In search of a framework - ontology

Ontology is the theory of objects and their ties. The unfolding of ontology provides criteria for distinguishing various types of objects (concrete and abstract, existent and non-existent, real and ideal, independent and dependent) and their ties (relations, dependences and predication).

Branch of metaphysics concerned with identifying, in the most general terms, the kinds of things that actually exist. Thus, the "ontological commitments" of a philosophical position include both its explicit assertions and its implicit presuppositions about the existence of entities, substances, or beings of particular kinds.

Examples of ontological questions include:

1. What is existence?
2. What are physical objects?
3. What are the essential, as opposed to merely accidental, attributes of a given object?
4. What constitutes the identity of an object?
5. Can one give an account of what it means to say that a physical object exists?
6. What are an object's properties or relations and how are they related to the object itself?
7. Is existence a property?
8. When does an object go out of existence, as opposed to merely changing?
9. Why does something exist rather than nothing?

Social science

Social scientists adopt one of two main ontological approaches: realism (the idea that facts are out there just waiting to be discovered), nomanalism (the idea that the social worked external to individual cognitions made up of nothing more than names, concepts and labels which are used to structure reality).

Nominalism is best understood in contrast to realism. Philosophical realism holds that when we use descriptive terms such as "green" or "tree," the Forms of those concepts really exist, independently of world in an abstract realm. Such thought is associated with Plato. Nominalism, by contrast, holds that ideas represented by words have no real existence beyond our imaginations.

nominalism

Belief that only particular things exist, as opposed to realism. Nominalists hold that a general term or name {Lat. nomine} is applied to individuals that resemble each other, without the need of any reference to an independently existing universal. Prominent representatives of this view include Ockham, Berkeley, and Goodman.

realism

Belief that universals exist independently of the particulars that instantiate them. Realists hold that each general term signifies a real feature or quality, which is numerically the same in all the things to which that term applies. Thus, opposed to nominalism.

I believe...

I believe there is a world external to the individual, it is a real world made up of hard tangible and relatively immutable structures. Whether or not we label and perceive these structures, they still exist as empirical entitles – we may not even be aware of the existence of crucial structures and therefore have no “names” or concepts to articulate them.

This goes to the second story I posted about the tree falling in the woods. Even if man were not here to perceive life, it would still exist.

I also believe that human brains have developed in such a way that allows us to communicate about our existence through complex system of communication. Our ability to represent this complexity is matched by our abstract thinking and development of language.

I tend to side with realism, but as a postmodern man, I can not easily dismiss nominalism, as this dose establish the social structures that define reality. The yellow star is where I see myself on this continuum.