With the advent of reasoning problems in dynamic environments, there is an increasing need for automated reasoning systems to automatically adapt to unexpected changes in representations. In particular, the automation of the evolution of their ontologies needs to be enhanced without substantially sacrificing expressivity in the underlying representation. Revision of beliefs is not enough, as adding to or removing from beliefs does not change the underlying formal language. General reasoning systems employed in such environments should also address situations in which the language for representing knowledge is not shared among the involved entities, e.g., the ontologies in a multi-ontology environment or the agents in a multi-agent environment. Our techniques involve diagnosis of faults in existing, possibly heterogeneous, ontologies and then resolution of these faults by manipulating the signature and/or the axioms. This thesis describes the design, development and evaluation of GALILEO (Guided Analysis of Logical Inconsistencies Lead to Evolution of Ontologies), a system designed to detect conflicts in highly expressive ontologies and resolve the detected conflicts by performing appropriate repair operations. The integrated mechanism that handles ontology evolution is able to distinguish between various types of conflicts, each corresponding to a unique kind of ontological fault. We apply and develop our techniques in the domain of Physics. This an excellent domain because many of its seminal advances can be seen as examples of ontology evolution, i.e. changing the way that physicists perceive the world, and case studies are well documented – unlike many other domains. Our research covers analysing a wide ranging development set of case studies and evaluating the performance of the system on a test set. Because the formal representations of most of the case studies are non-trivial and the underlying logic has a high degree of expressivity, we face some tricky technical challenges, including dealing with the potentially large number of choices in diagnosis and repair. In order to enhance the practicality and the manageability of the ontology evolution process, GALILEO incorporates the functionality of generating physically meaningful diagnoses and repairs and, as a result, narrowing the search space to a manageable size.

In this thesis, an ontology for the geological mapping domain is constructed using the Protégé ontology editor. The Geological Mapping ontology is developed using terms and relationships, and their properties, as they relate to creating a geologic map. This vocabulary is semantically modeled in the ontology using Web Ontology Language (OWL). The purpose of this thesis is to exemplify how an ontology can be designed and developed to represent geological knowledge as it relates to mapping.

The biological sciences are changing the ways in which we understand ourselves Biological Being is a philosophical exploration of biology, mapping some of the features of the field that make it so important in generating these changes Two central themes are at the heart of this exploration: biology is a science that should be grasped from a realist position, and it is a science that reveals a disunified, pluralistic world of kinds of things. After an introduction of some the issues involved, in three substantial chapters these themes are unpacked and analysed. The first major chapter is about experimentation and biology. In it the experimental realism of Hacking is rejected, whilst the core notion of intervention and manipulation of the world as a vital epistemic tool is retained. Similarities and differences between experiments in the physical and biological science are investigated. This comparison is continued in the second major chapter, which is about natural kinds and biology’s relationship to the physical sciences. Reductionism. even in its weaker forms, is rejected along with the notion of scientific unity Recent attempts by Rosenberg to understand biology as an instrumental science are contrasted with Dupré's realism, and a system of type-hierarchies that could support realism for biology described. The third major chapter then looks at biology and the construction of human kinds by the social sciences. A reading of Foucault is given that attacks the idea that there can be a simple distinction drawn between those sciences that discover and those which construct kinds. Biology's role in the social sciences is explored. A final chapter draws the components of the thesis together and seeks a general understanding of rationality underpinning the whole discussion in recent work by Putnam.

The overall aim of this research project that is done in the field of Phenomenology and Ontogenetic Epistemology, is to investigate the possibility of employing the Illuminative elements for solving the Ontological Crisis in Western epistemology of the self. Descartes, the father of modern western thought, gave through his Meditations a priority to Cogito over Sum, and this historically became a turning point for the movement that crystallised in Kant's Copernican Revolution by which metaphysics was identified with epistemology indicating that epistemology can thereafter be considered without any need for ontology. One of the immediate consequences of detaching epistemology from ontology in this history has in the main been the dismissal of the 'being' of the self in modern theories. In parallel to the existential phenomenology's purport to supply this lack in modern epistemology of the self, this research attempts in its own way to achieve a solution by delving into the Persian Illuminative school and by seeking even to assign a new role to its philosophical system to gain a new vision of the self and consciousness. To remedy, first a reconstruction of the Illuminative Method is introduced. This embodies the claim that although legitimate in itself, epistemology that is based upon the theory of essence cannot be detached from ontology. This method ultimately appeals to a very subtle and special field, the Ontetic Field, under which everything is reduced to Being and is grounded by it. Applying of this method provides an entry to considering the problematic of the self in the ontetic field in which the being of the self is encountered as an epiphany of Being that is immersed in and, at the same time, present to Being. The keen relation of 'Being' and the 'being' of the self is exposed as a performative, existential experience called the unitary consciousness. This moment implies that there is no subject (mind, etc.) in modern subjectivistic sense; the subject is only a self as unitary consciousness. In this context, the Illuminative philosophy is also directed to answering some major problems that arise from modern subjectivism, including our consciousness of private states (esp. senses and body), reflective (ISubject-Objectlive) knowledge and our grasping of the reality of objects. On this basis, some immediate conclusions are set forth, including (i) a refutation of a triple trap which follows from the ontological crisis: skepticism, solipsism and idealism; (ii) the agreement of the Illuminative theory with common sense; and (iii) a suggestion as to how one could read the authors of modern theories of the self in an Illuminative context.

Ontology is the study of what exists. Metaontology is the study of ontology. This dissertation is a work in metaontology. In particular, its goal is to develop, motivate, defend, and explore a distinctively pragmatist metaontology --- a pragmatist account of how to answer existence questions. To do this, I'll argue that pragmatists are entitled to a popular `deflationary' metaontology: one which claims that existence questions are so easy to answer that many recent ontological debates are misguided. I call the resulting position `ontological pragmatism' and argue for it over a variety of views in ontology and metaontology alike. In chapter 1, I characterise two opposing metaontological camps: the dominate metaontology --- what I call `mainstream ontology' --- and a deflationary alternative called `easy ontology'. I then present some motivations for exploring a central thesis of the dissertation: that pragmatism and easy ontology might be usefully put together. In chapter 2, I put these two views together by arguing that Amie Thomasson's (2015) easy ontology may be used to construct a pragmatist metaontology, resulting in the view I call `ontological pragmatism'. I then argue that mainstream ontology is misguided, from a distinctively pragmatist point of view. In chapter 3, I argue that ontological pragmatism is a plausible position for pragmatists and others to endorse by motiving the view and defending it from objections. In chapter 4, I compare ontological pragmatism to Stephen Yablo's (2005) fictionalist account of mathematics. I argue that pragmatism is more plausible than Yablo's account, establishing pragmatist approaches to mathematics as a new live option in these debates. Finally, in chapter 5, I use ontological pragmatism to respond to Sider's (2011) idea that there is a privileged meaning of `exists' said to `carve nature at the joints'. I focus on Sider's indispensability argument for this claim and argue that the pragmatist can diffuse his argument by showing that existential quantification is merely pragmatically indispensable for us, given our limitations. I conclude by highlighting some further lines of inquiry. By the end of the dissertation, I'll have (1) developed a pragmatist metaontology, (2) motivated and defended it, (3) applied it to the philosophy of mathematics, and (5) shown how it can defuse the idea that there is a metaphysically privileged meaning of `exists'. By doing this, I hope I'll have given pragmatists their own metaontology which may be fruitfully deployed in future debates.

Lam, Sin Yee Calista. / "November 2009." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-122). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Table of Contents --- p.V / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 1: --- Russell´ةs Argument Against Ontological Vagueness: Motivations “vagueness-in-the-world´ح --- p.9 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- A Modal Framework of Ontological Indeterminacy --- p.30 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- Explaining Away Ontological Vagueness via Supervenience --- p.43 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- Evans´ةs Argument Against Vague Identity --- p.66 / Chapter Chapter 5: --- The Challenge for Accounting for Vague Existence --- p.91 / Conclusion --- p.111 / Bibliography --- p.118

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In this thesis I explore the attempt by Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche and Georges Bataille to confront the problem of the meaning and value of existence. I consider each of these philosophers as involved in the development of a stream of post-Kantian thought that, following Nick Land, I call libidinal pessimism. Libidinal pessimism is both the metaphysical principle of the primacy of willing as the fundamental reality, and the moral principle that the greatest value to our existence is to be found in liberating willing from the small-scale concern of the good of individual beings. Each sees a crisis in the dominance of optimism: the belief that willing is commensurate with the good of individuated beings. They attack the dominance of optimism not just in the history of philosophy, but also in the values that dominate the culture at large. My contention is that these thinkers were provoked to think about the meaning and value of existence by encountering the tragic sublime: a pleasure in the destruction of the happiness of the individual. This affective intensity provokes them to the realisation that our will is not directed towards the happiness of the individual, contra the dominant values of our culture. Yet since the tragic sublime is non-conceptual, its implications for the meaning and the value of existence are not explicit. The task of philosophy is to conceptualise this affective intensity to specify the inadequacy of the values that dominate the age, and to assert the values that can liberate human possibility from its current wretchedness to a new glory. To structure the thinking of these philosophers on the problem of existence, I analyse their thinking using the following logical model: 1) specifying what they regard as the predominant symptoms of the problem regarding existence, our current wretchedness; 2) their diagnosis of the source of this wretchedness in the dominant optimism; 3) their pronouncement of the solution to this problem, through liberating willing from the small-scale; and 4) their prescription for how to overcome this problem, for how the tragic sublime can liberate willing from the fetters of a concern for individuated beings. In elaborating upon the thinking of these philosophers as a definite stream of post- Kantian thought, I also highlight how each engages with the thinking of the earlier of the philosophers. I explore how Schopenhauer's philosophy develops out of Kant's philosophy, how Nietzsche develops the thinking of Schopenhauer and how Bataille develops the problematics of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Through this I attempt to explore how these three philosophers mark a development in the attempt to conceptualise the tragic sublime as the key to address the problem of the meaning and value of existence.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis aims to demonstrate the congruence between music and philosophy. The demonstration has three aspects: a discussion of philosophical and ontological aspects of music, a discussion of the importance of music in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle and a discussion of philosophy itself. The starting point for the demonstration is a discussion of the philosophy of music in relation to the ontology of the musical work, the relationship of performance to notation and the musical work, the nature of improvisation and the temporality of music. I discuss the contextualisation of the musical work concept, the aporetic character of music and consider phenomenological accounts of music and time consciousness. Following this discussion I propose an ontological concept of the musical work as a topos of musical activity. The second section discusses music in the context of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. It develops characteristics of music which are also relevant to theoria and philosophy. Most notable among these are the characterisations of music as play and energeia. I consider music in the context of the Aristotelian distinction between praxis and poiesis and argue for a qualified conception of music as energeia. The concluding section of the thesis deals with philosophy itself. I discuss the requirements of philosophy to maintain the energeia of thinking in the living and breathing word in the context of Plato’s Phaedrus. I attempt to demonstrate that the active conceptions of philosophy as a journey, examination of life, way of life (Hadot) and Lebensphilosophie align philosophy with a conception of music as meditatio mortis and form of temporality.