Related
Questions:
§ Discuss
critically the crisis unleashed on humanity by the traditional treatment of
ontology.
§ The
traditional treatment of ontology set the stage for conflict and terrorism.
Discuss.
Other
Possible Questions: (their
answers are to be found in this write-up)
§ Define
ontology and explain what it means and what it does not mean.
§ What
is the Parmenidian thesis of ontology and how did Leibniz and Hegel respond to
this thesis.
§ What
are the two senses of metaphysics which have been confused in the treatment of
ontology? Explain these two senses in relation to pure ontology and regional
ontology.
§ Explain
the fundamental problems encountered in the traditional treatment of ontology.
THE CONCEPT OF ONTOLOGY
What
is ontology? Naturally, we would be expecting a straightforward answer to this
question that nails it on the head. But the truth is, the concept of ontology
is very difficult to define because it concerns something that is abstract and
universal. What is this thing that ontology is concerned with? The answer; “Being”.
Accordingly, for the sake of simplicity ontology can be defined as the study of being. In its most
fundamental sense, being implies “the ability, possibility and actuality of
existence”. Hence, ontology as the study of being does not refer to how a
particular thing exists. Ontology does not concern itself with the existence of
this or that element or entity, like a particular country or human being or
technology. Precisely, ontology concerns itself with the concept of existence
in general. It has a universal nature and this is why it is very difficult to
understand or comprehend. In philosophical language, ontology can be simply
defined as follows;
§ The
study of being
§ The
study of pure being (the essence of being itself)
§ The
study of being precisely as being (being qua being)§ The study of what it means to be
§ The study of what it means to be at all
Aside from the fact
that ontology in itself is a difficult concept to define, the problem of defining
it was and is compounded more by the way it was articulated by the ancient and
medieval scholars. The wrong manner in which these scholars have treated
ontology is what is being referred to as “the traditional treatment of
ontology”. This traditional treatment of ontology is what has formed in men’s
minds, the basic ideology of what ontology entails. Since the foundation is
faulty, whatever follows from it must be faulty too. Proof of its being faulty
is amongst others, the fact that it has encouraged crisis, conflict, strife and
terrorism.
THE TRADITIONAL TREATMENT OF ONTOLOGY
The traditional treatment of ontology is
simply all about a historical evaluation of how some philosophers have treated
and conceptualised the problem of being. In this regard we would begin with Parmenides
- a pre-Socratic thinker of idealist persuasion;
§ The
Parmenidian thesis of ontology
The thesis of Parmenides
on being is stated thus; “Being, the one,
is, and becoming, change, is illusion. For if anything comes to be, then it
comes either out of being or out of not-being. If being, then it already is, in
which case it does not come to be; if not-being, then it is nothing, since out
of nothing comes nothing”. In simple language, the meaning of the above
ontological jargon by Parmenides is that, “Being, which he also calls the
one, exists in reality; becoming, which he also calls change, is an
illusion and is therefore not real. As it were, if anything exists in reality,
its existence must proceed either from being or not-being. If we agree that it
proceeds from being, then, it means it has already been existing, and it does
not have to exist again (saying this would be a contradiction); on the other
hand, if we agree that it proceeds from not-being, then, it means that it is
nothing itself, as it is only nothing that can come out of nothing".
The major thing that really concerns Parmenides here is the reality of
"is-ness" or "it is", which is a very solid and cogent fact
that something is, or that things (being in general) exists. His thesis shows
that being is fundamentally relevant to every other thing that exists, as they
all proceed from it. So, all that exists is a part of being or is being itself.
In addition, if his above argument on being were to be accepted as true, then
it is impossible for non-being (or what we call nothing) to exist. This is true
because it is not possible for nothing to be the product of something.
Furthermore, based on his argument, the concept of change would also be
an error, because change implies that the nature of a thing must be altered.
Parmenides' thesis is in line with the law of identity in logic that says
"if a thing is A, for it to be considered as a true statement, it must
always remain A till infinity". But, the concept of change implies an
alteration in the nature of being, such that it has a nature of many forms
(plurality). This makes the idea of change to be an illusion because being is
all that exists, nature is a unity, reality is one phenomenon; so, there is
nothing for it to change to; being is being.
Nevertheless, from the foregoing argument of Parmenidian ontology, a very
sensitive issue arises due to the way he compares “being” and “non-being”, the
"it is" and the "it is not", the “one” and the “many” simultaneously.
The issue here is that Parmenides talks of non-being as though it were not relevant
or important in ontology. His act of asserting being and also denying non-being
at the same time, and with such strictness, shows that both ontological
concepts are compulsorily interconnected. Therefore, as it were, it is not
possible to speak of being without making reference to non-being; to think of
the "it is" without considering the "it is not"; to analyse
"the one" without involving an idea of "the many".
Ontologically speaking, no concept lives in isolation without an opposite or a
counterpart, as reality is intrinsically dualistic; there would always be two
sides of a coin.
§ The response of Leibniz and Hegel in line with the Parmenidian-ontological thesis
As the eras or philosophy progressed, the
concept of being was still discussed by some other philosophers. Leibniz
specifically restructured the Parmenidian-ontological thesis on being by asking
the following question, “why is there something, instead of nothing?”
Even so, Hegel categorically postulated that both being and non-being belong together;
for even though they contradict one another by belonging to opposing camps,
they are nonetheless reconciled at a higher level of synthesis in reality. From
the foregoing, it is philosophically clear that in the nature of reality, the
discourse of being (something) will always touch on matters of non-being
(nothing); they are inseparable.
THE CONFUSION CAUSED BY THE TRADITIONAL TREATMENT OF ONTOLOGY
Precisely,
it is the abstract postulations of the Greek philosophers on the nature of
reality (as exemplified by Parmenides) that created the problem of being.
Already, it has been shown that the talk of being cannot make sense without the
talk of non-being; hence, they cannot be separated from each other.
Nevertheless, the Parmenidian discourse on being is a traditional effort to
suppress the concept of non-being in preference to being. But, the problem with
this is that, it has made the discourse on “being” (which is strictly the task
of ontology a.k.a. Metaphysica generalis) to be reduced to the discourse on
“beings” (which is the task of the regional ontologies a.k.a. Metaphysica
specialis). Accordingly, the traditional treatment of ontology brought
confusion into these two senses of ontology, and this then introduced crisis (in
the form of conflict, strife and terrorism) into the world. We would discuss
how this has happened, but let us first explain these two senses of ontology;
§ The two senses of
ontology
In his book “metaphysics”, Aristotle
makes it clear that the two senses of ontology has to do with the fundamental
difference between “what is” and “what it means for what is to be”. These
two senses of ontology/metaphysics are;
i.
Metaphysica
generalis
This is metaphysics as it pertains to the
study of “pure being”; it represents the primary business of philosophy. Its
task is to study “being qua being”; to investigate “what it means for what is to be”. Thus, Ontology, a.k.a Metaphysica
Generalis is professional metaphysics (the real or raw metaphysics). Its main
vocation is to study being in the widest, most general and universal sense. It
wants to study and explain those particular elements that transcend all beings.
Therefore, ontology in this sense, by examining the general structures of the
world, does provide a laying ground, a foundation from which other sciences
(Metaphysica specialis) can take their rise or footing.
ii. Metaphysica specialis
Metaphysics in this second sense
investigates “what is”. Accordingly,
Metaphysica specialis refers to the regional ontologies or specialized sciences
i.e. a search for “what is” in this
or that aspect of reality. The specialized sciences which deals with particular
aspects of “what is” are the likes of Literature, History, Theology, Sociology,
Physics, Geography, Psychology, Economics, Political Science, Astronomy,
Mathematics, Chemistry and so on and so forth. In essence, any discipline which
tries to explain “what is” in any aspect of reality is under the umbrella of
Metaphysica Specialis. For example, Psychology is an attempt to explain “what
is” as regards the human mind (an aspect of reality). Also, Geography is an
attempt to explain “what is” as regards the physical structures of the earth
(another aspect of reality). Again, Astronomy is an attempt to explain “what
is” as regards the elementary, physical bodies and structures of the universe
as a whole (another unique aspect of reality). Thus, one can see that all these
particular disciplines are focussed attempts to explain the nature of being in
their respective fields. Thus, they are being metaphysical; hence, the tag
“Metaphysica Specialis”.
§ Confusion of the two senses of ontology
The confusion found in the house of
being, between the two senses of ontology arises from the fact that both
Metaphysica generalis and Metaphysica specialis actually tend to explain and
analyse the meaning of “being” in very much the same style. This should not be
because they have different responsibilities, as one is meant to discuss “what it means for what is to be” and
the other to discuss “what is”. Hitherto,
two serious problems arise from this sort of confusion. Firstly, a radical and
well grounded understanding of the true meaning of being would not be gotten. Secondly,
several territories of possible achievements that have not been explored within
the universe of metaphysics would be left abandoned (especially by Metaphysica
generalis, since they are both distractedly not doing what they should be doing
in a proper manner). For example, concerning Metaphysica specialis in answering
to the question of being, psychology would say that “being is mind”;
mathematics would say that “being is number”; theology would say that “being is
God”; political science would say that “being is power” and so on and so forth.
Metaphysica generalis (ontology) followed in a similar manner, as after
Parmenides, professional philosophers started looking for “pure being” in
definite entities. For Plato “being is idea”; for Aristotle “being is matter”.
Others postulated being as mind, God, will, subjectivity and so on. Nevertheless,
they seem to forget that all these entities are “beings” (individual aspects of
being), and not “being” itself. Hence, the
practice of expressing an aspect of reality as the totality of same is what
created the confusion in the house of being. The after-effect of
this is that a third holistic sense of metaphysics has emerged to fill in the
inconsistencies, whereas this should not have been the case if things were
rightly done in the first place by Metaphysica generalis.
PROBLEMS CAUSED BY THE TRADITIONAL TREATMENT OF ONTOLOGY
From
the foregoing, the root cause of all the problems influenced by the traditional
treatment of ontology is that, particular aspects and specific entities of
reality, or what is known as “beings”, were presented as though they were the
entirety of reality. This made traditional metaphysics (especially ontology) to
become a dogmatic discipline, with each philosopher and scholar holding his
views on what being is. This dogmatism led to other more serious problems which
(for the sake of explanation) would be analysed in three steps;
§ Problem 1:
Objectification of reality
Presenting particular aspects and
specific entities of reality, or what is known as “beings”, as though they were
the entirety of reality objectifies
reality. This implies that “beings” get treated as objects, and as objects,
they surely are assigned fixed attributes. Hence, this will make beings to
become predictable, as they would always be seen in the same way; objectively
and having a specific nature. Accordingly, anyone who then sees beings
differently from the fixed manner in which they have been portrayed would be
seen as a subjective person; a person of wrong ideas and erroneous opinions.
§ Problem 2: Rigidity of beings
The objectification of reality further
made beings rigid and created a world of inflexible beings. Thus, people and
ideas alike began to take the shape of rigidity according to the fixed nature
of beings. Hence, the dogmatic “law of identity” in logic became the order of
the day and this gave room for fanaticism and traditional metaphysical
thinking. A clear example of this tragedy can be found in religion. In
religion, “being” is God. But, the “being” of God which is meant to be
universally the same to all religious men, has taken a poly-dimensional
perspective. In the first place, if religion truly holds that “being” is God,
then there should only be one religion. But this is never the case. Instead, to
the Christian, Jesus is God; to the Moslem, Allah is God; to the Hindis,
Brahman is God; to some traditional African religions, sango/amadioha/ogun
e.t.c is God. To make things worse, the “being” of God has been further
conceptualised into modes like theism, atheism, henotheism, polytheism, deism, pantheism
and agnosticism. How bad!
§ Problem 3: Attitude of contest and conquest
A world of rigidity and inflexibility
surely created room for contest and conquest among man in society, by fostering
the attitude of vengeance and hostility.
This finally led to the sending of being on compulsory leave (exile). This
happens because when a thinker decides that the specific idea of a thing is the
true being, he tries all his possible best to create ways to focus the whole of
reality in line with that dogmatic idea. Hence, anything that fails to conform
to the standards and parameters of this rigid idea of being is not true being
(non-being) and thus all efforts must be made to suppress or destroy it. This
happens because the reduction of “pure being” to the level of individual being
has limited reality in such a person’s mind. Therefore, that specific being has
unknowingly become the whole of being to him such that saying something against
it would be a fight against humanity, and it must be seriously dealt with.
This summarises the
crisis of strife, conflict and terrorism unleashed on man by the traditional
treatment of ontology.
