Ontological priority
Ontological priority is a philosophical concept that was first introduced by Aristotle (384–322 BCE) in his influential book Categories, in about 350 BCE. For over two millennia, this concept has influenced the reasonings of many philosophers (e.g., Aristotelians) and has influenced some discussion in ontology and logic. (Aristotle also makes numerous references to priority, as well as posterity, in two of his most influential works, Physics and Metaphysics.)
When something (be it an idea or a physical object) is said to be “ontologically prior” to something else (i.e., idea/object/property, tone, or quality), it is literally to say something exists before something else exists. To use René Descartes’ famous phrase, “cogito ergo sum,” in a slightly different context than the one he originally intended, Aristotle would have agreed with Descartes’ reasoning that a person/thinking thing is ontologically prior to the activity of thinking. So, in this case, a positive formulation would be that a thought requires a thinking thing, i.e., the thinking thing has ontological priority over their (or his/her) thought, whose existence depends on the former to exist. Conversely, the negative formulation is that thoughts cannot exist without a thinking thing.
One thing’s ontological priority over another may be chronological, by reciprocally and non-reciprocally implied existence (i.e., a thing’s nature), order, “esteem,” or “truth-maker,” depending on the formulation used.
Ontological priority describes a fundamental relationship of dependence between entities in reality, where one entity exists because the other exists, and the former could not exist without the latter. This priority is not merely about temporal order but about an asymmetrical existential dependence, where the dependent entity is “posterior” to the foundational entity, which is “prior”. For example, in Aristotle’s philosophy, particular substances (like an individual person) are considered ontologically prior to their accidental properties (like the color of their hair) because the properties depend on the substance for their existence.
Key Characteristics of Ontological Priority
- Existential Dependence: The core idea is that the existence of the prior entity is a condition for the existence of the posterior entity.
- Asymmetry: The relationship is one-way; the posterior entity depends on the prior one, but the prior one does not depend on the posterior one.
- Not Necessarily Temporal: While one thing may exist before another, ontological priority doesn’t solely rely on temporal succession but on a deeper, necessary dependence.
- Modal-Existential: The strongest forms of ontological priority imply that if the prior entity did not exist, the posterior one would also be impossible to exist in the same way.
Examples
- Aristotle’s Substances vs. Properties: Individual substances are prior to properties because properties exist as attributes of something else.
- Mind and Body: If the mind is ontologically prior to the physical body, then the mind could exist even if the body does not, whereas the body’s existence would depend on the mind’s existence.
- In Fiction: In a created world, the creators of the world (the Dessendre family in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33) hold ontological priority over the world they created, as the world’s existence depends on them.
Distinction from Other Priorities
- Epistemological Priority: This refers to the order in which we come to know things, which is different from the fundamental order of being.
- Temporal Priority: This refers to something existing before something else in time, which may or may not also be a case of ontological priority.
AI responses may include mistakes.
[1] wikipedia/en/Ontological_priority
[2] https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2021/2021.05.17/
[3] https://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Ontological-Priority-Categories-Philosophy/dp/1108812724
[4] https://academic.oup.com/book/7412/chapter/152275091
[5] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-53666-3_2
[6] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dependence-ontological/
[8] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1005319517117