Ontology Defined
The word Ontology by itself means the “philosophical study of being”, as a subcategory of Metaphysics. Where metaphysics as a whole explores the fundamental Nature of reality, Ontology seeks to define its features. This is done by working to categorize and classify -things- into basic types such as Universals, Particulars, and Categories.
Universals
- Standards defined within reality, repeatable units of existence - i.e. the color blue.
- Commonality between tangible objects present within a defined point in space or time such as “water”; and intangible objects without defined points in space or time such as the concept of “cold” or “the number 3”.
Particulars
- Individual, non-repeatable units of existence - i.e. a physical person such as Albert Einstein.
Categories
- Sort and label objects defined as existing in within reality.
- Events
- State
- Features / Properties
- Relationships
- Substance
If we were to examine a hypothetical example question from the universals category above, we could use the question: “Does the number 3 exist?“.
Well, for starters It certainly has features, in that it has a definition and a meaning. As far as I am aware, there are no human cultures on earth that don’t have some form of the concept of “objects together equalling less than 4 and more than 2.
It has relationships, in that its representations rely on other “units within existence” to be present, up to the quantity that it defines.
Where it gets interesting to think about, however, is in the remaining categories. “The number 3” actually takes on a new property of being the state of another set of objects (see: emergence]), but it doesn’t seem to have a clear way of having a state of its own outside of “existence as a concept present in reality” and “singular unless in a group”. By that logic, it is clearly not a substance and does not fit into the definition of event very cleanly.
So with those things in mind, the question is; Does the number 3 exist?” Further, do any of these rules even matter or exist in and of themselves?
Ontological Resolution
That’s quite a bit of factoring and classification for a philosophical model of systems where the very same factoring and classification may or may not even be relevant to any particular model in question.
I have come across two definitions for ontological resolution now. Homonyms are fascinating literary devices already. In this case, the two representations I have seen are for: “Resolution” in the sense of conflict resolution when going through the observation and categorization process in exploring systems (like in the above example), and “Resolution” as in the clarity or level of detail, in any given system.