the philosophical sources and orientations of Chicago sociology according to this basic ontological dichotomy, and the conclusion spins off many shrewd comments for the historian of ideas. Interwoven throughout the close analyses of ideas, and making the book difficult to judge and review, is a polemic against the nominalist ontologies of William James and (according to the authors) John Dewey. American sociology, we are led to believe, has been hindered by the heavy influence of James and Dewey and the symbolic interactionism of the Chicago School. This polemic against social nominalism and symbolic interactionism can be seen as another dimension in the broad crusade against the ’liberalism’ which is now seen as having dominated American thought until the last generation. ’Liberal’ modes of interpreting experience in individual and dynamic terms, rather than in terms of permanent structures, are increasingly