Ontology

(on, ontos, being, and logos, science, the science or philosophy of being).

I. DEFINITION

Though the term is used in this literal meaning by Clauberg (1625-1665) (Opp., p.

281), its special application to the first department of metaphysics was made by

Christian von Wolff (1679-1754) (Philos. nat., sec. 73). Prior to this time "the

science of being" had retained the titles given it by its founder Aristotle: "first

philosophy", "theology", "wisdom". The term "metaphysics" (q.v.) was given a

wider extension by Wolff, who divided "real philosophy" into general

metaphysics, which he called ontology, and special, under which he included

cosmology, psychology, and theodicy. This programme has been adopted with

little variation by most Catholic philosophers. The subject-matter of ontology is

usually arranged thus:

1.The objective concept of being in its widest range, as embracing the

actual and potential, is first analyzed, the problems concerned with

essence (nature) and existence, "act" and "potency" are discussed, and

the primary principles -- contradiction, identity, etc. -- are shown to

emerge from the concept of entity.

2.The properties coextensive with being -- unity, truth, and goodness, and

their immediately associated concepts, order and beauty -- are next

explained.

3.The fundamental divisions of being into the finite and the infinite, the

contingent and the necessary, etc., and the subdivisions of the finite into

the categories (q.v.) substance and its accidents (quantity, quality, etc.)

follow in turn -- the objective -- reality of substance, the meaning of

personality, the relation of accidents (q.v.) to substance being the most

prominent topics.

4.The concluding portion of ontology is usually devoted to the concept of

cause and its primary divisions -- efficient and final, material and formal

--the objectivity and analytical character of the principle of causality

receiving most attention.

Ontology is not a subjective science as Kant describes it (Ub. d. Fortschr. d.

Met., 98) nor "an inferential Psychology", as Hamilton regards it (Metaphysics,

Lect. VII); nor yet a knowledge of the absolute (theology); nor of some ultimate

reality whether conceived as matter or as spirit, which Monists suppose to

underlie and produce individual real beings and their manifestations. Ontology is

a fundamental interpretation of the ultimate constituents of the world of

experience. All these constituents -- individuals with their attributes -- have

factors or aspects in common. The atom and the molecule of matter, the plant,

the animal, man, and God agree in this that each is a being, has a characteristic

essence, an individual unity, truth, goodness, is a substance and (God excepted)

has accidents, and is or may be a cause. All these common attributes demand

definition and explanation -- definition not of their mere names, but analysis of the

real object which the mind abstracts and reflectively considers. Ontology is

therefore the fundamental science since it studies the basal constituents and the

principles presupposed by the special sciences. All the other parts of

philosophy, cosmology, psychology, theodicy, ethics, even logic, rest on the

foundation laid by ontology. The physical sciences -- physics, chemistry,

biology, mathematics likewise, presuppose the same foundations. Nevertheless

ontology is dependent in the order of analysis, though not in the order of

synthesis, on these departments of knowledge; it starts from their data and uses

their information in clarifying their presuppositions and principles. Ontology is

accused of dealing with the merely abstract. But all science is of the abstract,

the universal, not of the concrete and individual. The physical sciences abstract

the various phenomena from their individual subjects; the mathematical sciences

abstract the quantity -- number and dimensions -- from its setting. Ontology

finally abstracts what is left -- the essence, existence, substance, causalty, etc.

It is idle to say that of these ultimate abstractions we can have no distinct

knowledge. The very negation of their knowableness shows that the mind has

some knowledge of that which it attempts to deny. Ontology simply endeavours

to make that rudimentary knowledge more distinct and complete. There is a

thoroughly developed ontology in every course of Catholic philosophy; and to its

ontology that philosophy owes its definiteness and stability, while the lack of an

ontology in other systems explains their vagueness and instability.

II. HISTORY

It was Aristotle who first constructed a well-defined and developed ontology. In

his "Metaphysics" he analyses the simplest elements to which the mind reduces

the world of reality. The medieval philosophers make his writings the groundwork

of their commentaries in which they not only expand and illustrate the thought,

but often correct and enrich it in the light of Revelation. Notable instances are St.

Thomas Aquinas and Suarez (1548-1617). The "Disputationes Metaphysicae" of

the latter is the most thorough work on ontology in any language. The

Aristotelean writings and the Scholastic commentaries are its groundwork and

largely its substance; but it amplifies and enriches both. The work of Father

Harper mentioned below attempts to render it available for English readers. The

author's untimely death, however, left the attempt far from its prospected ending.

The movement of the mind towards the physical sciences -- which was largely

stimulated and accelerated by Bacon -- carried philosophy away from the more

abstract truth. Locke, Hume, and their followers denied the reality of the object of

ontology. We can know nothing, they held, of the essence of things; substance

is a mental figment, accidents are subjective aspects of an unknowable

noumenon; cause is a name for a sequence of phenomena. These negations

have been emphasized by Comte, Huxley, and Spencer.

On the other hand the subjective and psychological tendencies of Descartes and

his followers dimmed yet more the vision for metaphysical truth. Primary notions

and principles were held to be either forms innate in the mind or results of its

development, but which do not express objective reality. Kant, analysing the

structure of the cognitive faculties -- perception, judgment, reasoning -- discovers

in them innate forms that present to reflection aspects of phenomena which

appear to be the objective realities, being, substance, cause, etc., but which in

truth are only subjective views evoked by sensory stimuli. The subject matter of

Ontology is thus reduced to the types which the mind, until checked by

criticism, projects into the external world. Between these two extremes of

Empiricism and Idealism the traditional philosophy retains the convictions of

common sense and the subtle analysis of the Scholastics. Being, essence,

truth, substance, accident, cause, and the rest, are words expressing ideas but

standing for realities. These realities are objective aspects of the individuals that

strike the senses and the intellect. They exist concretely outside of the mind,

not, of course, abstractly as they are within. They are the ultimate elementary

notes or forms which the mind intuitively discerns, abstracts, and reflectively

analyses in its endeavour to comprehend fundamentally any object. In this

reflective analysis it must employ whatever information it can obtain from

empirical psychology. Until recently this latter auxiliary has been insufficiently

recognized by the philosophers. The works, however, of Maher and Walker

mentioned below manifest a just appreciation of the importance of psychology's

cooperation in the study of ontology.

CATHOLIC: HARPER, The Metaphysics of the School (London, 1879-84); DE WULF, Scholasticism

Old and New, tr. COFFEY (Dublin, 1907); PERRIER, The revival of Scholastic Philosophy in the

Nineteenth Century (New York, 1909) (full bibliography); RICKABY, General Metaphysics (London,

1898); WALKER, Theories of Knowledge (London, 1910); MAHER, Psychology (London, 1903);

BALMES, Fundamental Philosophy (tr., New York, 1864); TURNER, History of Philosophy (Boston,

1903); MERCIER, Ontologie (Louvain, 1905); DOMET DE VORGES, Abrege de metaphysique

(Paris, 1906); DE REGNON, Metaphysique des causes (Paris, 1906); GUTBERLET, Allgemeine

Metaphysik (Munster, 1897); URRABURU, Institutiones philosophiae (Valladolid, 1891); BLANC,

Dictionnaire de philosophie (Paris, 1906). NON-CATHOLIC: MCCOSH, First and Fundamental

Truths (New York, 1894); IDEM, The Intuitions of the Mind" (New York, 1880); LADD, Knowledge,

Life and Reality (New York, 1909); TAYLOR, Elements of Metaphysics (London, 1903);

WINDELBAND, History of Philosophy (tr., New York, 1901); BALDWIN, Dictionary of Philosophy and

Psychology (New York, 1902); EISLER, Worterbuch der philos. Begriffe (Berlin, 1904).

F. P. Siegfried

Transcribed by Robert H. Sarkissian

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI

Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org