Formal ontology as a main branch of metaphysics investigates categories of being. In the formal ontological approach to metaphysics, these ontological categories are analysed by ontological forms. This analysis, which we illustrate by some category systems, provides a tool to assess the clarity, exactness and intelligibility of different category systems or formal ontologies. We discuss critically different accounts of ontological form in the literature. Of ontological form, we propose a character- neutral relational account. In this metatheory, ontological forms of entities (...) are their standings in internal relations whose holding is neutral on the character of their relata. These relations are “formal ontological relations”. Entities belong to ontological categories because they stand in the same formal ontological relations. We hold a nominalist relationalism about ontological categories and forms. We conclude by showing that our metatheory is useful for understanding categorial fundamentality/non- fundamentality, different formal ontologies, and for unifying metaphysical questions. (shrink)

The Introduction to Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (B&N) contains a condensed, cryptic argument – the ‘ontological proof’ – that is meant to establish a position ‘beyond realism and idealism’. Despite its role in establishing the fundamental ontological distinction of B&N – the distinction between being-for-itself and being-in-itself – the ontological proof has received very little scholarly attention. My goal is to fill this lacuna. I begin by clarifying the idealist position Sartre attacks in the Introduction to B&N: Husserl’s idealism as (...) interpreted by Aron Gurwitsch and Roman Ingarden. I then propose a new interpretation of the ontological proof that gives a central role to the transparency of experience. On this interpretation, Sartre argues from the ‘emptiness’ of consciousness – its purely relational nature – to the existence of mind-independent substance (being-in-itself). In assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Sartre’s case against idealism, I put him in critical dialogue with contemporary work in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Phenomenologists have no taste for desert landscapes. The early phenomenologists—Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler, and Roman Ingarden—adopt stratified views of reality on which spiritual objects like artifacts and persons are distinct from their underlying matter. Call this view “pluralism.” After describing Scheler, Ingarden, and Husserl's pluralism about goods, literary artworks, and images, respectively, I reconstruct a phenomenological case for pluralism from Husserl's work and defend it against an objection. The phenomenological method reveals a special subset of objects' essential properties: modes of (...) givenness. On Husserl's view, there are necessary correlations between types of objects and the types of intentional acts through which they are given. Spiritual objects, unlike their matter, can only be given in acts belonging to the “personalistic attitude,” which has a motivational and expressive structure. My broader claim is that Husserl's phenomenology is a sophisticated metametaphysical view about the methodology of first‐order metaphysical inquiry. (shrink)

The Controversy over the Existence of the World (henceforth Controversy) is the magnum opus of Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden. Despite the renewed interest for Ingarden’s pioneering ontological work whithin analytic philosophy, little attention has been dedicated to Controversy's main goal, clearly indicated by the very title of the book: finding a solution to the centuries-old philosophical controversy about the ontological status of the external world. -/- There are at least three reasons for this relative indifference. First, even at the time (...) when the book was published, the Controversy was no longer seen as a serious polemical topic, whether it was disqualified as an archaic metaphysical pseudo-problem, or taken to be the last remnant of an antiscientific approach to philosophy culminating in idealism and relativism. Second, Ingarden’s reasoning on the matter is highly complex, at times misleading, and even occasionally faulty. Finally, his analysis is not only incomplete – Controversy being unachieved – but also arguably aporetic. -/- One may wonder, then, why it is still worth excavating this mammoth treatise to study an issue apparently no longer relevant to contemporary philosophy. Aside from historical and exegetical purposes, which are of course very interesting in their own right, Ingarden’s treatment of the Controversy remains one of the most detailed and ambitious ontological undertakings of the twentieth century. Not only does it lay out an incredibly detailed map of possible solutions to the Controversy, but it also tries to show why the latter is a genuine and fundamental problem that owes its hasty disqualification to various oversimplifications over the course of the history of philosophy. -/- In this chapter, I first give an overview of Ingarden’s method, which relies mainly on a combinatorial analysis. Then, I summarize his examination of possible solutions to the Controversy, and determine which ones can be ruled out on ontological grounds. Finally, I explain why this ambitious project ultimately leads to a theoretical impasse, leaving Ingarden unable to come up with a definitive solution to the Controversy – regardless of the fact that the book is unachieved. I argue that his analysis of the problem yields a more modest but nonetheless valuable result. (shrink)

In the paper, being the second part of the work entitled Noema and Noesis, the formal model of the noematic synthesis functions is presented. Together with functions of noetic synthesis, they are understood as components of functions of intentional reference, which are to be, in turn, formalizations of intentional acts of reference performed in the stream of consciousness. Noemata are understood as mental representations associated with mental worlds. The processes of their synthesis in the mind engage the work of many (...) noematic functions: generating predicative senses, producing noematic cores, and locating noemata in mental worlds (mental spaces). The constructed model is not intended as the faithful reconstruction of the Husserlian conception of noemata. Intuitions of the creator of phenomenology are treated as the only source of inspiration. (shrink)

In the third chapter of his major work, the Controversy over the Existence of the World, Roman Ingarden discusses four varieties of dependence entities might exhibit. The aim of this essay is to explore these varieties and to put the claims Ingarden makes concerning them on a rigorous footing.

This paper is devoted to Kazimierz Twardowski's thesis that the unity of a compound object (a whole) can be ensured only by the relations between its parts and the object itself. Twardowski's idea of unity raises many difficulties, especially the threat of petitio principii: the whole is presupposed as furnishing the ground for the unification of its parts, and yet it also seems to be the result of this unification. To avoid these problems, Edmund Husserl sought to refute Twardowski's thesis, (...) and ascribed the role of a principle of unity to the foundational relationships which directly hold between the parts of a whole. Roman Ingarden then seemed to return to Twardowski's concept of unity, but employed it within a different theory of objects, according to which to be an object is to be a subject of properties. I seek to demonstrate that: (1) Twardowski's thesis is sound if a compound object is something over and above its parts; (2) with respect to Husserl's solution, it is not clear as to whether the whole is really something over and above its parts; (3) Ingarden's conception of the subject‐properties structure saves Twardowski's thesis; (4) Ingarden's theory of higher‐order objects is invalid. (shrink)

In this paper I present the Ingardenian distinction between inseparability and dependence. My considerations are both historical and systematic. The historical part of the paper accomplishes two goals. First, I show that in the Brentanian tradition the problem of existential conditioning was entangled into parts—whole theories. The best examples of such an approach are Kazimierz Twardowski’s theory of the object and Edmund Husserl’s theory of parts and wholes. Second, I exhibit the context within which Ingarden distinguished inseparability and dependence. Moreover, (...) Ingarden’s motivations are presented: the problem of understanding the Husserlian concept of “immanent transcendence,” the issue of the existence of purely intentional objects, and finally the problem of the relationship between individual objects and ideas. The systematic part deals with the ambiguity of Ingarden’s definition of inseparability. I seek to improve this definition by reference to the distinction between absolute and summative wholes. I also present some divisions of inseparability and dependence and investigate whether these types of existential conditioning are reflexive, symmetric, or transitive. (shrink)