Formal Ontology

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

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 301
• Series: Nijhoff International Philosophy Series 53
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Formal ontology combines two ideas, one originating with Husserl, the other with Frege: that of ontology of the formal aspects of all objects, irrespective of their particular nature, and ontology pursued by employing the tools of modern formal disciplines, notably logic and semantics. These two traditions have converged in recent years and this is the first collection to encompass them as a whole in a single volume. It assembles essays from authors around the world already widely known for their work in formal ontology, and illustrates that through the application of formal methods the ancient discipline of ontology may be put on a firm methodological basis. The essays not only illuminate the nature of ontology and its relation to other areas, in language, logic and everyday life, but also demonstrate that common issues from the analytical and phenomenological traditions may be discussed without ideological barriers.
Audience: advanced students of and specialists in philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, computer science, database engineering.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-viii
Res, Ens and Aliquid ....Pages 1-26
Conceptual Realism as a Formal Ontology....Pages 27-60
The Way of Truth....Pages 61-130
Existence and Correspondence-to-Fact....Pages 131-158
A World of States of Affairs....Pages 159-171
A Formal Ontology of Situations....Pages 173-187
Attributives, Their First Denotative Correlates, Complex Predicates and Free Logics....Pages 189-198
Formal and Material Ontology....Pages 199-232
Physics and the Phenomenal World....Pages 233-253
Aspects of the Mereology of Artifacts....Pages 255-276
Physical Addition....Pages 277-288
Back Matter....Pages 289-296

✦ Subjects

Ontology; Logic; Metaphysics; Phenomenology