Sara Hamidi I don't know how to compute "equal involvement" but they are surely interrelated.

Ontology deals with what kinds of things exist. Epistemology deals with what we can know and how we can know it (the means and conditions for knowledge), including how we can know what exists. The two are interconnected, since how we can know depends on the nature of the objects of knowledge, and determining what exists and its nature depends on how we can know. Methodology tells us which items in the ontological inventory are suitable for study and prescribes epistemological methods for studying them. The items and methods actually chosen by investigators would depend on their areas of interest and goals and on the resources available to them.

Sara Hamidi I don't know how to compute "equal involvement" but they are surely interrelated.

Ontology deals with what kinds of things exist. Epistemology deals with what we can know and how we can know it (the means and conditions for knowledge), including how we can know what exists. The two are interconnected, since how we can know depends on the nature of the objects of knowledge, and determining what exists and its nature depends on how we can know. Methodology tells us which items in the ontological inventory are suitable for study and prescribes epistemological methods for studying them. The items and methods actually chosen by investigators would depend on their areas of interest and goals and on the resources available to them.

Dear Sara, yes I do agree with Karl that the items/methods you might choose would depend on your areas of interest and research goals. Stay well.

Dear Sara,

For social science, the Methodos Series, I edit with Robert Franck as a Springer book series, is devoted to examining and solving the major methodolgical problems social sciences are facing. However the epismological scope of these methodolgical problems is obvious and resorting to Philosophy of Science becomes also a necessity. I think also that it may question the social ontology: what is the conception of reality and existnce of social facts?

Daniel Courgeau

I would like to add to my answer to your question the aims of the Methodos Series.

En la concepción de un paradigma, pueden estar involucrados estos tres aspectos filosóficos, pero, no creo que lo estén absolutamente. El aspecto ontológico no tiene por qué determinar al paradigma, lo que sí concuerdo es que si el componente epistémico no se encuentra bien centrado en la configuración de un paradigma, el aspecto metodológico no va a tener mayor trascendencia. El aspecto ontológico, va a jugar un rol modulador en el ente dirigida al aspecto metafísico.

Dear Prof. Pfeifer,

in your response to Sara Hamidi’s question, you write “Ontology deals with what kinds of things exist”. This coincides with Quine’s 1948 article: “On what there is”, where he brings the ontological quest down to the question: “What is there?”

As early as Descartes’ Metaphysical Meditations we find ontology clearly developed as a threefold “is there…?” question: “Do I exist?” (2nd meditation), “Does God exist?” (3rd & 5th meditation), “Do material things exist?” (6th meditation). He first works out a concept or essence (of the “I”, God, and material things), which he then proves to exist.

This is very different from Aristotle’s Metaphysics which presupposes the existence of things (substances, ousiai), proceeding from there to find out what and how they are (and why). Being, in his case, is not primarily Dasein (existence) but Sosein (being-such), for example, “to be a man” or “to be a god”. There is not really a clear distinction between “is” as existential predicate and “is” as copula, as it has then been drawn in the Middle Ages and more radically with Kant.

Authors such as Mill and Russell will harshly criticize the ambiguity inherent in such a mixed concept of being and demand that philosophy either talk about existence (ontology) or about the copula (logic), but not about both as if they were fundamentally the same. It would seem to me that Quine’s essay is the strict application of this demand to the field of ontology.

This leads me to a double question that I would like to direct to you: (1) Would you agree with this direct line I draw from Mill’s and Russell’s critique of traditional ontology to Quine’s essay? (2) What other 20th and 21st century authors could be said to have positively responded to Mill’s and Russell’s criticism by constructing a strictly existential ontology along the lines of Quine and the definition you have given in your answer to Sara’s question?

Thank you very much! Albert

Albert Gutberlet I am not much one for making historical connections, but Russell's treatment of definite descriptions can be seen as forerunner to some of Quine's moves towards expressing ontological commitment as the value of a variable; Nelson Goodman as Quine's sometime coauthor also comes to mind. You might also look at the entry and bibliography for ontological commitment in the Stanford Encyclopedia of PhIlosophy:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-commitment/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-commitment/notes.html

This paper might also be of interest:

https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/18344/1/greek_ontology_and_the_is_of_truth.pdf

From my own simplistic perspective I would say that questions concerning what exists include questions of the intrinsic nature of what exists, which perforce relates the existential sense to the property-ascribing copula sense:

If X exists (i.e. if there isexistential X) then X iscopula P.