What is ontology?

Ontology: a term to express philosophical theory. It has its own significance in the history of western philosophy and China's philosophy. In the history of western philosophy, it refers to the theory of existence, its essence and laws. The word "ontology" comes from Latin on (existence, existence, existence) and ontos (existence). German scholastic scholar Guo Kranuel (1547- 1628) used the word "ontology" for the first time in his works and interpreted it as a synonym for metaphysics. Some schools of philosophy in the modern west are divorced from the objective material world and talk about the existence and essence of the world from an abstract concept. They separate ontology from epistemology and logic, and regard it as the foundation or independent branch of all philosophy.

In ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, the study of ontology is mainly to explore the origin or matrix of the world. Philosophers of various schools try to attribute the existence of the world to some material and spiritual entity or some abstract principle. Parmenides put forward the only unchangeable primitive "existence", which made the study of existence the theme of this period. Aristotle believes that the main object of philosophical research is entity, and the problem of entity or ontology is about essence, phase and individual things. He thinks that the philosophy of studying entity or noumenon is the first philosophy above all other sciences. Since then, the study of ontology has turned to explore the relationship between essence and phenomenon, * * and supernormal, and general and individual. In modern western philosophy, Descartes first called the first philosophy of studying entity or ontology "metaphysical ontology". During the 17~ 18 century, Leibniz and his successor Wolff tried to establish a complete set of metaphysics about general existence and the nature of the world, that is, an independent ontological system. Wolff regarded the general and the Jin Dynasty as the essence and reason of being divorced from the individual, single and independent. On the one hand, Kant believes that it is impossible to establish an abstract ontology, which can only study the universal essence of things and the difference between material existence and spiritual existence; On the other hand, ontology is replaced by a transcendental philosophical system separated from epistemology. Hegel put forward the unified principle of ontology, epistemology and logic on the basis of idealism, and constructed the logical system of dialectical development of existence itself from the concept of pure existence.

In modern western philosophy, some schools (positivism, analytical philosophy, etc. ) Oppose any metaphysics and ontology. However, some people try to re-establish the ontology of existentialism, such as Husserl's transcendental ontology, Heidegger's basic ontology and Hartmann's critical ontology. They often rely on extrasensory and irrational intuition to establish a conceptual system. Their views are idealistic or agnostic and are often associated with wrong social views, which are supported by religious philosophy.

In China's ancient philosophy, ontology is called "Fundamentalism", which refers to the theory of exploring the root causes and basis of the emergence, existence, development and change of all things in the world. Ancient philosophers in China generally attributed the origin of the universe to something completely different from the universe, which can be roughly divided into three categories: (1) substances with no fixed form, such as "Qi"; (2) abstract concepts or principles such as "nothing" and "reason"; (3) Subjective spirit, such as "mind". These three viewpoints belong to simple materialism, objective idealism and subjective idealism respectively. In the study of the history of China's philosophy, some scholars use the word "ontology" to refer to the idealistic theory of finding the basis of the existence of the material world outside the material world, such as Wang Bi's "Gui Hu" in the Wei and Jin Dynasties.