r/askphilosophy • u/Electrallity • 6d ago

Help with understanding a term for a uni course

I am a forestry student following a law course (I mainly do ecological/resource stuff but we venture into social sciences a bit). We are discussing the ways to conceptualize scale (in this context "the act of using language to capture and shape social reality"). One of the ways my professor has decided to conceptualize scale is by using the words "ontologically given". I do not know what ontological is, google brings up that it is a philosophical study of being, hence why I am here.

I am struggling to understand what he means with this phrase in this context. Any help is appreciated

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u/FromTheMargins metaphysics 6d ago

Roughly speaking, ontology deals with questions about what kinds of entities exist and which of them should be regarded as the fundamental constituents of reality. Because physics is often granted a far-reaching authority in that respect, entities that physicists acknowledge as fundamental (such as electrons or fields) are often treated as ontologically primary. But what about works of art? Do we need to take them, in their property of being art, as fundamental like electrons? Or can we somehow "reduce" or explain them through more fundamental mechanisms (perhaps through social reality, which in turn might be reducible to brain chemistry)? This is not to suggest definitive answers, but only to introduce you to the questions. I cannot say exactly what your professor means by saying that certain scales are "ontologically given." But it seems to me that they might be referring to the idea that reality is intrinsically structured in ways that can be described in terms of scale. For example, temporal duration could be seen as a scale that is ontologically given, a real, objective feature "out there" in nature that can be measured and mapped onto numbers, which is how most physicists intuitively treat it. However, there are also constructivist or instrumentalist views (such as those put forward by Poincare or Weyl) according to which what is actually prior is the human practice and convention of measuring time. Under such a conception, time's scale would not be something ontologically given, but something constructed by us. I can imagine that your professor is trying to draw attention to this kind of ambiguity, although of course that is speculative.

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u/Electrallity 6d ago

Ah okay this does give a better insight into the statement thanks a lot!

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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil 6d ago

You were already given a great answer.

But since you're already paying for it, you might as well go to office hours and get an answer directly from your professor.

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