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What There is, How Things Are
Author(s) -
Ossorio Peter
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal for the theory of social behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.615
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5914
pISSN - 0021-8308
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5914.00032
Subject(s) - ontology , metaphysics , epistemology , object (grammar) , state (computer science) , process (computing) , event (particle physics) , sociology , computer science , philosophy , artificial intelligence , physics , algorithm , quantum mechanics , operating system
Ontology is critically assessed as being too narrowly based to contribute substantially to our understanding of the real world. Ontology reflects only what amounts to an extended notion of an object, whereas understanding the real world requires, in addition, the concepts of process, event, and state of affairs. Formal relationships among the four reality concepts are presented and the privileging of any one of them is rejected, the use of the |State of Affairs System (the conceptual system encompassing objects, processes, events and states of affairs) leads to a parsimonious formulation of the nature of persons as states of affairs rather than objects. In passing, the notion that states of affairs cannot be located is rejected and the significance of the State of Affairs System for scientific and metaphysical theorizing is noted.