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Articles

Ontology for Beginners

…have some ‘isms’!

Ontology is the branch of metaphysics which examines the nature and categories of existence. It asks questions like “What is the difference between really existing and only appearing to exist?”, “Does the external world really exist?”, “Do other people really exist?”, and “In what sense do numbers exist?”.

Realism

This is the view that physical objects exist even when nobody is watching them. In other words the external world exists independently of us. This is of course the common sense view, but it is a view that has been seriously attacked by philosophers known as idealists (see below)

Idealism

In philosophy (as opposed to politics), an idealist is not someone who wants to change the world but someone who thinks the world is a creation of the mind; either of the mind of the beholder, or in Berkeley’s case, of the mind of God.

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