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Ontology is the philosophical study of being and existence; social ontology, specifically, examines the social world, and the entities that arise out of social interaction. A primary concern of social ontology is social groups , whether or not they exist (and if so, in what way), and if so, how they differ from any given collections of people.
For example, social ontology examines basic concepts used in the social sciences. Applied ontology is of particular relevance to information and computer science, which develop conceptual frameworks of limited domains. These frameworks are used to store information in a structured way, such as a college database tracking academic activities.
Individuals (instances) are the basic, "ground level" components of an ontology. The individuals in an ontology may include concrete objects such as people, animals, tables, automobiles, molecules, and planets, as well as abstract individuals such as numbers and words (although there are differences of opinion as to whether numbers and words are classes or individuals).
More simply, an ontology is a way of showing the properties of a subject area and how they are related, by defining a set of terms and relational expressions that represent the entities in that subject area. The field which studies ontologies so conceived is sometimes referred to as applied ontology. [1]
The concept of ontology and what people mean by ontology is diverse; therefore, tracing the ontological turn in anthropology remains difficult. However, if ontology refers to the study of reality then ontological anthropology incorporates theoretical and methodological elements of anthropology to a study of being or existence. [3]
Social philosophy is the study and interpretation of society and social institutions in terms of ethical values rather than empirical relations. [1] Social philosophers emphasize understanding the social contexts for political, legal, moral and cultural questions, and the development of novel theoretical frameworks, from social ontology to care ethics to cosmopolitan theories of democracy ...
In ontology, the theory of categories concerns itself with the categories of being: the highest genera or kinds of entities. [1] To investigate the categories of being, or simply categories, is to determine the most fundamental and the broadest classes of entities. [2]
A class can be defined either by extension (specifying members), or by intension (specifying conditions), using what is called in some ontology languages like OWL. According to the type–token distinction, the ontology is divided into individuals, who are real worlds objects, or events, and types, or classes, who are sets of real world objects ...