Ontology Categories Research Articles

Could Robots Empatize? A Review on The Employment of Social Robots in Mental Healthcare

The advances in artificial intelligence and robotics began to transform business and human relations. The employment of robots in health, education, entertainment and rehabilitation as well as industries introduced the concept of "social robots". Although there is no consensus on the definition of the concept, robots with some degree of autonomy and could conduct meaningful social interactions with humans are considered social robots. Studies have been conducted on the employment of social robots in mental health services. Studies have been conducted on the employment of social robots in mental health services. The effectiveness of social robots in the treatment of anxiety, stress, depression, anger, and eating disorders, especially dementia and autism spectrum disorder, has also been investigated. The question of “can robots empathize” is a significant topic in research that focus on human-robot interactions. Robotic empathy studies were conducted with two dimensions of human empathy for robots and robot empathy for humans and led to various philosophical and ethical discussions. Some argued that robot-human interaction leads to new opportunities in mental health services, while others criticized the use of robots since it could increase human solitude, blur the line between reality and virtuality perceptions and the distinction between ontological categories. The present literature review aimed to discuss the concepts of artificial intelligence, robots, and social robots, provide information about the studies on the employment of social robots in mental healthcare, and address the studies and views based on the question "can social robots empathize?"

Robotlar Empati Yapabilir mi? Sosyal Robotların Ruh Sağlığı Hizmetlerinde Kullanımı Üzerine Bir Derleme

The advances in artificial intelligence and robotics began to transform business and human relations. The employment of robots in health, education, entertainment and rehabilitation as well as industries introduced the concept of "social robots". Although there is no consensus on the definition of the concept, robots with some degree of autonomy and could conduct meaningful social interactions with humans are considered social robots. Studies have been conducted on the employment of social robots in mental health services. Studies have been conducted on the employment of social robots in mental health services. The effectiveness of social robots in the treatment of anxiety, stress, depression, anger, and eating disorders, especially dementia and autism spectrum disorder, has also been investigated. The question of “can robots empathize” is a significant topic in research that focus on human-robot interactions. Robotic empathy studies were conducted with two dimensions of human empathy for robots and robot empathy for humans and led to various philosophical and ethical discussions. Some argued that robot-human interaction leads to new opportunities in mental health services, while others criticized the use of robots since it could increase human solitude, blur the line between reality and virtuality perceptions and the distinction between ontological categories. The present literature review aimed to discuss the concepts of artificial intelligence, robots, and social robots, provide information about the studies on the employment of social robots in mental healthcare, and address the studies and views based on the question "can social robots empathize?"

Coiled-Coil Domain-Containing Protein 45 Is a Potential Prognostic Biomarker and Is Associated with Immune Cell Enrichment of Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

The role of coiled-coil domain-containing protein 45 (CCDC45) in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has not been reported. The present study is aimed at investigating the expression and prognosis of CCDC45 in HCC and its relevance to immune infiltration. We conducted CCDC45 expression analysis using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) tumor database, the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) database, and the Tumor Immunological Evaluation Resource (TIMER). We used the University of Alabama at Birmingham Cancer data analysis Portal (UALCAN) database to show the correlation of CCDC45 with clinical features. We examined the prognostic impact of CCDC45 expression levels on HCC patients with the Kaplan-Meier mapper database. Genes coexpressed with CCDC45 and its regulators were also identified using LinkedOmics. The enriched Gene Ontology (GO) categories and associated signaling pathways were estimated using GO, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and Gene Set Enrichment Assay (GSEA) pathway data. Correlations between CCDC45 and cancer immune infiltration was analyzed through the TIMER and an integrated repository portal for Tumor-Immune System Interactions (TISIDB) databases. The expression of CCDC45 was elevated in HCC tissues compared to adjacent liver tissues, and overexpression of CCDC45 was significantly correlated with tumor stage. Furthermore, HCC patients with CCDC45 overexpression had a shorter overall survival (OS). Functional network analysis indicated that CCDC45 was involved in homologous recombination, spliceosome, and DNA replication. Interestingly, CCDC45 expression was positively correlated with the level of immune cell infiltration. CCDC45 is associated with prognosis and immune infiltration of HCC and may be a potential therapeutic target for HCC.

Квантово-холістичні категорії соціальних комунікацій

Today, among specialists in social communications there is a lack of knowledge about the quantum-holistic categories of social communications, both the process of social and the process of social activity. The aimof our study was to identify and describe quantum-holistic categories of social communication processes. Through our study, we have chosen a transformed methodologyof holism, which argues that the integrity of the world is a consequence of creative evolution. Such evolution is guided by the intangible and unknowable «integrity factor»(in Jan Smuts's terminology). The transformation of the ideas of holism is based on the basic principles of quantum mechanics, which we have adapted to the social sciences. We also used in the study methodsof analysis and synthesis, deduction and induction, and the method of classification. The research methodologydetermined the differentiation of quantum-holistic categories of social communications into social and public; identification of three mandatory elements of the philosophy of knowledge of any subject of discussion, namely: identification, content, and functionality; analysis of known and little-known concepts of classification of philosophical categories in order to identify features that are consistent with our methodological conceptual concept of quantum-holistic categories of social communication processes; on the basis of the carried out analysis of isolation and nomination of ontological (metaphysical) and epistemological (epistemological) descriptive categories of processes of social communications. In conclusion, the author argues that the identification of quantum-holistic categories of social communication processes should be carried out both from a social and social point of view. The author proposes to consider as descriptive quantum-holistic categories of social communication processes «quantum (portion of energy)», «Whole», «Information», «living / inanimate», «action / peace», «society / non-society».

Identification of Differentially Expressed Genes Particularly Associated with Immunity in Uremia Patients by Bioinformatic Analysis.

Uremia is a common syndrome that happens to nearly all end-stage kidney diseases, which profound have changes in human gene expressions, but the related pathways are poorly understood. Gene Ontology categories and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways enriched in the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were analyzed by using clusterProfiler, org.Hs.eg.db, and Pathview, and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was built by Cytoscape. We identified 3432 DEGs (including 3368 down- and 64 up-regulated genes), of which there were 52 different molecular functions, and 178 genes were identified as immune genes controlled by the four transcription factors (POU domain class 6 transcription factor 1 (POU6F1), interferon regulator factor 7 [IRF7], forkhead box D3 (FOXD3), and interferon-stimulated response element [ISRE]). In the gender research, no significant difference was observed. The top 15 proteins of 178 immune-related genes were identified with the highest degree in PPI network. The DEG analysis of uremia patients was expected to provide fundamental information to relieve pain and add years to their life.

The Violence of Being. The Holocaust in the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas

This contribution shows how the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas has been confronted autobiographically with National-Socialism (1933-1945) and how his personal experience and the experience of the Jewish people under Hitlerism were translated in his philosophical understanding of ‘being’ as ‘il y a’ (in English: ‘there is’). The Holocaust provides a unique negative point of entry to understand Levinas’ ontological category which is as such not understandable since in the il y a, there is no longer a subject that stands before the objectivity of reality. On the contrary, the il y a is exactly the category that expresses a situation where the subject itself has no longer the ‘right’ to exist as such but still does not stop to exist. This violence of being is exactly what Hitlerism wanted to do in creating the Holocaust and submitting the Jewish people to it. This makes understandable how the whole philosophy of Levinas is an effort to overcome the il y a through a moral answer to the Holocaust.

Integration of Ontology Transformation into Hidden Markov Model

The goal of this study is to suggest a method for turning an ontology into a hidden Markov model (HMM). Ontology properties (relationships between classes) and ontology classes are taken as HMM symbols and states, respectively. Knowledge is represented in many different fields using the central element of the Semantic Web dubbed ontology. The authors employed machine learning technologies like HMM to add knowledge to these ontologies or to extract knowledge from within them. The meaning obtained from ontologies is not described during this task. The ontology triples that were extracted using SPARQL queries are used in this paper to transform the ontology into an HMM in order to handle this semantic. The Pizza ontology has been used to implement this method, which is based on lightweight ontologies.

Listen carefully to experts when you classify data: A generic data classification ontology encoded from regulations

Along with the proliferation of big data technology, organizations are involved in an overwhelming data ocean, the huge volume of data makes them at a loss in the face of frequent data breaches due to their failure of efficient data security management. Data classification has become a hot topic as a cornerstone of data protection especially in China in recent years, by categorizing information types and distinguishing protective measures at different classification levels. Both the text and tables of the promulgated data classification-related regulations (for simplicity, laws, regulations, policies, and standards are collectively referred to as “regulations”) contain a wealth of valuable information which can guide the work of data classification. To best assist data practitioners, in this paper, we automatically “grasp” expert experience on how to classify data from the analysis of such regulations. We design a framework, GENONTO, that automatically extracts data classification practices (DCPs), such as information types and their corresponding sensitive levels to construct an information type lexicon as well as to encode a generic ontology on top of 38 real-world regulations promulgated in China. GENONTO employs machine learning techniques and natural language processing (NLP) to parse unstructured text and tables. To our knowledge, GENONTO is the first work that explores critical information like the category and the sensitivity of information types from regulations, and organizes them in a structured form of ontology, characterizing the subsumptive relations between different information types. Our research helps provide a well-defined integrated view across regulations and bridges the gap between what experts say and how data practitioners do.

Ars Moriendi. Ethical Challenges of the Ultimate Realities of Life

The aim of this issue of Ethics in Progress is to provide a provisional, open-ended view on the ultimate realities of life and the ethical challenges they pose in medical, sociological, and existential contexts. The issue explores axiologies and meta-ethical narratives related to the art of dying, or in other words the moral domain encompassing the quest for a good life and a good death. Two problematic aspects emerge from the latest body of research: (1) the difficulty involved in tackling ethical challenges in medical and sociological contexts; and (2) the marginal role of the patient’s agency and narrative-ownership of end-of-life decision-making. A direction is pointed out that suggests that interventions across interdisciplinary groups involved in medical aid to dying should focus on promoting ethical behaviour on the side of healthcare personnel. Finally, attention to language, discourse, communication, and the narratives of death and dying call this edition of Ethics in Progress to examine the ontological and epistemological categories that underlie the study of lifeworlds and ‘discourse communities’, which are those associated with moral agents interlacing historical motives, language, communication, normative beliefs, social norms and roles, power relations, hard clinical evidence, and contested values in the context of medical practices and, broadly speaking, practices surrounding death.

Klarigi: Characteristic explanations for semantic biomedical data

Annotation of biomedical entities with ontology classes provides for formal semantic analysis and mobilisation of background knowledge in determining their relationships. To date, enrichment analysis has been routinely employed to identify classes that are over-represented in annotations across sets of groups, such as biosample gene expression profiles or patient phenotypes, and is useful for a range of tasks including differential diagnosis and causative variant prioritisation. These approaches, however, usually consider only univariate relationships, make limited use of the semantic features of ontologies, and provide limited information and evaluation of the explanatory power of both singular and grouped candidate classes. Moreover, they are not designed to solve the problem of deriving cohesive, characteristic, and discriminatory sets of classes for entity groups. We have developed a new tool, called Klarigi, which introduces multiple scoring heuristics for identification of classes that are both compositional and discriminatory for groups of entities annotated with ontology classes. The tool includes a novel algorithm for derivation of multivariable semantic explanations for entity groups, makes use of semantic inference through live use of an ontology reasoner, and includes a classification method for identifying the discriminatory power of candidate sets, in addition to significance testing apposite to traditional enrichment approaches. We describe the design and implementation of Klarigi, including its scoring and explanation determination methods, and evaluate its use in application to two test cases with clinical significance, comparing and contrasting methods and results with literature-based and enrichment analysis methods. We demonstrate that Klarigi produces characteristic and discriminatory explanations for groups of biomedical entities in two settings. We also show that these explanations recapitulate and extend the knowledge held in existing biomedical databases and literature for several diseases. We conclude that Klarigi provides a distinct and valuable perspective on biomedical datasets when compared with traditional enrichment methods, and therefore constitutes a new method by which biomedical datasets can be explored, contributing to improved insight into semantic data.

Bioprospecting for fungal enzymes for applications in microalgal biomass biorefineries

Microalgal biomass is a promising feedstock for biofuels, feed/food, and biomaterials. However, while production and commercialization of single-product commodities are still not economically viable, obtaining multiple products in a biomass biorefinery faces several techno-economic challenges. The aim of this study was to identify a suitable source of hydrolytic enzymes for algal biomass saccharification. Screening of twenty-six fungal isolates for secreted enzymes activity on Chlamydomonas reinhardtii biomass resulted in the identification of Aspergillus niger IB-34 as a candidate strain. Solid-state fermentation on wheat bran produced the most active enzyme preparations. From sixty-five proteins identified by liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC-MS) (ProteomeXchange, identifier PXD034998) from A. niger IB-34, the majority corresponded to predicted secreted proteins belonging to the Gene Ontology categories of catalytic activity/hydrolase activity on glycosyl and O-glycosyl compounds. Skimmed biomass of biotechnologically relevant strains towards the production of commodities, Chlorella sorokiniana and Scenedesmus obliquus, was fully saccharified after a mild pretreatment at 80°C for 10min, at a high biomass load of 10% (w/v). The soluble liquid stream, after skimming and saccharification of biomass of both strains, was further converted into ethanol by fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae at a theoretical maximum efficiency, in a separated saccharification and fermentation assays. The resulting insoluble protein, after biomass skimming with an organic solvent and enzymatic saccharification, was highly digestible in an in vitro digestion assay. Proof of concept is presented for an enzyme-assisted biomass biorefinery recovering 81% of the main biomass fractions in a likely suitable form for the conversion of lipids and carbohydrates into biofuels and proteins into feed/food. KEY POINTS: • Twenty-six fungal extracts were analyzed for saccharification of microalgal biomass. • Skimmed biomass was fully enzymatically saccharified and fermented into ethanol. • Up to 81% recovery of biomass fractions suitable for biofuels and feed/food.

Comparative Transcriptome and Co-Expression Network Analyses Reveal the Molecular Mechanism of Calcium-Deficiency-Triggered Tipburn in Chinese Cabbage (Brassica rapa L. ssp. Pekinensis).

Chinese cabbage tipburn is characterized by the formation of necrotic lesions on the margin of leaves, including on the insides of the leafy head. This physiological disorder is associated with a localized calcium deficiency during leaf development. However, little information is available regarding the molecular mechanisms governing Ca-deficiency-triggered tipburn. This study comprehensively analysed the transcriptomic comparison between control and calcium treatments (CK and 0 mM Ca) in Chinese cabbage to determine its molecular mechanism in tipburn. Our analysis identified that the most enriched gene ontology (GO) categories are photosynthesis, thylakoid and cofactor binding. Moreover, the KEGG pathway was most enriched in photosynthesis, carbon metabolism and carbon fixation. We also analyzed the co-expression network by functional categories and identified ten critical hub differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in each gene regulatory network (GRN). These DEGs might involve abiotic stresses, developmental processes, cell wall metabolism, calcium distribution, transcription factors, plant hormone biosynthesis and signal transduction pathways. Under calcium deficiency, CNX1, calmodulin-binding proteins and CMLs family proteins were downregulated compared to CK. In addition, plant hormones such as GA, JA, BR, Auxin and ABA biosynthesis pathways genes were downregulated under calcium treatment. Likewise, HATs, ARLs and TCP transcription factors were reported as inactive under calcium deficiency, and potentially involved in the developmental process. This work explores the specific DEGs' significantly different expression levels in 0 mM Ca and the control involved in plant hormones, cell wall developments, a light response such as chlorophylls and photosynthesis, transport metabolism and defence mechanism and redox. Our results provide critical evidence of the potential roles of the calcium signal transduction pathway and candidate genes governing Ca-deficiency-triggered tipburn in Chinese cabbage.

Hyperintensionality and Ontological Categories

In this paper, I discuss how to distinguish between ontological categories and ordinary categories. Using an argument against van Inwagen’s proposed account of what makes a category ontological as a springboard, I argue that if ontological categories are modally robust, then ontological categories need to be understood hyperintensionally. This conclusion opens up a wide range of new ways to define ‘ontological category’, and I close by briefly outlining one such way in order to illustrate the advantages of embracing hyperintensionality in this debate.

Human-Social Robot Interaction, Anthropomorphism And Ontological Boundary Problem In Education

Artificial intelligence and robotics technologies do not manufacture robots only for industrial use, but also for healthcare, marketing, tourism and accommodation industries where social interaction is prevalent. Service robots are social robots that interact directly with individuals and to fulfill the physical, cognitive, emotional and social needs of individuals. Recently, it was observed that the number of studies on the employment of social robots in education has increased. These studies reported positive findings on the employment of social robots in educational settings; however, they also indicated certain problems. One of these problems was the ontological boundary problem due to the anthropomorphic design of these robots. Certain studies on human-social robot interaction demonstrated that the human-machine distinction has blurred, humans started to attribute anthropogenic traits to these robots such as intention, emotion and purpose, while these studies categorized these robots as live or hybrid. Anthropomorphizing the robots and the ambiguity of their ontological category could lead to problems such as excessive attachment, social isolation, and violation of privacy, and perceptions of the individuals about their existence could be altered. The present article aimed to provide information about the studies conducted on the employment of social robots in education, analyze the advantages and disadvantages of human-social robot interaction based on anthropomorphism and ontological boundary problem. Finally, certain recommendations are presented about the employment of social robots in education.

Ethics, Alienation, and Ontology: The impossible is the starting point of each possible

The first quarter of the 21st century is reaching its end, and worldwide crises appear to become ubiquitous. Capitalist forces of destruction have not gone rogue, they merely represent the actualization of capitalist relations of exploitation. Notions of fettering fall prey to illusions, which overlook both particular historical moments and the essence of capitalist relations. In contrast, social emancipation presupposes an ontological understanding of human action. It is not enough to wish for a more humane society; both the limits of and potential for transformation must be understood. Based on Marx and Lukács, the ontological categories of possible and impossible, labour and teleology, are investigated, consequently, creating an opposing prerogative to capitalist naturalization and eternization. Capitalism is instead taken for what it is: a determined social, historical construction, thus, a superable social organization rather than a natural force. Insofar as the historical debacle of Marxism has provoked a methodological vacuum filled with relativism, contemporary critical analyses disaggregate into bourgeois isolated phenomena, becoming liberal assessments themselves. The concrete impact is not irrelevant: for they fight arguments in the fields chosen by capitalism; any perception of totality is rejected a priori; strategies to overcome capitalist challenges reproduce the conditions which create them, because it is assumed what needs to be explained. It appears urgent to reframe social critique within the frame of methodological orthodoxy. Marxist capitalist critique departs from ontological facts, for instance, labour. This means grasping both the totality and the ontological dimensions of particular forms, enabling effective strategies towards emancipation.

Interregional Gene Expression Analysis Identifies Signature of Cerebellar Resistance to AD Tauopathy

AbstractBackgroundThe appearance of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) reflects both their spatial location within affected connectivity networks and the intrinsic vulnerability of neuronal populations to their formation. Here we disaggregate human gene expression data on the basis of connectivity to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with neuroprotection against tauopathy.MethodTranscriptomic analysis focused on prefrontal cortex (PFC) and cerebellum, which both associate with the default mode and other AD‐affected networks. However, whereas PFC is vulnerable to tauopathic neurodegeneration, the cerebellum atrophies without NFT formation or cell loss. To identify candidate mediators of selective vulnerability, gene expression patterns in both regions from AD and control brains were calculated and then subjected to cell‐type specific enrichment analysis (CSEA), gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA), and transcription factor interaction network (TFIN) analysis. To validate candidate effector genes, prioritized chaperones were incubated with tau protein to test for suppression of biochemically induced fibrillization. The resulting distribution of soluble and aggregated tau was measured by sedimentation.ResultsCSEA revealed DEGs that changed in parallel between regions originated primarily in glia and microglia. GSEA identified these as belonging to Gene Ontology (GO) categories associated with host response and ion homeostasis. Of 446 genes, 379 were linked in a TFIN, with the most central nodes including transcriptional regulators HBP1, EGR1, SERTAD1, and PER1. In contrast, DEGs changing in opposition were primarily neuronal. GSEA identified 14 heat shock genes, including nine chaperone proteins reported to regulate protein folding. Of 402 candidate vulnerability genes, 319 were linked in a TFIN, in which the most central hubs were long noncoding RNA NEAT1, and transcription factors BHLHE40, ZC3H10, and CREB3L4. Finally, aggregation and sedimentation of tau showed all nine chaperones antagonized biochemical fibrillization of 2N4R tau with octadecyl sulfate at substoichiometric ratios of chaperone to tau.ConclusionsOur study takes advantage of a selective vulnerability informed approach to gene expression and highlights the role of proteostasis and neuronal genes in protecting the cerebellum from tau lesions. This approach successfully identified biologically active effector genes and can be applied broadly to other neurodegenerative diseases featuring prion‐like pathology and will orient the field toward endogenous strategies of neuroprotection.

More Human Than Human: The Exile in Blade Runner

More Human Than Human: The Exile in <i>Blade Runner</i>

‘Informal Infrastructure’ of Prototyping: Practicing Organisation by Performing Materiality

In recent years, sheltered by the so-called ‘ontological turn’ in the social sciences, organisational analysis has paid special attention to artefacts. Nevertheless, there is still a dominant account grounded in a dichotomist view of the subject-object relationship either in teleological (mind-body) or in hylomorfic (form-matter) terms when analysing organising practices. On the contrary, our argument is based on non-dualistic approaches in an attempt to foreground relational aspects of practices.From a practice-based approach, the article addresses the role of three ‘prototypes’ aimed at the management of the ‘air’ by citizenship, in the re-configuration of bodies, technics and ethical-political engagement. Specifically, it focuses on the normative dimensions of organising by which knowledges, materials and values converge in the open-ended process of prototyping. The argument is deployed by relying on qualitative research based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, developed both at different workshops and by online ethnography.The main aim of the article is to show how bodies and artefacts are mutually in/trans/formed when negotiating the social implications for the ontological category of ‘air’. In doing so, the concept of ‘informal infrastructure’ is proposed to account for those practices (which appear somewhat contingent, mundane or, at best, taken for granted) by which agents do not only commit to a particular ethical implication embedded in the category of ‘air’, as a symbolic result, but also to distinctive ways of practicing organisation as a political process of performing materiality. To this end, adopting the analytical concept of ‘informal infrastructure’ allows to simultaneously consider both the formal and informal aspects that emerge in these collaboration-driven practices, as well as to address their effects on the maintenance within and expansion into other networks.

“BACK TO THE ELEMENTS”? POSTMODERNITY’S COLLAPSE OF ONTOLOGICAL CATEGORIES

Although the posthumanist tag is applied to the society where men and machines compete for power, the mutation earning this name was the one that affected the perception of man’s identity through the collapse of ontological categories. Human nature changed as the historical self was replaced by deconstructionists with the instance saying “I”, man’s cognition was redefined as biological epistemology by Maturana and Varela (1972), quantum physics relegated relations of causation to invisible and unpredictable process at the subatomic level, phases of civilization made room for temporary plateaus generated by signifying particles within the eternal flow of things and energy Deleuze and Guattari (1980). What used to be perceived as reality has become an amorphous mixture of elements, in which bodies are no longer discrete entites but processes, emerging forms of life. If the Deleuzian “becoming animal” of 1980 stirred anxiety around the human body made into a site of various inscriptions and identities, The Shape of Water (2018), a novel written by Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus, the homonymous movie (2017) directed by the former, or Robert Bolesto’s screenplay of the Polish movie The Lure (2015) have recently provided the companion pieces of elementary nature “becoming human” across the human/ animal divide The quantum picture of a world reduced to a flux of matter and energy in A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari had somehow prepared the ground for this posthuman reversal of the Renaissance worldpicture with man at the top of creation. The process, however, had already started some decades before. We are moving back in time locating its origin in the rise of object-oriented philosophy.

No “Easy” Answers to Ontological Category Questions

AbstractEasy Ontologists, most notably Thomasson (2015), argue that ontological questions are shallow. They think that these questions can either be answered by using our ordinary conceptual competence—of course tables exist!—or are meaningless, or else should be answered through conceptual re‐engineering. Ontology thus is “easy”, requiring no distinctively metaphysical investigation. This paper raises a two‐stage objection to Easy Ontology. We first argue that questions concerning which entities exist are inextricably bound up with “ontological category questions”, which are questions concerning the identity of and differences between kinds of entities. We then argue that ontological category questions do not have trivial answers, are meaningful, and cannot be answered through conceptual re‐engineering. Easy Ontology hence does not constitute a comprehensive ontological methodology. While some of ontology might be easy, category questions form a central part of ontology and are not answered easily.