Dissertations / Theses on the topic '?-1274 Contributions in ontology'

The scholarship that surrounds the relation or comparability of Martin Heidegger’s and Asian thought asks questions of comparability and influence, but the body of literature that has been produced over the last several decades has failed to fully engage Heideggerian and any particular Asian tradition with comparable depth. This work sets out to investigate the ways in which Heidegger’s work and the text of the Zhuangzi, in terms of their responses to the problems that emerge in their respective traditions, offer comparable notions of human nature, authenticity, and the human place in and relation to the universe. Both thinkers find that technology and utility, which are intimately connected with how humans appropriate the world, obstructs how humans are able to relate to the world. Though it becomes apparent in the investigation that Heidegger and the authors of the Zhuangzi offer opposing ideas of the underlying cause of this misappropriation and obstruction, this work uncovers that both traditions offer a vision of how to navigate the world such that we transform with and respond to the world of which we are an inseparable part.

Today, it is well known that missing, incomplete or inconsistent requirements lead to faulty software designs, implementations and tests resulting in software of improper quality or safety risks. Thus, an improved Requirements Engineering contributes to safer and better-quality software, reduces the risk of overrun time and budgets and, most of all, decreases or even eliminates the risk for project failures. One significant problem requirements engineers have to cope with, are inconsistencies in the Software Requirements Specification. Such inconsistencies result from the acquisition, specification, and evolution of goals and requirements from multiple stakeholders and sources. In order to regain consistency, requirements information are removed from the specification which often leads to incompleteness. Due to this causal relationship between consistency, completeness and correctness, we can formally improve the correctness of requirements knowledge by increasing its completeness and consistency. Furthermore, the poor quality of individual requirements is a primary reason why so many projects continue to fail and needs to be considered in order to improve the Software Requirements Specification. These flaws in the Software Requirements Specification are hard to identify by current methods and thus, usually remain unrecognised. While the validation of requirements ensures that they are correct, complete, consistent and meet the customer and user intents, the requirements engineer is hardly supported by automated validation methods. In this thesis, a novel approach to automated validation and measurement of requirements knowledge is presented, which automatically identifies incomplete or inconsistent requirements and quality flaws. Furthermore, the requirements engineer is guided by providing knowledge specific suggestions on how to resolve them. For this purpose, a requirements metamodel, the Requirements Ontology, has been developed that provides the basis for the validation and measurement support. This requirements ontology is suited for Goal-oriented Requirements Engineering and allows for the conceptualisation of requirements knowledge, facilitated by ontologies. It provides a huge set of predefined requirements metadata, requirements artefacts and various relations among them. Thus, the Requirements Ontology enables the documentation of structured, reusable, unambiguous, traceable, complete and consistent requirements as demanded by the IEEE specification for Software Requirement Specifications. We demonstrate our approach with a prototypic implementation called OntoReq. OntoReq allows for the specification of requirements knowledge while keeping the ontology invisible to the requirements engineer and enables the validation of the knowledge captured within. The validation approach presented in this thesis is capable of being applied to any domain ontology. Therefore, we formulate various guidelines and use a continuous example to demonstrate the transfer to the domain of medical drugs. The Requirements Ontology as well as OntoReq have been evaluated by different methods. The Requirements Ontology has been shown to be capable for capturing requirements knowledge of a real Software Requirements Specification and OntoReq feasible to be used by a requirements engineering tool to highlight inconsistencies, incompleteness and quality flaws during real time requirements modelling.

This thesis treats the area of ontology-based cooperation of information systems. We propose a global architecture called OWSCIS that is based on ontologies and web-services for the cooperation of distributed heterogeneous information systems. In this thesis, we focus on the problem of connecting the local information sources to the local ontologies within OWSCIS architecture. This problem is articulated by three main axes: 1) the creation of the local ontology from the local information sources, 2) the mapping of local information sources to an existing local ontology, and 3) the translation of queries over the local ontologies into queries over local information sources.

This thesis seeks to examine and critique the transcendental feminist methodology and Trinitarian theology of Elizabeth A. Johnson. We will focus on four central, recurring themes that emerge out of her corpus, paying particular attention to how she assimilates these in She Who Is. They are: Johnson's feminist methodology and epistemology, her transcendental anthropology and epistemology, her panentheistic, relational ontology and her feminist 'Trinitarian' God-talk. The thesis will consist of four chapters, which will focus on these four main themes, and a conclusion. Chapter one will look specifically at the Johnson's modern, Catholic reformist feminist methodology and epistemology, which prioritise both the category of experience and the ontological principle of relation. The chapter will conclude with a brief summary of a few feminists who have defined their theological positions in direct opposition to Barth's view of Trinitarian revelation and language, and compare them to Johnson. Chapter Two will deal specifically with Johnson's embrace of Karl Rahner's transcendental metaphysics and her attempt to integrate this anthropology and ontological epistemology with feminist anthropology and epistemology. We will also highlight the various 'dilemmas of difference' Johnson faces in her use of conflicting appeals to experience. Chapter Three will analyse and critique her panentheistic, relational ontology with specific attention paid to her re-schematization of traditional Trinitarian theology and Christology. Barth's theology is used in part to critique Johnson's assertions at this point. In Chapter Four, we analyse Johnson's 'analogical' and 'symbolic' approach to God-talk to determine whether it is safeguarded from univocity, as she intends. We also raise-the question of whether she is kept from the potential equivocity that threatens her agnostic approach. In conclusion, we will summarise our response to the naturally emerging questions of the thesis, assess Johnson's approach overall and raise whatever questions we believe still remain.

The semantic web aims to make the meaning of data on the web explicit and machine processable. Harking back to Leibniz in its vision, it imagines a world of interlinked information that computers `understand' and `know' how to process based on its meaning. Spearheaded by the World Wide Web Consortium, ontology languages OWL and RDF form the core of the current technical offerings. RDF has successfully enabled the construction of virtually unlimited webs of data, whilst OWL gives the ability to express complex relationships between RDF data triples. However, the formal semantics of these languages limit themselves to that aspect of meaning that can be captured by mechanical inference rules, leaving many open questions as to other aspects of meaning and how they might be made machine processable. The Semantic Web has faced a number of problems that are addressed by the included publications. Its germination within academia, and logical semantics has seen it struggle to become familiar, accessible and implementable for the general IT population, so an overview of semantic technologies is provided. Faced with competing `semantic' languages, such as the ISO's Topic Map standards, a method for building ISO-compliant Topic Maps in the OWL DL language has been provided, enabling them to take advantage of the more mature OWL language and tools. Supplementation with rules is needed to deal with many real-world scenarios and this is explored as a practical exercise. The available syntaxes for OWL have hindered domain experts in ontology building, so a natural language syntax for OWL designed for use by non-logicians is offered and compared with similar offerings. In recent years, proliferation of ontologies has resulted in far more than are needed in any given domain space, so a mechanism is proposed to facilitate the reuse of existing ontologies by giving contextual information and leveraging social factors to encourage wider adoption of common ontologies and achieve interoperability. Lastly, the question of meaning is addressed in relation to the need to define one's terms and to ground one's symbols by anchoring them effectively, ultimately providing the foundation for evolving a `Pragmatic Web' of action.

Les travaux de recherche menés autour de la description de services Web utilisent de plus en plus des modèles sémantiques pour fournir une représentation interprétable automatiquement. Toutefois, nous avons décelé des lacunes dans les approches sémantiques actuelles qui engendrent ambiguïté et non pertinence au niveau de l'appariement et de la découverte de services Web. Pour remédier à ces lacunes nous proposons des contributions à la description et à la découverte de services Web sémantiques. En ce qui concerne la description de services, nous avons défini un langage basé sur une recommandation W3C. En plus d'une annotation métier sémantique des éléments d'un service, notre principale contribution à la description sémantique consiste à spécifier la nature de ces annotations en utilisant une ontologie technique que nous avons définie. Cette ontologie met en relation plusieurs concepts sémantiques de services Web que nous avons identifiés dans des approches existantes et intègrera d'autres concepts qu'on définira ultérieurement sans pour autant modifier notre langage de description ou nos techniques d'appariement associées. Nous avons également défini un algorithme d'appariement entre une requête de service et les descriptions des services publiés. Cet algorithme se base sur un appariement entre éléments d'une requête et un service publié et trois techniques d'agrégation des résultats d'appariements élémentaires. L'algorithme tire avantage de la description sémantique que nous avons définie. Il a été mis en œuvre dans un annuaire de services Web sémantiques et a été également comparé aux algorithmes de référence. Les expérimentations montrent clairement l'efficacité de notre approche en termes de temps de réponse et de précision

The concept of matter as it is treated in the philosophical systems of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus is examined, partly to ascertain the influence which the original Aristotelian concept of matter had on the two medieval thinkers, and partly to determine which of these two thinkers remained more faithful to the original Aristotelian concept. An analysis is carried out of the views of the three philosophers regarding the ontological status of matter; the intelligibility of matter; the issue of the real distinction between matter and form; the role played by matter in individuating composite substances; and its role in defining composite substances and determining their essences. Finally, the views of Aquinas and Scotus regarding the theory of universal hylomorphism and the theory of the plurality of forms are discussed and compared. It is shown that, while most of the Franciscan philosophical tradition up to Scotus's time was far more influenced by Platonist than by Aristotelian principles, Scotus, though a Franciscan, was much closer to Aristotle than to Plato in his views regarding matter. In fact, the few deviations from the original Aristotelian concept found in Scotus's theory can be ascribed to theological concerns. It is argued, furthermore, that Scotus's views on the concept of matter are far closer to the original Aristotelian theory than our analysis shows Aquinas himself to be.

Within recent political theory, political liberalism has answered the question of how to deal with pluralism in contemporary society largely in terms of tolerance. Prompted by the same question, agonistic political theory has been in search of a way to move beyond liberal invocations of tolerance to a deeper celebration of difference. This project tells the story of the move within political theory from tolerance to difference, and the concomitant move from epistemology to ontology, through an exposition of the work of liberal theorists John Rawls and Richard Rorty and of agonistic, or post-Nietzschean, political theorists Chantal Mouffe and William Connolly. From a theological perspective, the ontological turn within recent theory can be seen as a welcome development, as can the desire to expand our capacity to engage with difference and to augment our current political imagination given contemporary conditions of pluralism. Yet the sufficiency of the answers and ontology put forward by both political liberalism and post-Nietzschean political thought needs to be seriously questioned. Indeed, the ontological turn in political theory opens the way for a theological turn, for theology is equally concerned with questions of human being and 'what there is' more generally. To make this 'theological turn,' I look to Saint Augustine, and the ontology disclosed though his writings, to see what theological resources he offers for an engagement with difference. Through this discussion we re-discover Augustine's Heavenly City as the place in which unity and diversity, harmony and plurality can come together in ways that are not possible outside of participation in the Triune God. Yet this does not mean that the Heavenly City is to take over the earthly city. By putting Augustine into conversation with more recent theologians such as John Milbank, Karl Barth, and William Cavanaugh, we consider the relationship between the Heavenly City and the earthly city and we offer a picture in which renewed and expanded conceptions of 'public' and 'conversation' open the way for rich engagement between the many different particularities that constitute a pluralist society.

This thesis offers a constructive account of the doctrine of divine simplicity in Christian theology. In its methodology, the thesis aims to present this divine perfection as an implicate of the scriptural portrayal of God, to draw upon the insights and conceptual resources of Thomas Aquinas and various Reformed orthodox theologians, and to respond to some objections to divine simplicity. The focus on exegetical elaboration of biblical teaching and the use of Thomas and the Reformed orthodox distinguish this work from a number of recent accounts of God in both systematic theology and analytic philosophy. The case for God's simplicity is made by examining God's singularity, aseity, immutability, infinity, and act of creation in Holy Scripture and then tracing the ways in which these descriptions of God imply that he is (negatively) not composed of parts. Rather, he is (positively) actus purus and really identical with his own essence, existence, and attributes, each of which is identical with the whole being of the triune God considered under some aspect. In light of the constructive work, this study then addresses the three most pressing objections to divine simplicity: (1) that it denigrates God's revelation of his many attributes in the economy; (2) that it eliminates God's freedom in creating the world and acting in history; and (3) that it does not cohere with the doctrine of the Trinity.

Pour nous, hommes du XXIe siècle, la question de l’être, et l’ouverture même de l’accès à elle, paraissent bien souvent intégralement en dépendance de la pensée heideggerienne, dont le geste le plus fondamental fut de reconduire l’être à l’horizon de la temporalité, en barrant dès lors l’accès à la double possibilité de fonder la finitude sur l’infini, et le temps sur l’éternité. Peut-on dès lors, aujourd’hui, ouvrir à nouveau un questionnement qui fasse signe vers une dimension infinie et éternelle de l’être en tant que tel ? Peut-on poser sur l’être un regard qui n’évacue pas, d’abord et par principe, la seule possibilité de voir l’étant fini faire signe, de lui-même, en direction de son origine infinie – qu’elle soit immanente ou transcendante ? Cette retrempe du regard, nous croyons pouvoir l’éprouver au contact de deux pensées, qui tiennent chacune une place éminente dans l’histoire de la philosophie occidentale, à savoir celle de Thomas d’Aquin et celle de Hegel. En effet, le thomisme et l’hégélianisme constituent les deux tentatives les plus complètes, avant le double interdit posé par Heidegger, de fonder sur l’être infini la finitude même de l’étant passager ; et au premier chef, bien entendu, la finitude de l’homme qui, chez l’un comme chez l’autre, est destinée par soi à son propre dépassement. En posant en effet la question de la manifestation de l’être, c’est-à-dire des modes de donation possible de l’être à la conscience, tant du côté de l’objet que du sujet, cette étude n’a pas pu faire l’économie d’interroger la possibilité, paradoxale à première vue, pour une pensée finie de s’élever jusqu’à une connaissance de l’Être premier en son infinité. Ainsi a-t-on dû s’attarder au thème hégélien du Savoir absolu, et, en regard, celui, thomiste, de la vision béatifique, qui n’est autre que la vue de l’Ipsum esse tel qu’en lui-même et dans sa propre essence. C’est seulement à ce point d’incandescence le plus haut qu’une conclusion devenait possible, où l’on a tenté de mettre en lumière le sens ultime de l’être selon Thomas d’Aquin et Hegel, tel qu’il s’est donné dans l’accomplissement de sa plus propre manifestation, à partir de lui-même et dans lui-même
To us, people from the 21st century, the question of the being, and in fact the very opening of our access to it, often seem to be intricately linked to Heidegger’s thought, whose most fundamental act was to reconnect the notion of being to that of temporality, thus forbidding any attempt at grounding both finitude on the infinite, and time on eternity. Is it therefore possible today to initiate a new reflexion pointing at an infinite and eternal dimension of the being as such ? Is it possible to look into the being without first refusing, as a matter of principle, the very possibility of seeing the finite being pointing by itself at its own infinite origin – be it an immanent or a transcendant one ? The present paper originates in the belief that this new attempt is indeed possible through a conversation between two particularly eminent systems of thought in the history of western thinking: that of Thomas Aquinas and that of Hegel. Thomism and Hegelianism indeed constituted the two most accomplished attempts, before Heidegger’s double interdiction, at grounding the very finitude of the fleetingness of beings on the infinite being; and first of all, of course, the finitude of man, which according to both thinkers is destined to surpass itself. By raising the question of the revealing of the being, that is to say, of the possible modes of bestowal of the being on our conscience, this paper could not avoid looking into the apparently paradoxical possibility for a finite thinking to raise to a knowledge of the prime Being in all its infinity. Hence the necessity to linger on the hegelian theme of the absolute Knowledge, and, on the other hand, on the thomistic theme of the beatific vision, which is nothing less than the vision of the Ipsum esse as such and in its very essence. Only upon reaching this highest point was it possible to draw a conclusion that would, hopefully, shine a light on the ultimate meaning of the being according to Thomas and Hegel, such as it gave itself in the accomplishment of its very own manifestation from itself and within itself

Le présent travail est une analyse du concept d’instrument qui en fait apparaître les exigences théoriques et demande si et dans quelle mesure le système de Thomas d’Aquin les remplit. D’abord, on montre que la notion d’instrument telle que Thomas la définit en général et conformément à l’aristotélisme dont il hérite — à savoir, comme un «moteur mû» — est contradictoire, dans la mesure où rien, d’après Thomas, ne peut être à la fois moteur et mû selon le même mouvement. Ensuite, on montre que la notion d’instrument telle que Thomas la redéfinit dans le contexte restreint de sa théologie sacramentelle — à savoir, comme ce qui «agit en vertu d’un autre» — échappe à cette contradiction, même si elle est, à son tour, problématique, parce qu’elle implique qu’un même pouvoir (virtus) transite de l’agent principal à l’instrument. Il faut étudier le modèle auquel Thomas renvoie — à savoir, l’être intentionnel des espèces sensibles — pour répondre à ce problème : il s’agit alors de montrer comment l’apparence peut être conçue comme une propriété en transit numériquement identique en plusieurs sujets (la chose, le milieu, le percepteur). Enfin, on justifie l’application de ce modèle au pouvoir instrumental grâce à deux thèses centrales de l’ontologie thomasienne des pouvoirs — à savoir, qu’ils sont distincts de la forme substantielle et qu’ils en fluent — qui reviennent à accorder au pouvoir, comme tel, le même statut ontologique qu’à l’espèce sensible, c’est-à-dire un être intentionnel (esse intentionale). On en conclut que ce qui fonde, en définitive, la causalité instrumentale, ce n’est pas tant la physique d’Aristote que l’ontologie des pouvoirs de Thomas
The aim of this study is to offer a better understanding of instrumental causation in Aquinas. It starts by calling into question the idea that an instrument is a « moved mover ». Behind this apparently innocuous phrase lurks a contradiction, for, as Aquinas states, it is impossible for something to both be a mover and be moved according to the same motion. Having argued that this contradiction may not be satisfyingly solved, an alternate definition is suggested, according to which an instrument acts "in virtue of another". Indeed, according to Aquinas’s sacramental theology, an instrument acts insofar as it contains a certain power (virtus). This power isn’t its own, but the individual property of something else, namely the principal cause. The question here is to account for what seems to be a transferable trope: an individual power present both in the principal and in the instrumental cause. Aquinas does this by comparing the power in the instrument to the species of color in the air. We follow this cue. First, by understanding how a sensible species may be understood as numerically identical across different subjects, namely the sensible object, the medium and the perceiver. Second, by turning to Aquinas’s thesis that powers are distinct and flow from a thing’s substantial form. This, it is argued, amounts to granting powers the same ontological status as sensible species, namely intentional being (esse intentionale). The study concludes that it is not Aristotelian physics but Aquinas’s metaphysics of powers that ultimately grounds instrumental causation

Cette thèse traite de la doctrine catégorielle, de l’ontologie et de la théorie de la connaissance de Dietrich de Freiberg dans le De origine rerum praedicamentalium. L’enjeu principal est d’étudier la fonction constitutive que l’intellect opère sur catégories et sur l’étant en tant que tel. La première partie replace le traité dans le contexte historique des débats à l’université de Paris à la fin du XIIIe siècle touchant au statut des catégories et à la manière d’ordonner les genres réels de l’étant. Elle confronte la dérivation essentielle des prédicaments chez Dietrich aux modèles de systématisation élaborées par ses prédécesseurs, tels qu’Albert le Grand, Thomas d’Aquin, Henri de Gand. La deuxième partie s’attache aux objets constitués par l’intellect : l’Un comme principe du nombre et de la division, la relation et le temps. La dernière partie enquête la modalité sur laquelle l’intellect opère cette activité sur l’étant et montre en définitive que le sujet de la métaphysique, l’être quiditatif des étants, se situe à la croisée de la logique et du réel
This thesis deals with Dietrich of Freiberg’s doctrine of categories, ontology and theory of knowledge, as present in the treatise De origine rerum praedicamentalium. The primary aim is to examine the constitutive function the intellect exercises on the categories and being as being. The first part of this thesis replaces the treatise in the historical background of the late 13th century debates from the University of Paris regarding the nature of categories and the manner of organizing the real genera of being. It compares Dietrich’s deduction of the categories with the systematization of some of his predecessors such as Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent. The second part of the thesis deals with the objects caused by the intellect: the One as principle of number and division, relation and time. The last part investigates the manner in which the intellect exercises its constitutive power on being and demonstrates in the final analysis that the subject of metaphysics, the quiditative being of things, is placed at the intersection of logic and reality

Today, it is well known that missing, incomplete or inconsistent requirements lead to faulty software designs, implementations and tests resulting in software of improper quality or safety risks. Thus, an improved Requirements Engineering contributes to safer and better-quality software, reduces the risk of overrun time and budgets and, most of all, decreases or even eliminates the risk for project failures. One significant problem requirements engineers have to cope with, are inconsistencies in the Software Requirements Specification. Such inconsistencies result from the acquisition, specification, and evolution of goals and requirements from multiple stakeholders and sources. In order to regain consistency, requirements information are removed from the specification which often leads to incompleteness. Due to this causal relationship between consistency, completeness and correctness, we can formally improve the correctness of requirements knowledge by increasing its completeness and consistency. Furthermore, the poor quality of individual requirements is a primary reason why so many projects continue to fail and needs to be considered in order to improve the Software Requirements Specification. These flaws in the Software Requirements Specification are hard to identify by current methods and thus, usually remain unrecognised. While the validation of requirements ensures that they are correct, complete, consistent and meet the customer and user intents, the requirements engineer is hardly supported by automated validation methods. In this thesis, a novel approach to automated validation and measurement of requirements knowledge is presented, which automatically identifies incomplete or inconsistent requirements and quality flaws. Furthermore, the requirements engineer is guided by providing knowledge specific suggestions on how to resolve them. For this purpose, a requirements metamodel, the Requirements Ontology, has been developed that provides the basis for the validation and measurement support. This requirements ontology is suited for Goal-oriented Requirements Engineering and allows for the conceptualisation of requirements knowledge, facilitated by ontologies. It provides a huge set of predefined requirements metadata, requirements artefacts and various relations among them. Thus, the Requirements Ontology enables the documentation of structured, reusable, unambiguous, traceable, complete and consistent requirements as demanded by the IEEE specification for Software Requirement Specifications. We demonstrate our approach with a prototypic implementation called OntoReq. OntoReq allows for the specification of requirements knowledge while keeping the ontology invisible to the requirements engineer and enables the validation of the knowledge captured within. The validation approach presented in this thesis is capable of being applied to any domain ontology. Therefore, we formulate various guidelines and use a continuous example to demonstrate the transfer to the domain of medical drugs. The Requirements Ontology as well as OntoReq have been evaluated by different methods. The Requirements Ontology has been shown to be capable for capturing requirements knowledge of a real Software Requirements Specification and OntoReq feasible to be used by a requirements engineering tool to highlight inconsistencies, incompleteness and quality flaws during real time requirements modelling.

Text in English
The current investigation explores the possibility of surpassing or subordinating epistemology to ontology by focusing on the hermeneutics of Heidegger. Based on his works, which consider the understanding as a way of being and therefore offering the foundation for all knowledge, this study will underline the decisive shift concerning the question of being (l’être) in the works of modern hermeneutics fathers. A critical move made by Heidegger's philosophical perspective underlines the epistemology of understanding. The question of the ontology of understanding is investigated differently from his predecessors Schleiermacher and Dilthey, and culminates in a revolution in hermeneutics. The understanding is not knowledge, but a behavioural Dasein. His main contribution to hermeneutics consists of subordinating the methodological and epistemological questions to the ontological ones. The problem of understanding is no longer linked to “other” but is extended to the world. There is therefore a mundanisation of understanding, which overlaps its depsychologisation. Understanding is a mode of being of Dasein that extends in interpretation, which leads to language. The interpretation is only a development of understanding, which is articulated in language. The phenomenological method and critical analysis are used for this investigation.
Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology
M.A. (Philosophy)

Sociology has always been forced to establish its "scientific" legitimacy, but this need has never been more strongly felt than today. Constant theoretical shifts and disciplinary fragmentation are viewed as symptoms of some fundamental problems. Assuming the precariousness of the present condition of sociology, this dissertation seeks to understand and explain the driving force behind theoretical shifts in sociology, for they are blamed for many of the problems in the discipline. Through a close reading of Michel Foucault's works, I argue that sociology, like many other forms of knowledge, has attempted to shape the modern person as an ethical subject. Pursuant to this objective, early sociologists attempted to establish a balance between two different kinds of orientation within the discipline, one of which was epistemological and scientific while the other was ontological and discursive. This position was in line with the critical attitude of the time and the emancipatory promises of the Enlightenment, which were nurtured by the early sociologists. In other words, the dual characteristic of sociology was due to a critical interest in changing and shaping the modern social subject. However, this duality gave rise to a tension within the discipline that was extremely difficult to manage, if not impossible. This dissertation examines the tension between the two orientations that has shaped the history of sociology. I read classical sociologists such as Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber to show that even these positivistic sociologists' theories can best be understood as a form of critique. In particular, I explain how they sought to manage the tension between the epistemological and the ontological aspects of their theories. I also examine Karl Popper's critical philosophy as a more recent attempt to keep science politically relevant. However, I will show that the dilemmas created in sociology are mainly due to a strong epistemological orientation beyond which most contemporary sociologists are not able to move. Sociology may avoid some of its present dilemmas by shifting its critical interest to an ontological path. To show the possibility and merits o f the ontological approach to politics, I read Karl Marx as a classical sociologist whose theory exhibits a strong ontological tendency. I above all discuss Michel Foucault's work extensively in order to both explain the nature of sociological theories and to explore the possibility and the prospects of the separation of the epistemological and the ontological sociologies more systematically. My aim is to show that while scientific sociology tries to advance without becoming intrinsically political, an explicitly discursive or ontological approach to contemporary political questions can be adopted by interested political actors and sociologists alike.

Text in German, summaries in German and English
Diese Masterarbeit handelt von Transzendenzmomenten angesichts des Anderen und nimmt damit Bezug auf einen der einflussreichsten Philosophen der Gegenwart, Emmanuel Levinas. Philosophiegeschichtlich bildet der linguistic turn den Kontext dieses Diskurses. So wird der Wandel im Denken, der mit dem linguistic turn einhergeht, anhand verschiedener philosophischer und theologischer Essays reflektiert und auf das Problem der Gewalt im Prozess des Erkennens hin zugespitzt. In Diskussion mit den Schriften Dietrich Bonhoeffers leistet diese Arbeit hinfort einen Beitrag zum systematisch-theologischen Diskurs über Gottesoffenbarung in zwischenmenschlichen Beziehungen und über Ethik. In Auseinandersetzung mit Levinas und Bonhoeffer baut diese Arbeit eine Brücke zwischen postmodernem, dekonstruktivistischem Denken und der fortwährenden theologischen Aufgabe, Gottes Sein mittels menschlicher Sprache Ausdruck zu verleihen.
This master thesis is about moments of transcendence in face of the other by means of one of the most important philosophers in our days, Emmanuel Levinas. The philosophically based historical context is represented by the term linguistic turn which marks a change of thinking within the 20th century. To outline this change the thesis brings several philosophical and theological essays up for discussion which leads to the problem of power in the process of recognition. Bringing up Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s writings, this research will make a contribution to the systematic-theological discourse about God revealing himself within relationships and about ethics. Furthermore it builds a bridge between postmodern anti-constructivist thinking and the continual theological task of using human language to explore God’s being.
Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology
M. Th. (Systematic Theology)