Ontology

Conceptual Overview and Discussion

Ontology is a problem for natural scientists interested in comprehending the true nature of things such as atoms and stars. It is also a concern of social scientists who want to use case study methods to study such concrete phenomena as music scenes, cults, or deviant small groups. What is a “scene”? What is a “cult”? It is common for people to think that their own worldview assumptions concerning what something is are correct. However, philosophy and social sciences such as anthropology teach us to be critical of our deeply held assumptions. If you travel to a distant place, you may be confronted with people who adhere to a different ontological view. At one time, everyone believed in witches, but now it is not clearly the case that stereotypical witches exist.

As a simple example, consider the existence of dogs. If you have been raised in North America, then your ontology may include the idea that the true nature of a dog is a family pet. Commonsense views of the reality of singular physical objects such as a dog (e.g., this specific English terrier named Ricky) are precisely what the philosophical specialization called ontology seeks to discover. In other places at other times, a dog might be thought of as food, or as a worker. What the true nature of something is depends on how one views that object. The singular representative of that object (e.g., Fido, the family pet) and a subclass of objects (cocker spaniels) may not fully represent the true ontological reality. Similarly, we tend to think of separate individual human beings as real and often believe, as did Margaret Thatcher, that words like society are simply metaphors. Some social scientists have made the ontological argument that societies are more real than persons, unless one is thinking of persons merely as biological entities. There are many things that we believe about ontology that seem absolutely correct, but we also tend to believe that “gravity” is real because most of us have a kind of grade school understanding of that theory, based on a simplification of Newtonian physics. However, the idea that a solid physical thing such as a rock is more real than an invisible “object” such as helium or oxygen does not get us very far in terms of the sciences, physical and social. Even in the life sciences it is not altogether clear what any species or subspecies of animal or [Page 629]plant really is, especially relative to other similar species. Think of the platypus and the dodo, or the peanut and the apple. It simply is not accurate to say that “a rose is a rose is a rose.” Gertrude Stein meant the statement poetically, as in her statement concerning Oakland, California, that “there is no there there,” but poetry is not necessarily science, even though there is much poetry in contemporary scientific thinking. Moreover, many people believe in the reality of things, such as the heartline in one's palm, that others doubt have any significance in reality. Things are frequently not what they seem on the basis of appearances. Strict nominalism holds that all our words are merely attempts at describing the indescribable, based on our limited awareness of the true nature of reality. Strict phenomenalism is not the basis for a true inductive science, or even grounded theory. Hence, there is very active research today in typology in fields such as entomology and geology. Both disciplines rely heavily on case study research but tend to reject interpretivism. We should therefore not be surprised that social sciences also still struggle with the precise nature of a “society” or a “culture.” Which nation–states represent true cases of societies? Do the Kurds comprise a nation? How different is Russia from the USSR? All empirically based sciences concerning “nature” and “the human” struggle with ontological question. Such intellectual struggles can be quite heuristic.

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