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Ontology

The study of being itself.

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Ontology.

3 random tidbits in about 5 minutes.

A Ontology Article.

Subject: Existence.

Philosophy: The Existence and Essence Debate.

In religion and philosophy, the existence and essence debate asks if you exist before your time on Earth.

In short.

In religion and philosophy, the existence and essence debate centers around whether you exist before and/or after your time on Earth. The scientific and Spinozan view is one substance, nature. Contrast this with two substances, our realm, and an afterlife realm.

Now, the details…

The following is drawn from 30 Philosophers. For a deep dive into existence, read chapters 6, 16, 22, and 31. For a deep dive into how humans are shaped by experience, read chapters 5, 7, 17, and 27.

Introduction

In most religions, especially the Abrahamic religions, your essence exists within another realm before your existence on Earth. In some religions, that essence is in the form of a soul, for others, it’s just the essence of you with no continuous connection to your new life.

In philosophy, this is known as the existence and essence debate. For sure, we are born, experience life, and become something in this life. We grow up, learn, and find our place in the world. In a real sense, at least on Earth, we exist first and then transform our essence with our occupation, hobbies, family, and friends. However, both philosophy and religion debate whether we exist before and after this life. That’s the existence and essence debate.

Let’s take this in two parts: existence before essence, then essence first.

Part 1: Existence Before Essence

The “Existence Before Essence” position of this debate says that you are born first, you exist as a blank slate with cognitive abilities and instincts, and then you and society mold you into you, into your essence.

In this view, humans are part of the animal kingdom and the question of a creator is a big part of what might be the most human of all traits: our awareness that we did not exist before, and will not exist again.

Aristotle once said,

“The whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

In my writing, I use the example of a chair. As in, the chair is something more than just pieces of wood. When a chair comes into existence, it has a lifespan. There exists a time before and a time after its existence. The chair was born from wood parts. It existed than it took on essence. Put a light Stain on it and it has a sense of formality. Stain it darker, a different type of essence. Remove the stain and paint it green, its essence is now that of a green chair. If a piece breaks, you replace it. It’s still that chair. Some day, it will no longer exist as a chair.

In science, philosophy, and religion, they are pursuing these questions trying to figure out whether there is a realm other than the material world. In philosophy, this is often referred to as substance. As in our realm is one substance and everyone is debating whether another substance exists, whether that other substance is heaven or something else.

Part 2: Essence Before Existence

The Essence Before Existence position argues that before you are born, your essence—your fundamental nature or purpose—already exists. Whether as a soul, an intrinsic purpose, or a predetermined essence, you are not simply a blank slate upon arrival. Your existence, then, is an unfolding of what was already there, rather than a construction from nothing. This is sometimes thought of as Platonic. As in a view like or within the context of Plato’s Realm of Forms.

Many religious traditions embrace this view. In Christianity and Islam, the soul preexists earthly life and continues beyond it, destined for a higher plane. In Hinduism, the essence of the self—atman—moves through cycles of reincarnation, shaped by karma. Even in non-theistic traditions like Platonism, the Forms suggest that the ideal version of something exists before its physical manifestation. To these worldviews, existence is not a random occurrence but the realization of something deeper, something predetermined.

Philosophically, this concept resonates in existentialism’s inverse: thinkers like Kierkegaard and certain interpretations of Heidegger suggest that we discover our essence rather than create it. In this sense, life is not about constructing meaning from nothingness but about uncovering the essence that was always there. Even those who reject the idea of a soul often seek meaning beyond the material—whether through legacy, purpose, or a belief in an interconnected universe. This impulse itself suggests that, on some level, many of us behave as though our essence precedes our existence.

Conclusion

Metaphysics, the branch of philosophy exploring being and reality, investigates what exists and how they exist. You are born a human, you can’t change that, but the essence of you, your identity either evolves as you age or you were born with your identity. In 350 BCE, Plato proposed a realm of Forms and said you are born with it all. Aristotle disagreed. In about 1000 CE, Avicenna said your “essence precedes your existence.” In the 1900s, Sartre comes along and says nope again, “your existence precedes your essence.” Meanwhile, science has largely sided with Aristotle and Sartre.

That Ontology Article,

was first published on TST 1 year ago.

The flashcard inspired by it is this.

A Ontology Quote.

Subject: Identity.

“Identity is easy — it’s me, whatever that is.”.

Michael Alan Prestwood.
2024.

Identity isn’t fixed. It shifts as we grow. Understanding yourself means accepting that “me” is a story in motion, not a finished definition.

The central point is this.

Identity feels solid, but it shifts with every stage of life. You are not fixed; you’re evolving. This line reminds us that “me” isn’t a static definition but an ongoing story. Knowing that frees you to grow, question, and become something better than yesterday’s version.

Now, the details…

This line came out of a moment in chapter 22 of 30 Philosophers where I wanted to distill a big philosophical idea into something honest and human. We talk about identity as if it’s solid and easy to define, but the truth is… it isn’t. We’re constantly changing. Growing. Contradicting ourselves. And if we’re being real, most of us only half-understand who we are at any given moment.

Writing about Descartes made this even clearer to me. Here’s a man trying to rebuild knowledge from the ground up, starting with the “I.” But even he couldn’t fully pin down what the “I” was. So I leaned into that uncertainty. The phrase “whatever that is” isn’t self-doubt — it’s self-honesty. It’s permission to be a work in progress.

And this matters because identity is the starting point for everything else — our worldview, our beliefs, our sense of meaning. When you allow your identity to be flexible, you create space for growth. You let yourself evolve instead of defending an outdated version of you. That’s the heart of my worldview: identity isn’t a fixed object; it’s an ongoing story, one we get to keep rewriting.

That Ontology Quote,

was first published on TST 5 months ago.

The flashcard inspired by it is this.

A Ontology Story.

From History:

Subject: Pessimistic Worldview.

Arthur Schopenhauer.

born 1788.

Lived from 1788 to 1860, aged 72.

Schopenhauer: Blind Will and Human Suffering shows how one philosopher took Kant’s boundary between appearance and reality and filled it with a darker force — a restless Will beneath life itself, one that helps explain why human self-awareness so often deepens suffering instead of easing it.

From another angle.

For Arthur Schopenhauer, existence is driven by a blind, restless will that guarantees dissatisfaction. Suffering is not an accident—it is the engine of life. Friedrich Nietzsche accepts the same raw forces but rejects resignation. Where Schopenhauer urges restraint, denial, and quieting desire, Nietzsche urges affirmation, struggle, and creative becoming. One seeks relief from the will; the other seeks mastery through it.

Now, the details…

Schopenhauer is remembered as a gloomy man, and in fairness, he clearly was. However, a closer look at what has survived paints a man who was not simply “doom and gloom” every minute. Overall, he was a deeply pessimistic man with a temperament and philosophy both drawn toward suffering, conflict, restraint, and tranquility, rather than joy, celebration, or optimism. History records him not exactly happy, but also not just theatrically miserable. History paints a picture of someone who sought pockets of peace in a world he thought was fundamentally painful.

His pessimistic worldview was deeply influenced by Kant’s work. He extended Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena by introducing his concept of the Will. While Kant viewed the noumenal world as unknowable, Schopenhauer identified it as a blind Will driving all living beings. This Will propels existence, but for humans it also deepens suffering, because our heightened self-awareness makes us conscious of frustration, longing, and especially death. In that sense, Schopenhauer stands within a long philosophical thread: the effort by many to reckon with the burden that we too, someday, will die.

Schopenhauer believed that desire is the engine of suffering. We want, we strive, we briefly satisfy a craving, and then new cravings appear. For that reason, he thought peace comes not from feeding desire but from reducing it. He saw art and compassion as temporary relief, but his deepest answer was ascetic renunciation: the denial of the will-to-live through detachment, restraint, and the quieting of desire. In this, he is often compared to Buddhist themes, though his view is darker and more pessimistic than the Buddhist Middle Way.

Relation to the Idea of Ideas: The Idea of Ideas is closer to Kant than to Schopenhauer in one key respect: it keeps the split neutral. It distinguishes the material world from our ideas about it without interpreting reality itself as a cosmic struggle of blind desire. TST does not deny suffering, but it also does not make suffering the essence of existence. Instead, it focuses on how empirical, rational, and irrational ideas relate to reality, and on how moderation and applied philosophy can help us live well.

Schopenhauer also sits in an older area of philosophy: the long effort to name what animates life from within. Philosophers have called it soul, spirit, entelechy, will, and more. These are not the same idea, but they all circle a similar human intuition: that living beings seem to have an inner principle, not just an outer form. In that sense, Schopenhauer’s Will belongs to a broad and ancient conversation about what drives life itself.

I frequently quote the translated Aristotle line,

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Aristotle’s entelechy gives this same impulse to name the “greater” a more teleological shape, as something that emerges through form, development, and fulfillment. Later traditions spiritualize it, but Schopenhauer darkens it into restless striving. He gives that larger conversation one of its darkest expressions.

That Ontology Story,

was first published on TST 2 years ago.

The flashcard inspired by it is this.

Front: Which philosopher emphasized individual will and suffering?

Back: Arthur Schopenhauer.

The end. Refresh for another set.

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