Ontology is a foundational discipline of philosophy, which has its origins in ancient Greece and is represented in our own day by the work of analytical metaphysicians such as David Lewis and David Armstrong. Ontology in this philosophical sense is a theoretical discipline. It is (roughly) the science of what is, of the kinds and structures of objects, properties, events, processes and relations in every area of reality.

At the same time ontology is a rapidly growing practical discipline at the intersection of philosophy and information science. Ontological tools and theories are increasingly being applied in bioinformatics, medical informatics, intelligence analysis, management science, in culture and museum informatics and in other fields, where they serve as a basis for improved classifications, information integration and automatic reasoning. The world's first conference on applied ontology was held in Buffalo in 1998, and the first issue of the new journal Applied Ontology was published in 2006.

With the increasing importance of ontology-based applications comes the need for research and teaching in the theoretical foundations of ontology. The University at Buffalo (UB) Department of Philosophy is a leading center of research in theoretical ontology. The work of six faculty members in the Department is focused primarily on ontology and UB includes also applied ontologists in a variety of disciplines, including biomedicine and geospatial analysis.

Philosophers with a primary focus in ontology in UB's Department of Philosophy include:

Barry Smith, Director of the National Center for Ontological Research; author of some 400 papers on ontology. Editor of The Monist.

Thomas Bittner, specialist in formal ontology and its applications in geospatial and biomedical informatics

Maureen Donnelly, specialist in logic with applications to ontology-based reasoning in bioinformatics and other fields

Jorge Gracia, author of major works on metaphysics and its history, including Individuality (1988) and Metaphysics and Its Task (1999)

David Hershenov, author of a series of papers on ontological aspects of medicine and biology

Fabian Neuhaus, logician and formal ontologist (Research Fellow, National Center for Biomedical Ontology)

Neil Williams, philosopher working on causation, dispositions, and systematic metaphysics

Philosophers in the Department with interests in ontology and metaphysics include also:

Randall Dipert, research in logic, philosophy of mathematics and ontology; author of Artifacts, Art Works, and Agency (1993)

Kenneth M. Ehrenberg, working on the functional nature of law and the normative patterns in legal systems

Michael W. McGlone, research on theories of communication, the semantics-pragmatics interface, and the ontology of naming and identification

William J. Rapaport, philosopher and computer scientist working on knowledge representation and reasoning

Ken Shockley, research interests include institutional design, the ontological status of collectives, collective agency, and collective responsibility.

Jiyuan Yu, specialist in Greek metaphysics; author of The Structure of Being in Aristotle's Metaphysics (2003)

PhD Program

Students who wish to acquire a thorough grounding in the theory and practice of ontology are invited to apply for a range of enhanced PhD fellowships. All students will participate in the UB PhD program in philosophy. In addition to courses in ontology/metaphysics they will acquire expertise in a range of philosophical disciplines including logic, epistemology, ethics and the history of philosophy.

Our students benefit not only from our faculty expertise but also from an intense series of ontology seminars, workshops and conferences.

The Philosophy Department collaborates closely with prominent ontology research institutions throughout the world, including the National Library of Medicine, the Gene Ontology Consortium, the European Center for Ontological Research and the Japanese Ontology Forum. Our students can benefit also from internship and exchange programs with a variety of US and international institutions. The Department has a strong placement record, and the graduates of our PhD program have obtained not only academic positions but also positions as professional ontologists working for government agencies and private industry.

Courses

Our goal is to train philosophers who can participate in research and teaching of theoretical ontology at a high level, whether as formal ontologists, as specialists in the history of metaphysics or in other ways. Courses offered in ontology in the Department include:

Philosophical Ontology

Applied Ontology

History of Ontology

Research Projects

Unusually for a graduate program in philosophy, our students have the opportunity to become involved in collaborative research projects funded by institutions such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the US Agency for International Development.

The University at Buffalo

With approximately 27,000 graduate and undergraduate students, UB is the largest institution of higher learning of the State University of New York system. It is a graduate center and a major US public university located on the US-Canada border near Niagara Falls. Because it is a public university, its tuition rates are highly competitive. UB is one of only two public members of the prestigious Association of American Universities in New York State and New England, and thus stands in the first rank among the nation’s research-intensive public universities.

Areas of Study » PhD with a focus in Ontology