Fundamental Ontology

This chapter discusses three crucial metaphysical theses endorsed and argued for by all schools of Indian Buddhist philosophy: mereological nihilism, anti-substantialism, and momentariness. The “neither identical nor distinct” argument for mereological nihilism is presented and evaluated, and its consequence for fundamental ontology—that only entities with intrinsic natures are strictly speaking real—is explored. One important result, that only tropes and not substances as property-possessors belong in our ultimate ontology, is discussed. Two arguments for momentariness are presented: the argument from cessation and an argument from the nature of existence. Out of this investigation there should emerge a clearer picture of the Buddhist conception of just what the ultimate nature of reality would have to be like.

Service Robots: Trends and Technology

The 2021 sales volume in the market of service robots is attractive. Expert reports from the International Federation of Robotics confirm 27 billion USD in total market share. Moreover, the number of new startups with the denomination of service robots nowadays constitutes 29% of the total amount of robotic companies recorded in the United States. Those data, among other similar figures, remark the need for formal development in the service robots area, including knowledge transfer and literature reviews. Furthermore, the COVID-19 spread accelerated business units and some research groups to invest time and effort into the field of service robotics. Therefore, this research work intends to contribute to the formalization of service robots as an area of robotics, presenting a systematic review of scientific literature. First, a definition of service robots according to fundamental ontology is provided, followed by a detailed review covering technological applications; state-of-the-art, commercial technology; and application cases indexed on the consulted databases.

From ontology to poetry: the essence of Martin Heidegger's thought

How does the concept of being come to our mind? Where does the verb “to be” originate from the origins of speculative philosophy? Such questions raise problems about the conditions for the emergence of ontology in the history of the speculative sciences. It is historically known that the return to fundamental ontology as a science or primary philosophy in contemporary times, with Martin Heidegger, takes place under the banner of poetry. The objective of this article is to show that with Heidegger, it is certainly the being that is at the center of ontology, but this being is essentially linked to verbal and nominal poetry. From modernity, it is a question of understanding with Heidegger, that the essence of thought, beyond the representation given to it by the Moderns, is inscribed in the collecting donation of being. Hence the need to welcome the being in a thought that becomes poetry.

Historicity as a Principle of Interpretation of Analytics of Human Being in Philosophy of M. Heidegger

Analysis of the state and possible options for the development of modern humanities gives the grounds to assert the growing importance of the idea of historicity in culture and philosophy during the 20th and early 21st centuries. In this regard, both the disclosure of the concept of historicity and the substantiation of the significance of the principle of historicity, both for the methodology of historical and philosophical knowledge and for humanitarian knowledge in general become relevant. The author of this article carries out historical and philosophical reconstruction of historical issues in the philosophy of M. Heidegger and reveals the process of converting the idea of historicity into the principle of German existentialism. It is concluded that with the help of historicity M. Heidegger was able to present his own version of phenomenology on an existential basis. Seeing an existential achievement in historicity, M. Heidegger understood by it the direction of existence to the source, tradition, on the basis of this, the intentionality of consciousness was revealed as an essential property of existence: the direction of man as a finite being to its source, which allowed the German philosopher to interpret historicity as a tradition, the existential source of man, and how the temporality of human existence. The author of this article concludes that in the philosophy of M. Heidegger historicity was transformed from an idea into a principle on the basis of which the German philosopher revealed not only the historicity of Dasein, building a fundamental ontology and hermeneutics of factuality, but also tried to solve the problem of the history of being, going beyond the existential philosophy.

Main (Grundfrage) and leading (Leitfrage) questions about being: Claim for ancient understanding

The article is devoted to the question of being in Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, namely, his claim to understand the ancient idea of being. In his work “Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning)”, Heidegger distinguishes between the understanding of being as the being of everything that exists and his own understanding of being as such, out of connection with things. He calls the first point the “leading question” and attributes its authorship to Aristotle, the second one – “the main question”. The article discusses the relationship of these issues, the possibility of their formal coincidence and discrepancy between them. The first part of the article introduces the context of Heidegger’s thought. It deals with the “ontological difference” that Heidegger introduces in the framework of “Being and Time”, as well as with what transformation this difference undergoes in his later works, after the “turn” (“Kehre”). In the second part of the article, attention is drawn to the convergence and divergence of the “leading question” from the “main one” by clarifying the ontology of Aristotle. Particular attention is paid to various ways of understanding existence, in particular – an incidental and accidental existence. At the end of the article, the attempt will be made to reconstruct the direction of Heidegger's thought, based on the results of consideration achieved earlier.

Why our best theories of perception and physics undermine realism

Realism about objects proposes an isomorphism between the objects of the external world and the corresponding mental representations. A candle on a table leads to the percept of this candle. Ontologically, realism locates objects between the entities of fundamental physics and the perceiver. Here, we show that under the assumption of a mind independent world of physical particles there is no space for a mind independent world of objects. The mental representations partition the physical world into classes of states, each class corresponding to one mental representation. Since there are many more physical states than representations, the mapping is not unique. Hence, different perceivers may maintain different partitions of the physical world, leading to different mind dependent representations and objects. In general, we show that if there is one fundamental ontology (fundamental physics), one cannot have any other ontology (objects) in addition. Furthermore, we show that realism is not even a desirable goal of perception. These considerations by no means favor dualism or solipsism. These ontological considerations are presented in part II. Based on neuroscience results, we show in part I that realism is not an epistemologically tenable position either.

Buoyant Ontologies: The Roots and Ramifications of Dialogue in Buber and Heidegger

Both Buber and Heidegger develop a notion of responsivity—in terms of dialogue regarding the former, and correspondence in the case of the latter—not merely as different types of discourse, but as transcendental structures in a relational or fundamental ontology. However, the responsive register is also transmitted on a different frequency; one that begins from elsewhere, not in a transcendental a priori, but in a transcendent address. Through a focused reading of Buber and Heidegger, I argue that responsivity not only takes place across the transcendental–transcendent divide, but shapes the ontological makeup of such a divide. In short, the ontological conditions of dialogue are negotiated, in turn, through dialogue.

Problematization and modification of phenomenological concept of experience in Martin Heidegger`s fundamental ontology

The aim of the paper is to justify the view of Martin Heidegger’s concept of Dasein as a recon- ceptualization and modification of Edmund Husserl’s concept of experience (Erfahrung). The subject of analysis is Heidegger's concept “Dasein”, which is one of the most problematic concepts of the entire Heidegger's legacy due to ambiguity of its meaning and the resulting variability of possible interpretations. Specific attention is paid to examining the ontological reading of Heidegger's philosophy as opposed to both existentialist and anthropological ones; the author also textually argues for its legitimacy. Author textually proves that Dasein indeed is a modification of Husserl`s concept of experience. Moreover, she claims that not only the concept of Dasein but fundamental ontology itself may be seen to some extent as an original modification of Husserl’s phenomenology. For not only one of the key phenomenological concepts gets modified, but also its method of exploration and some crucial topics (e. g. the temporality of consciousness) get modified and incorporated in Heidegger’s fundamental ontology project.

Thinking about Spacetime

Several different quantum gravity research programmes suggest, for various reasons, that spacetime is not part of the fundamental ontology of physics. This gives rise to the problem of empirical coherence, which I frame in terms of entailment: how could a non-spatiotemporal fundamental theory entail spatiotemporal evidence propositions? Solutions to this puzzle can be classified as realist or antirealist, depending on whether or not they posit a non-fundamental spacetime structure grounded in or caused by the fundamental structure. These approaches place different constraints on our everyday concepts of space and time. Applying lessons from the philosophy of mind, I argue that only realism is both conceptually plausible and suitable for addressing the problem at hand. I suggest a role-functionalist version of realism, which is consistent with both grounding and causation, and according to which our everyday concepts reveal something of the true nature of emergent spacetime.

M. HEIDEGGER’S METAPHYSICS OF FINITENESS: HISTORY AS THE SUBJECT AREA OF UNDERSTANDING

Статья ориентирована на анализ М. Хайдеггером предмета и специфики познавательных средств истории в перспективе предложенной им метафизики конечности. Показано, что обращение к этому проблемному полю явилось результатом его размышлений над взаимосвязью основоположений фундаментальной онтологии с обоснованием предмета и способа постижения истории. Учение Хайдеггера в этом ракурсе сопряжено, как показано в статье, с интенсивным диалогом с идеями В. Дильтея и Ф. Ницше. Дильтей является автором, позволившим Хайдеггеру переосмыслить в экзистенциальном ключе не только историчность Dasein, но и такие феномены как понимание и интерпретация, изначальная открытость смысла исторической традиции. Однако в отличие от Дильтея, утверждавшего плюрализм культурных миров и не принимавшего возможности их рассмотрения в горизонте диахронного единства, Хайдеггер полагал, что герменевтическая перспектива не является препятствием к поиску глобального смысла всемирной истории. Заимствуя у Ницше генеалогическую методологию, он критически пересматривая его видение истории сквозь призму становления нигилизма как забвения жизни. Всемирная история и современный культурный кризис, по его мнению, обретают объяснение в свете разработанного им видения нигилистического забвения Бытия, порожденного европейской метафизической традицией, завершением которой выступает метафизика воли Ницше. The article is focused on M. Heidegger's analysis of the field and the cognitive means of history in the perspective of the metaphysics of finiteness proposed by him. It reveals that the appeal to this problem field was the result of his reflections on the relationship of the basic principles of fundamental ontology with the substantiation of the subject area and strategy of comprehending history. Heidegger's teaching in this perspective is associated with an intensive dialogue with the ideas of W. Dilthey and F. Nietzsche. Dilthey is the author who allowed Heidegger to rethink in an existential way not only the historicity of Dasein, but also such phenomena as understanding and interpretation, the initial openness of the meaning of historical tradition. However, unlike Dilthey, who argued for the pluralism of cultural worlds and did not accept the possibility of considering them in the horizon of diachronic unity, Heidegger believed that the hermeneutic perspective is not an obstacle to the search for the global meaning of world history. Borrowing the genealogical methodology from Nietzsche, he critically revised his vision of history through the prism of the formation of nihilism as the oblivion of life. World history and the contemporary cultural crisis, in his opinion, find an explanation in the light of the nihilist forgetfulness of Being generated by the European metaphysical tradition, the completion of which is the Nietzschean metaphysics of will.