Publication Details

Abstract

In his study the author deals with the problem of the position of ontology in dialectical materialism. He points out that without ontology it is not even possible to build up gnoseology. His most particular attention is dedicated to the possibility of the creation of ontological categories, and on this basis also of the creation of a specific ontological complex of problems at variance with problems of the different positive sciences which — just the same as ontology are concerned with investigation into existence. Here the author tries to demonstrate that ontology is not a sum of finished cognitions of specific sciences but that they represent views attained by philosophy in a relatively independent way. The specificity and relative independence of the procedure on the base of which philosophy creates ontological categories, and thus comprehends the most basical properties of reality lies in the fact that philosophy is not issuing only from cognitions of positive sciences but also from the requirements of an independent way of thinking and cognition. By this procedure philosophy is enabled to create principles of general validity which cannot be refuted in an empirical way, and cannot be confirmed in that way, either. This in an affair of theoretical thinking. In this sense also ontology appears as a science on thinking where, of course, thinking itself becomes, in certain limits, a criterium of its truthfulness. This procedure is characteristical just in the process of the creation of the most general ontological categories.