With the Ontological Turn, the development of ontological researches in the analytical area has been characterized by an increasing number of hypotheses and methods of investigation. The consequent plurality of positions has not prevented the establishing of a generally shared meaning of the term "ontology", which may be thought as denoting that philosophical discipline concerned with the question of what there is. Accordingly, part of the ontological inquiry is devoted to that of drafting a complete and detailed inventory of the universe, by specifying the basic constituents of reality and their structural relationships. In this context, some authors have also emphasized a strong connection between ontological researches and the scientific disciplines, which has allowed to make explicit the ontological assumptions of these non-philosophical fields. Among others, E.J. Lowe has conceived ontology as that part of metaphysics aimed at rendering mutually consistent the partial descriptions of reality that emerge from the various sciences, in order to provide a unitary description of reality as a whole. Thus, he has proposed a four-category ontology that has the task of offering an exhaustive inventory of what there is and an explanatory framework for a metaphysical foundation for natural science. All this considered, the aim of this article is to reconstruct the fundamental premises and topics of Lowe's ontological proposal and to show a possible criticism based on the relationship, he endorses, between ontology and empirical sciences.

The Riddle of Reality

TAMBASSI T
2018-01-01

Abstract

With the Ontological Turn, the development of ontological researches in the analytical area has been characterized by an increasing number of hypotheses and methods of investigation. The consequent plurality of positions has not prevented the establishing of a generally shared meaning of the term "ontology", which may be thought as denoting that philosophical discipline concerned with the question of what there is. Accordingly, part of the ontological inquiry is devoted to that of drafting a complete and detailed inventory of the universe, by specifying the basic constituents of reality and their structural relationships. In this context, some authors have also emphasized a strong connection between ontological researches and the scientific disciplines, which has allowed to make explicit the ontological assumptions of these non-philosophical fields. Among others, E.J. Lowe has conceived ontology as that part of metaphysics aimed at rendering mutually consistent the partial descriptions of reality that emerge from the various sciences, in order to provide a unitary description of reality as a whole. Thus, he has proposed a four-category ontology that has the task of offering an exhaustive inventory of what there is and an explanatory framework for a metaphysical foundation for natural science. All this considered, the aim of this article is to reconstruct the fundamental premises and topics of Lowe's ontological proposal and to show a possible criticism based on the relationship, he endorses, between ontology and empirical sciences.
2018
978-3868382136
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11386/4728629
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