Ontology

Ontology is a theory about the nature of being and existence. The term is used in many different senses, but basically, ontology is a branch of metaphysics that specifies fundamental properties and relations of existence, the very elementary categories of the world. Ontology is often the background (principles and causes) that informs the formulation, description, and analysis of phenomena in the world. Examples of ontological questions are, What is existence? What does it mean to say that an object exists? What are an object's properties, and how are they related to the object? When does something cease to exist? For evaluation, ontology matters when attempting to understand the variations in approaches to evaluation and the quantitative-qualitative debates, as well as in the development of a ...