What is ontology?
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It’s a category of philosophy that attempts to rationalize what reality actually *is* rather than what it *appears* to be.
Ontology is the branch of philosophy that tries to nail down what exactly *exists*. For example, is a “rock” an object, or is it just an apparent collection of smaller objects. Is there such a thing as a fundamental object? Can a bunch of objects combined together be considered a truly new object unto itself?
Ontology is the study of that which is, insofar as it is, in one way of putting it. : )
Is a pencil a thing?
Is a triangle a thing? Or is it just three lines and we supply the meaning?
Everybody knows what a triangle is, even if there is no triangle around to refer to. What’s up with that? What is the difference between a concept and an entity?
The Greeks were fascinated by studying categories, thinking about the relationships and structures among concepts and entities, what we today call taxonomy. These matters form much of the basis of Western thought.
This is just me, I’m no philosopher, I just think about this stuff a lot. Ontology is very interesting. We need to understand how we _think_ about entities and concepts and terms in order to better understand those things _themselves_, and not considering ontology limits and traps our understanding.
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