The Historical Investigation of Ontology and its Systematic Development Today

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Our project has tried to investigate ontology historically and has been trying to renew it systematically.Investigator M. Amano has elucidated that Aristotle's ontology is fundamentally a theory of ousia, and has thrown light upon the ambiguity of his concept of ousia, which means either substance or essence. He has also shown that eidos is not universal. Investigator S. Matsunaga has inquired into the rllation between substance and causality in English empiricism, and between fact and law in the modern science and philosophy. Investigator M. Sakabe has looked closely into Kant's improvement of some elemental concepts of "German scholastic metaphysics" (Wolf, Baumgarten, etc.). Investigator M. Takayama, analyzing the concepts "thing", "phenomenon" and "law" in Hegel's "Logic", has revealed the role of "negativity" inherent in "Being". Investigator T. Sakakibara has studied Husserl's early doctrine of time-consciousness and has been trying to make clear the significance and the method of his procedure that "Being is ultimately understood only by referring back to the transcendental subjectivitoy". Investigator I. Mori has shown the universal correlation a priori between language and Being, starting from Heidegger's ontological point of view. Head investigator J. Watanabe, on the one hand, deepened the interpretation of the current German phenomenological ontology led by Heidegger, and, on the other hand, has accomplished a critical examination into the "linguistic turn " in Anglo-American philosophy.Thus, our "ontological thinking ", by constant efforts of each Investigator, has attained great results, which are concisely summarized in our report of this research project.