Ontology, or the Theory of BeingCoffey, P. (Peter)
Philosophy
Ontology, or the Theory of Being
Coffey, P. (Peter)
Ontology
First, then, we must consider that all men are endowed with the
same sort of intellect, an intellect capable of some insight at
least into the nature of things; that therefore they abstract the
same transcendental notions and the same widest concepts from
their experience: transcendental concepts of being, unity, truth,
goodness; generic concepts of substance, matter, spirit, cause, of
accident, quantity, multitude, number, identity, similarity,
distinction, diversity, etc. They also form the same _specific_
concepts of possible essences. Although, therefore, they may
disagree and err in regard to _the application_ of those concepts,
especially of the lower, richer and more complex specific
concepts, to the actual data of their experience, they agree in
the fact that they have those common concepts or idea-types of
reality; also in the fact that when they apply those concepts
_rightly_ (_i.e._ by _logically true_ judgments) to the things
that make up their experience, they have so far grasped the real
natures of these things; and finally in recognizing that the
ontological truth of these things lies in the conformity of the
latter with their true and proper mental types or essences. And
just as each of these latter is one, indivisible, immutable,
necessary and eternal (14, 15), so is the ontological truth of
things, whether possible or actual, one, indivisible, immutable,
necessary and eternal. Of course, just as the human mind does not
constitute but only apprehends reality, so the human mind does not
constitute the ontological truth of reality, but only apprehends
it. Every reality is capable of producing in the human mind a more
or less adequate mental representation of itself: in this lies
what we may call the potential or fundamental ontological truth of
reality. When it does produce such a mental concept of itself its
relation of conformity to this concept is its formal ontological
truth. Of course the human mind may err in applying to any reality
a wrong concept; when it does it has so far failed to grasp the
real nature of the thing and therefore the ontological truth which
is really identical with this nature. But the thing still has its
ontological truth, independently of the erring mind; not only
fundamental truth, but also possibly formal truth in so far as it
may be rightly apprehended, and thus related to its proper mental
type, by other human minds. Reality itself, therefore, is not and
cannot be false, as we shall see more fully later; error or
falsity is an accident only of the mind interpreting reality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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