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In philosophy, ontology is the study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

Students of Aristotle first used the word 'metaphysica' (literally "after the physical") to refer to what their teacher described as "the science of being qua being" - later known as ontology. 'Qua' means 'in the capacity of': hence, ontology is inquiry into being in so much as it is being, or into being in general, beyond any particular thing which is or exists; and the study of beings insofar as they exist, and not insofar as, for instance, particular facts obtain about them or particular properties to them. Take anything you can find in the world, and look at it, not as a puppy or a slice of pizza or a folding chair or a president, but just as something that is. More specifically, ontology concerns determining what categories of being are fundamental and asks whether, and in what sense, the items in those categories can be said to "be".
Some philosophers, notably of the Platonic school, contend that all nouns refer to existent entities. Other philosophers contend that nouns do not always name entities, but that some provide a kind of shorthand for reference to a collection of either objects or events. In this latter view, mind, instead of referring to an entity, refers to a collection of mental events experienced by a person; society refers to a collection of persons with some shared characteristics, and geometry refers to a collection of a specific kind of intellectual activity. Between these poles of realism and nominalism, there are also a variety of other positions; but any ontology must give an account of which words refer to entities, which do not, why, and what categories result. When one applies this process to nouns such as electrons, energy, contract, happiness, space, time, truth, causality, and god, ontology becomes fundamental to many branches of philosophy.
Parmenides was amongst the first to propose an ontological characterisation of the fundamental nature of reality, in his Poem. This asserts that existence is what exists, and that there is nothing which does not exist. Hence, there can be neither void nor vacuum; and true reality can neither come into nor leave existence, but is limitless, eternal, uniform, and unchanging. Parmenides thus holds that change, as experienced in everyday sensation, is illusory; and, arguably, that everything is one (Monism).
Plato developed this distinction between true reality and illusion, in arguing that what is real are eternal and unchanging Forms or Ideas (a precursor to universals), of which things experienced in sensation are at best merely copies, and real only in so far as they copy (‘participate in’) such Forms. In general, Plato presumes that all nouns (e.g., ‘Beauty’) refer to real entities, whether sensible bodies or insensible Forms. Hence, in The Sophist Plato argues that Being is a Form in which all existent things participate and which they have in common (though it is unclear whether ‘Being’ is intended in the sense of existence, copula, or identity); and argues, against Parmenides, that Forms must exist not only of Being, but also of Negation and of non-Being (or Difference).
Ontology as an explicit discipline was inaugurated by Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, as the study of that which is common to all things which exist, and of the categorisation of the diverse senses in which things can and do exist. What exists, in so far as Aristotle concludes, are a plurality of independently existing substances – roughly, physical objects – on which the existence of other things, such as qualities or relations, may depend; and of which substances consist both of a form (e.g. a shape, pattern, or organisation), and of a matter formed (Hylomorphism). Against Plato, whilst Aristotle holds that universals exist, these do not have an existence over and above the particular things which instantiate them.
Also influential is the materialist atomism proposed and developed by Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, which conceives of reality as composed of an infinity of indivisible, inchangeable corpuscles or atoms (atomon, lit. ‘uncuttable’), the motion and formations of which dissolve and reform in the void of space to produce the diverse flux of experience. A similar materialist ontology was also proposed by the Stoics.

Ontology topics

The principal questions of ontology are "What can be said to exist?" and "Into what categories, if any, can we sort existing things?" Different philosophers have provided different answers to this question.
One common approach is to divide the extant entities into groups called categories. However, such lists of categories also differ widely from one another, and it is through the co-ordination of different categorial schemes that ontology relates to such fields as theology, library science and artificial intelligence.
Further examples of ontological questions include:

• What is existence?
• Is existence a property?
• Which entities are fundamental?
• How do the properties of an object relate to the object itself?
• What features are the essential, as opposed to merely accidental, attributes of a given object?
• What is a physical object?
• Can one give an account of what it means to say that a physical object exists?
• What constitutes the identity of an object?
• When does an object go out of existence, as opposed to merely changing?
• Why does anything exist rather than nothing? (This overlaps with questions in cosmology.)
• In ontology (the study of being) being is anything that can be said to be, either transcendentally or immanently.
• The nature of being varies by philosophy, giving different interpretations in the frameworks of Aristotle, materialism, idealism, existentialism, Islam, and Marxism.

Being in continental philosophy and existentialism

Some philosophers deny that the concept of "being" has any meaning at all, since we only define an object's existence by its relation to other objects, and actions it undertakes. The term "I am" has no meaning by itself; it must have an action or relation appended to it. This in turn has led to the thought that "being" and nothingness are closely related, developed in existential philosophy.
Existentialist philosophers such as Sartre, as well as continental philosophers such as Hegel and Heidegger have also written extensively on the concept of being. Hegel distinguishes between the being of objects (being in itself) and the being of people (Geist). Hegel, however, did not think there was much hope for delineating a "meaning" of being, because being stripped of all predicates is simply nothing.
Heidegger, in his quest to re-pose the original pre-Socratic questions of Being (of why is there something rather than nothing), wondered at how to meaningfully ask the question of the meaning of being, since it is both the greatest, as it includes everything that is, and the least, since no particular thing can be said of it. He distinguishes between different modes of beings: a privative mode is present-at-hand, whereas beings in a fuller sense are described as ready-to-hand. The one who asks the question of Being is described as Da-sein ("there/here-being") or being-in-the-world. Sartre, popularly understood as misreading Heidegger (an understanding supported by Heidegger's essay "Letter on Humanism" which responds to Sartre's famous address, "Existentialism is a Humanism"), employs modes of being in an attempt to ground his concept of freedom ontologically by distinguishing between being-in-itself and being-for-itself.

Substance is a core concept of ontology and metaphysics. Indeed, philosophies may be divided into monist philosophies, and dualist or pluralist philosophies. Monistic views, often associated with immanence, hold that there is only one substance, sometimes called God or Being. Dualist and pluralist views hold that two or more types of substances do exist, and that these can be placed in an ontological hierarchy. Platonism or Aristotelianism considers that there are various substances, while stoicism and Spinoza hold that there is only one substance.

The concept of substance in Western philosophy

In the millennia-old Aristotelian tradition, as well as early modern traditions that follow it, substances are treated as having attributes and modes.
This concept helps to explain, for instance, state transitions. Let us take a quantity of water and freeze it into ice. Substance theory maintains that there is a "substance" which is unchanged through this transition, which is both the liquid water and also the frozen ice. It maintains that the water is not replaced by the ice - it is the same "stuff," or substance. If this is true, then it must be the case that the wetness of water, the hardness of ice, are not essential to the underlying substance. (Essentially, matter does not disappear, it only changes form.)
The Aristotelian view of God considered God as both ontologically and causally prior to all other substance; others, including Spinoza, argued that God is the only substance. Substance, according to Spinoza, is one and indivisible, but has multiple modes; what we ordinarily call the natural world, together with all the individuals in it, is immanent in God: hence the famous phrase Deus sive Natura ("God, or Nature").
Dialectic (also called dialectics or the dialectical method) is a method of argument which has been central to both Eastern and Western philosophy since ancient times. It is rooted in the ordinary practice of a dialogue between two persons, each of whom holds a different view and wishes to persuade the other of his view. The presupposition of a dialectical argument is that the participants share at least some meanings and principles of inference in common, even if they do not agree. Different forms of dialectical reason have emerged in the East and in the West, as well as during different epochs of history (see below).
Among the major forms of dialectic reason are Hindu, Buddhist, Socratic, medieval, Hegelian, and Marxist.

Theoretical principles

Dialectics is based around three (or four) basic metaphysical concepts:

• 1: Everything is transient and finite, existing in the medium of time (this idea is not accepted by all dialecticians).
• 2: Everything is made out of opposing forces/opposing sides (contradictions).
• 3: Gradual changes lead to turning points, where one force overcomes the other (quantitative change leads to qualitative change).
• 4: Change moves in spirals not circles. (Sometimes referred to as "negation of the negation")

Within this broad qualification, dialectics have a rich and varied history. It has been stated that the history of dialectic is identical to the extensive history of philosophy. The basic idea perhaps is already present in Heraclitus of Ephesus, who held that all is in constant change, as a result of inner strife and opposition. Only fragments of his works and commentary remain, however.
The aim of the dialectical method is to try to resolve the disagreement through rational discussion, and ultimately, the search for truth. One way to proceed — the Socratic method — is to show that a given hypothesis (with other admissions) leads to a contradiction; thus, forcing the withdrawal of the hypothesis as a candidate for truth (see also reductio ad absurdum). Another way of trying to resolve a disagreement is by denying some presupposition of both the contending thesis and antithesis; thereby moving to a third (syn)thesis or "sublation". However, the rejection of the participant's presuppositions can be resisted, which might generate a second order controversy.