Formal Ontology

301 Pages·1996·6.111 MB·English

by  Roberto Poli (auth.), Roberto Poli, Peter Simons (eds.)

FORMAL ONTOLOGY
Nijhoff International Philosophy Series
VOLUME 53
General Editor: JAN T. J. SRZEDNICKI
Editor for volumes on Applying Philosophy: ROBERTO POLl
Editor for volumes on Logic and Applying Logic: STANISI:,AW J. SURMA
Editor for volumes on Contributions to Philosophy: JAN T. J. SRZEDNICKI
Assistant to the General Editor: DAV ID WOOD
Editorial Advisory Board:
L. Broughton (University of Cambridge); R.M. Chisholm (Brown University,
Rhode Island); Mats Furberg (Goteborg University); S. Komer (University of
Bristol and Yale University); R.J. McCloskey (La Trobe University, Bundoora,
Melbourne); J. Passmore (Australian National University, Canberra); A. Quinton
(Trinity College, Oxford); Franco Spisani (Centro Superiore di Logica e Scienze
Comparate, Bologna); R. Ziedins (Waikato University, New Zealand)
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
Formal Ontology
edited by
Roberto Poll
Department of Sociology and Social Research,
Trento, Italy
and
Peter Simons
Department ofP hilosophy,
Leeds, United Kingdom
Springer -Science+ Business Media, B. V.
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 978-90-481-4718-2 ISBN 978-94-015-8733-4 (eBook)
DOl 10.1007/978-94-015-8733-4
© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1996.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1996
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
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retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD Vll
ROBERTO POLl / Res, Ens and Aliquid
NINO B. COCCHIARELLA / Conceptual Realism as a Fonnal Ontology 27
JERZY PERZANOWSKI / The Way of Truth 61
FRED SOMMERS / Existence and Correspondence-to-Fact 131
DAVID M. ARMSTRONG / A World of States of Affairs 159
MIECZYSLA W OMYLA / A Formal Ontology of Situations 173
KAREL LAMBERT / Attributives, their First Denotative Correlates,
Complex Predicates and Free Logics 189
LILIANA ALBERTAZZI / Fonnal and Material Ontology 199
JEAN PETITOT AND BARRY SMTIH / Physics and the Phenomenal
World 233
PETER M. SIMONS AND CHARLES W. DEMENT / Aspects of the
Mereology of Artifacts 255
INGV AR JOHANSSON I Physical Addition 277
INDEX OF NAMES 289
FOREWORD
The idea of a formal ontology arose around the turn of the present century in
the work of Edmund Husserl. It coincides in many respects with what is
nowadays sometimes called 'analytic metaphysics' or with attempts to use for-
mal methods to solve classical philosophical problems relating to the notions of
being, object, state of affairs, existence, property, relation, universal, particular,
substance, accident, part, boundary, measure, causality, and so on. Formal on-
tology thus includes several sub-disciplines, of which the most developed is the
theory of part and whole, as sketched by Husserl in the third of his Logical
Investigations and later worked out as a formal theory by Lesniewski. Formal-
ontological ideas are present also in much contemporary work on naIve physics
and in the formal theories of the common-sense world canvassed by workers in
the field of artificial intelligence research.
The idea of a formal ontology is placed in a network of conceptual oppo-
sitions: it admits of different senses according to which of its two constituent
elements is given priority. If the emphasis is placed on 'ontology' then the
principal distinction is between 'formal' and 'material' (that is between 'formal
ontology' and 'material ontology'); if instead the emphasis falls on 'formal',
the contrast is between 'ontology' and 'logic' (,formal ontology' vs. 'formal
logic'). This situation raises some important questions: When one speaks of
'ontology', how can its formal aspects be distinguished from its material ones?
When we talk about the 'formal', how can we distinguish between logic and
ontology?
vii
viii
The papers collected in this volume present a wide range of proposals about
many aspects of formal ontology. The notions of being and object are analyzed
by Poli, Cocchiarella, and Perzanowski; the notion of existence is considered
by Sommers and Lambert; state of affairs, facts and situations are discussed by
Sommers, Armstrong and Omyla; predicates are analyzed by Lambert and
Cocchiarella; the difference between formal and material ontology is mainly
considered by Albertazzi and by Smith and Petitot; these latter consider also
naIve physics; the concept of part is discussed by Simons and Dement; the
concept of measure by Johansson. But many other aspects are also considered
and discussed. As a collection the papers indicate the scope, liveliness, and
applicability of formal ontology.
The first idea for this volume arose out of the International Summer School
in Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence on 'Formal Ontology', organized in
Bolzano (Italy), 1-5 July 1991, by the Central European Institute of Culture.
Our thanks go to the President of the Institute, Professor Claudio Nolet, for his
constant and valuable support.
The Editors
ROBERTO POLl
RES, ENS AND ALIQUID
1. Introduction*
There are conceptual distinctions that have been repeatedly introduced into
philosophical reflection and that have been correspondingly disappeared into
nothingness without leaving a visible trace of their presence. The systematic
constant disappearance of these distinctions after short periods of presence
means perhaps that it is a question of false distinctions. But the fact that they
keep on appearing again in different philosophical contexts, theories and sys-
tems perhaps sends us back to the presence of a theoretical impasse or of a
conceptual knot which is not solved yet.
The distinction which we are talking about in this article deals with the the-
sis that the realms of being are three and not, as we usually believe, two. That
is to say that, according to the thesis we are going to discuss, it is not enough to
distinguish between concrete and abstract, complete and incomplete, individual
and general, but we must proceed to a tripartitioned consideration of the realms
of ontology. The thesis we are presenting was suggested, among others, also by
schools or scholars who are as different as the Stoics in ancient philosophy,
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and Gregory of Rimini (1300-1358) in the
Medieval period, Meinong (1853-1920) in contemporary philosophy. Stoics
talk of it as of the distinction among soma, on and ti; Thomas distinguishes the
natures of things into singular, abstract and absolute natures; Gregory of
Rimini distinguishes res, ens and aliquid; finally, Meinong distinguishes a
realm of being in a strict sense, including real and ideal objects, from a realm
of Aussersein, including pure objects.
* I would like to thank in particular Massimo Libardi for his helpful remarks on earlier
versions of this paper. I would also thank Liliana Albertazzi, Nino Cocchiarella, Rudolf Haller,
Jerzy Perzanowski and Barry Smith for their comments on an earlier version of this paper.
R. Poli and P. Simons, Formal Ontology, 1-26.
© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
2 ROBERTO POLl
Schematically:
(i) The three types of entity considered by the Stoics are the soma or the indi-
vidual, effectively existing body, the on or entity, and the ti or something inde-
terminate. That which actually exists, the genuine object, is only the soma. An
entity, by contrast, could well be asomaton or incorporeal. Thus while the soma
is subject to the principle of individuation, the on admits at most some criterion
of identity, and the ti admits neither identity nor individuation.l For them the
on can be objective without having to be existent, a soma.
ii) For Thomas, singular nature is the primary, individual substance; abstract
nature is due to intellect and concerns the conceptual consideration of individ-
ual substance; finally, nature that is absolutely considered deals with the
essential constituents of individual nature, its definitory characteristics. The
latter is considered, Thomas says, "in statu differentiae vel solitudinis",2 i.e.
without considering its exemplifiability or insertibility into a structured theory
or context.
(iii) The distinction introduced by Gregory originates from the questions 'What
do we know?', 'What is the object of knowledge?'; questions that are posed
within a theory that states that (i) the object of knowledge is a complex (= a
proposition) because only complexes can be true or false, and that (ii) we gain
knowledge of it through analysis (= demonstration). In his early writings Gre-
gory argued that the object of knowledge was neither (1) the conclusion of a
demonstration, nor (2) the external thing, but (3) the meaning of the conclu-
sion. One may object, however, that the meaning of the conclusion is either an
object or it is nothing. If it is nothing, knowledge has no object. If it is an ob-
ject, it is either a mental or a non-mental object. If it is non-mental, it is a thing
external to the mind, and this confutes the thesis (2). If it is mental, it is either a
term or a proposition. If it is a term, it cannot be true or false, and it is therefore
not an object of knowledge. If it is a proposition, it is the conclusion of a
demonstration, and this confutes thesis (l).3 To save his theory from collapse,
Gregory distinguished three kinds of object: the aliquid, which denotes every
thing, simple or complex, true or false; the ens, which denotes only true things;
and the res, which denotes only the existent.4 The meaning of a proposition is
I Laerzio 1925, ch. VII. See Melandri 1989,69-70.
2 Thomas, Quod. VIII, g.1 a. 1; De ente et essentia, ch. 4. Cited by Fausti 1947, 73-4.
3 Elie 1936,26.
4 Gregory refers his theory directly to Aristotle. Cf. Aristotle, Categories, 12b 6-15 and
Metaphysics, 7,1017 31-34. See Elie 1936,27-8.