Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 17, 2008

Ontology

Yizhou Miao
Pages 297-302

事物本质的新认识

Essence is an interesting and deep concept of the ontology. This paper argues that the essence of object is composed of three connected and different parts. The first is the feature of noumenon contained in the object, such as the mathematical content of the quality and structure of object. By revealing the content, man is able to know some fundamental features of object, and then easily find the orient of the object in the physical world. The second is the inner nature of object, especially the cardinal nature. It, keeping with the traditional cognition, indicates that thought probes deeply into the inner nature of object, and then knows all kinds of mechanisms and functions. The third refers to the relationship between one thing and another. By comprehending the relationship on macro‐ and whole stand, man can recognize the core mechanism of things. Based on above processes, metaphysically the whole knowledge on the essence of object has been finished. In addition the dialectical relations between universality and individuality, absolute idea and relativity are in need of comprehending in practice referring to the essence of things.