Talk:Ontology

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"Types of theories" redundant?

It seems to mostly restate stuff from the previous section, the individual terms are important but it seems like the article would flow better with all of it in one section, yay or nay? Orchastrattor (talk) 16:32, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Hello Orchastrattor and thanks for bring up this issue. Correct me if I'm wrong but I can't find most of the claims in the section "Types of ontologies" in the section "Overview". The overview section provides an overview of many of the different concepts used by ontologists. The types section explains what ontological theories there are. Some theories employ the concepts explained earlier but do not just repeat their definition. Another factor would be that both sections are already quite long. so merging them into one even longer section might not be a good idea Phlsph7 (talk) 08:31, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Some of the "types" are mentioned by name, like categoricalism or bundle theories. It's redundant in the sense that splitting them up creates this effect where reading through section by section it brings up all of the basic concepts for one field of ontology or another under "overview", then moves on to different field, only to have to bring it up again for the "types" a section later. Merging could actually make the overall length shorter by working the actual discourse and history into the main topics. Orchastrattor (talk) 21:51, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

If you are concerned about redundancy, I think the better approach would be to make some changes the other way round. For example, you could take the short passage on bundle theory in the subsection "Properties and relations" and use it to expand the subsection "Constituent ontologies vs blob theories". I'm not sure that there are other cases like this. As I see it, categoricalism is a theory of the nature of properties rather than a full-blown ontology. I would suggest to keep it in the subsection "Properties and relations". Phlsph7 (talk) 08:43, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Native American Ontologies

@Phlsph7 Hi there, I added the Native American Ontology section under history because I found that if sections like Greek or Hindu could be included under the page then it would also apply to Native Americans. The anthropology subpage was not correctly sourced and didn't properly represent Native American ontologies. Most of the scholars that I have sourced are not anthropologists, and source 115 comes from Glen Coulthard who is in fact a philosopher. Barkiechaser (talk) 22:25, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello! This is a very high-level article, and representation of topics should reflect their representation in the whole body of reliable sources. This does not rule out additional material relating to Native American ontologies, but one would have to demonstrate a change in proportionality. There is certainly room for improvement on the subpage like you describe, and it would be very much appreciate if the improvements could be made there. Remsense诉 00:47, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello Barkiechaser and thanks for the work you have put into writing these paragraphs. The problem is not that they lack sources but that the sources fail to establish the importance of this topic to the wide field of ontology in general. For example, I had a look at two overview sources of ontology (The entries "Ontology" in the MacMillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Oxford Companion of Philosophy) and they don't even mention them while they include a detailed discussion of the ancient Greeks. This indicates that a detailed discussion of Native American ontologies does not fit into this article. I added a sentence to the subsection "Anthropology" to at least mention Native American ontologies and give the reader a high-level impression. You might consider adding more detailed information to articles more closely associated with this particular tradition, like Native American religions or Native American studies. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:47, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Good morning, thank you guys both for the quick and clear responses. I understand the issues with proportionality and the weight given to Native Americans under this section, especially since the other sections aren't given the same amount of detail on a page meant for a wider overview of ontology. I think it would be fair to still include Native American Ontologies within the history section, but limit the information included and summarize it better. With that being said, I don't think an encyclopedia from 60 years ago should indicate or be a justification for what should or should not be included within this page. I don't want to imply that the encyclopedia is invalid simply because it's slightly dated, also considering that the Oxford Encyclopedia is from the 90s. But by the same logic, Hindu ontologies should also be removed from the page as neither Encyclopedia mentions them in any detail.

It is not surprising to me that both Encyclopedias go into extensive detail about Greek philosophies, seeing as they have been very influential to European/Western ideas of thinking. My biggest motivation to create this section is to express that ontology should not be limited to Western thought and represent Native American thought, which has been historically silenced and not properly represented anywhere else on Wikipedia. I think removing all information on Native American ontologies, and placing them under pages which are centered around Native Americans, would exacerbate these silences.

Furthermore, I don't think the anthropology subsection does an adequate job of representing Native American thought. Even with the addition you made, reducing Native American thought to simply "animism" paints a skewed picture of complex and long-existing ontologies. Including Native American thought under anthropology feels demeaning especially considering its location within the page. Source [199] only mentions the word “indigenous” 4 times, all of them have specifically to do with animism and the way it relates to cartesian dualism. “Native” or “Native American” isn’t mentioned, and all references to “Indigenous” aren’t specific to one specific indigenous community. Source [200] doesn’t mention the term “indigenous” or “native” once. It only serves as a reference to the ontological turn, which is mentioned but doesn’t go any further into indigenous or Native American perspectives on ontology.

Sorry for the long message, I wanted to make sure I was clear about my intentions and justifications with these edits, and why I think they're important to mention within the page. I suggest a middle ground where the anthropology subsection is removed for the reasons listed above, and the Native American Ontology section is condensed with regard to Wikipedia's rules on proportionality. Barkiechaser (talk) 17:55, 5 May 2024 (UTC)