Philosophers characteristically charge each other with reifying things improperly, and in the history of philosophy every kind of thing will at one time or another have been thought to be the fictitious result of an ontological mistake.
Simon Blackburn
Following up from imaginaries, one of the other terms used in the talk that inspired me to write was ontology, in particular social ontology. I was perturbed by the claim that social imaginaries form ontologies of a specific kind, which led me to reflect upon the way the terms gets used not only in philosophy but in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences generally. To paraphrase my favourite character in my favourite film, they keep using that word, but I do not think it means what they think it means. Particularly not in information technology, but not only there.
I will give a short tl;dr abstract for my philosophical posts above the fold from now on, so:
Abstract
An ontology is a representation of how the world is, not the outcome of a taxonomy organised for utility or psychological or social convenience. It is mutually constructed by a community on many foundations. In particular, a scientific theory need not be a prerequisite for an ontology (but it can help).
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