Card 1.1 · Root I — Metaphysics
Ontology
What is there?
Ontology is the study of what kinds of thing exist, and of what it takes for something to count as existing at all.
On this card
Where it sits
Root I Metaphysics. Parent of 1.1.1 Substance Theory, 1.1.2 Universals and Particulars, 1.1.3 Mereology, 1.1.4 Abstract Objects. Borders 1.6 Modality, 6.9 Philosophy of Mathematics.
New to metaphysics? Read the guide
Narrower questions under this one:
- 1.1.1 Substance Theory Is a river a thing, or an event?
- 1.1.2 Universals and Particulars A tomato and a fire engine are both red. Is there something they share?
- 1.1.3 Mereology When do some things make one thing?
- 1.1.4 Abstract Objects Does the number seven exist?
The rival answers
One useful way to read this table is as a question about inventory length: how many fundamental kinds must reality contain? Materialism, idealism and neutral monism all answer one, and differ over what that one kind is. Some positions pursue ontological parsimony; others accept a larger inventory because they regard the distinctions as irreducible.
| Position | What it admits exists |
|---|---|
| Materialism | Physical things only |
| Idealism | Minds and their contents only |
| Dualism | Both, irreducibly |
| Neutral monism | One kind of stuff, neither mental nor physical |
| Pluralism | Several irreducible kinds |
Where do you stand?
What is there?
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Key figures
| Figure | Dates | Tradition | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parmenides | c. 515–450 BCE | Greek | What is, is ungenerated and unchanging; how this bears on the experienced world of change is disputed |
| Aristotle | 384–322 BCE | Greek | Categories of being; substance as primary |
| Nagarjuna | c. 150–250 CE | Indian Buddhist | Phenomena lack intrinsic nature (svabhāva) because they arise dependently; emptiness is not non-existence |
| Ibn Sina | 980–1037 | Islamic | Essence and existence are distinct |
| W. V. O. Quine | 1908–2000 | Analytic | "To be is to be the value of a variable": a theory is committed to what its bound variables must range over |
| Śaṅkara | c. 8th c. CE | Indian | Advaita: brahman alone is ultimately real; empirical plurality has conventional reality |
| Laozi | trad. 6th c. BCE | Chinese | The nameable is grounded in the nameless Dao, and being in non-being |
| Martin Heidegger | 1889–1976 | Continental | The question of Being itself, as distinct from any being, forgotten by the tradition |
Also on this question: Madhva Rāmānuja Uddālaka Āruṇi Wang Bi
Talk about it here
Conversations about this question in Existence & being:
- If the One cannot be described, how did Plotinus manage to write so much about it? 6 replies
- Reading group: Porphyry’s Isagoge and the three questions he refused to answer 6 replies
- Rāmānuja’s question ‘whose ignorance?’ is the objection Advaita never answered 6 replies
- Reading group: A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (1936), chapters 1, 2, 4 and 6 6 replies
- Is Yogācāra “consciousness-only” idealism? Three readings and a false friend 6 replies
Join free to ask about it Everything in Existence & being
Connections
→ 1.1.1, 1.1.2 · ↔ 1.6 Modality, 6.9 Philosophy of mathematics · ◇ materialism, idealism, dualism, neutral monism, pluralism · ○ Axial Age; Table 1
→ depends on · ↔ borders: genuine overlap, neither prior · ◇ answered by: points from question to answers · ○ appears in: points to the timeline and the comparisons
The full card is in the book
In The Coordinates of Thought this card goes on to a worked example that sets the answers against one case, and to where the question touches daily life — page 22.