Ontological Foundations Research Articles

Demystifying Bilingualism. How Metaphor Guides Research towards Mythification

Opinions on bilingualism have been as diverse as opposed among themselves throughout decades – while ideological notions have affected or defined certain approaches, it has become fundamental to acknowledge the process of transition: from old prejudices about the repercussions on a natural cognitive development to favoring the benefits gained by individuals involved in multilingual contexts. Demystifying Bilingualism illustrates several issues regarding the myths that have surrounded studies about the impact of bilingualism on cognition, from its ontological foundations, theory-building advances, and the role of metaphorical language into shaping these very myths.

Застосування дескриптивних логік з конкретними доменами до вирішення задач виявлення та композиції семантичних веб сервісів

This research is one of the branches of a general scientific and applied problem, namely, the problem of using and developing ontological approaches with descriptive logics (DL) apparatus to obtain the effective automated solution of complex business task based on service-oriented architecture. The base idea of the proposed method is the maximal ontologization, that is, all aspects of the task are determined by means of DL ontologies. The proposed ontology system is based on five basic types of ontologies, namely: (1) an ontology of general entities for defining the characteristics of the service’s context, (2) an ontology of the application domain to formalize and unify semantical descriptions of web services, (3) the top-level ontology of web services for the DL formalization of the definition of the web services in general, (4) the ontologies of the web services tasks, which provide a formal representation of the tasks on all stages of web services life cycle, and (5) the ontologies of specific web services. All listed ontologies are related. Such, ontologies of the last type include links to all other above-mentioned ontologies and, together with them, provide a unified formally defined semantic resource, which enables the automatic solution of web service tasks. The focus of this study is the applying descriptive logics with concrete domains to the formalization of such basic semantic web services tasks as the web services discovery and composition. In this article, the ontologies of the web services tasks are defined as an extension of the general top-level web service ontology with special complex concepts. Their elements are pairs of “web service-goal (request)”/”web service-web service”, which are compared according to the task being solved. Also, on their basis, special complex concepts are determined, which specify a set of found similarities between existing services and a goal in the discovery task, or «predecessor-follower» type responsibilities of web services to build a composite service. The proposed TBox statements are constructed using descriptive logic with concrete domains 𝓐𝓛𝓒(𝓓). For this purpose, a concrete domain is defined as a pair of sets: (1) the union of sets of possible subsets of the set of individuals of the Parameter concept and possible subsets of the set of individuals of the Context concept, and (2) a set of predicates defined on it. Such definition of the concrete domain provides possibility of using only functional roles to construct the DL statements of complex concepts DiscoveryServices and CompositionObject for determining corresponding web services tasks. Note, the defined tasks and web services ontologies cover only simplified model of the representation of web services, in particular, functional Input/Output model extended by contexts descriptions. They provide the basis for further improvement by expanding this model and involving additional characteristics of both functional and process models of representation to the specified task ontologies. This will certainly increase the accuracy of the obtained result, but is the subject of further research.

Геофилософия: краткое введение в «поэтическую» философию природы

This article explores the concept of geophilosophy and the meaning of the earth inherent in the project designated by it. The consideration proceeds from the hypothesis of the existence of an idea of nature that acts as an alternative to the dominant classical modern concept (“natura”). This alternative is found in the poetic ontologies of J. Deleuze and M. Heidegger, as well as in the works of their predecessors, such as F. Nietzsche and the German romanticists (F. Schelling, Novalis, etc.). While the classical modern European idea of nature can be associated with the concept of the Universe, indicating representation and objectivity, the alternative “poetic” idea is embodied in the concept of the Earth, implying immediacy and “ungrounding”, i.e. grounding not in a subject or an object, but in the groundless. These are fundamentally different interpretations of nature, from which various anthropological and philosophical-political strategies stem. For this reason, it can be argued that geophilosophy, introduced by J. Deleuze and F. Guattari and picked up by many modern authors, such as I.H. Grant, is a project of a new – “poetic” – philosophy of nature. These conclusions allow us to deeper understand the ontological foundations of projects related to such modern trends as speculative realism, new materialism, inhumanism and posthumanism. Without a clear formulation of the question of the interpretation of nature, it is impossible to think of the ontological turn implied by these philosophical movements and their allies in the social disciplines. In addition, this paper expands the conceptual apparatus used in the historical and philosophical consideration of the postromantic European thought by allowing us to make connections unapparent to the existing vocabulary through the conceptualized notions of the earth and the poetic.

Semantic interoperability: ontological unpacking of a viral conceptual model

BackgroundGenomics and virology are unquestionably important, but complex, domains being investigated by a large number of scientists. The need to facilitate and support work within these domains requires sharing of databases, although it is often difficult to do so because of the different ways in which data is represented across the databases. To foster semantic interoperability, models are needed that provide a deep understanding and interpretation of the concepts in a domain, so that the data can be consistently interpreted among researchers.ResultsIn this research, we propose the use of conceptual models to support semantic interoperability among databases and assess their ontological clarity to support their effective use. This modeling effort is illustrated by its application to the Viral Conceptual Model (VCM) that captures and represents the sequencing of viruses, inspired by the need to understand the genomic aspects of the virus responsible for COVID-19. For achieving semantic clarity on the VCM, we leverage the “ontological unpacking” method, a process of ontological analysis that reveals the ontological foundation of the information that is represented in a conceptual model. This is accomplished by applying the stereotypes of the OntoUML ontology-driven conceptual modeling language.As a result, we propose a new OntoVCM, an ontologically grounded model, based on the initial VCM, but with guaranteed interoperability among the data sources that employ it.ConclusionsWe propose and illustrate how the unpacking of the Viral Conceptual Model resolves several issues related to semantic interoperability, the importance of which is recognized by the “I” in FAIR principles. The research addresses conceptual uncertainty within the domain of SARS-CoV-2 data and knowledge.The method employed provides the basis for further analyses of complex models currently used in life science applications, but lacking ontological grounding, subsequently hindering the interoperability needed for scientists to progress their research.

Harmonizing the Annotation of Hematopoietic Populations in Single-Cell Atlases with the Cell Marker Accordion

Motivation In the past few years, single-cell and spatial technologies have significantly improved our knowledge of cellular heterogeneity and architecture in health and disease, providing unprecedented insight into hematopoiesis. A crucial and challenging step in single-cell data analysis is the annotation of cell types. An effective way to achieve an accurate cell type identification is employing marker genes, whose expression is specific to one or a few cell types. The recent increase in the number of databases collecting marker genes potentially simplifies the automatic annotation of cells into known hematopoietic populations. Nevertheless, each database contains dissimilar marker sets for the same cell type, which inevitably leads to inconsistent annotations depending on the source choice. Furthermore, the lack of a standard classification and nomenclature of cell types across the databases increases the annotation discrepancies. Methods We developed the Cell Marker Accordion, an R Shiny web app addressing the need for robust and reproducible identification of hematopoietic cell types in single-cell datasets. As data sources, we considered multiple published databases collecting human and mouse gene markers for hematopoietic cell types (Zhang et al., 2019; Franzén et al., 2019; Paisley & Liu, 2021; Börner et al., 2021; Liberzon et al., 2015; Hao et al., Cell 2021; Domínguez Conde et al., 2022) and standard collections of widely used cell sorting markers (Abcam; Thermo Fisher Scientific). Annotations were standardized by mapping initial cell types to the Cell Ontology, which is becoming a reference ontology for cell types and states (Sutherland et al., 2021). Next, databases were integrated obtaining a comprehensive set of 7514 marker genes associated with 126 standardized hematopoietic cell types. Results The Cell Marker Accordion web interface permits to easily retrieve lists of marker genes associated with input cell types and also viceversa, starting from a list of candidate genes to obtain the matching cell types. Hierarchies of hematopoietic cell types can be easily browsed following the Cell Ontology structure in order to obtain the desired level of resolution in the markers. Importantly, marker genes can be ranked and selected by specificity, indicating whether a gene is a marker for different cell types, and also by their evidence consistency scores, measuring the agreement of different annotation sources. To show the potential of the Cell Marker Accordion, we automatically annotated published human bone marrow single cell datasets. By exploring the expression level of well established marker genes, we confirmed an appropriate identification of bone marrow cell types obtained with the Accordion. We further validated our approach with a dataset obtained from flow cytometry sorted blood cell populations, separately profiled with single-cell RNA-seq (Zheng et al., 2017), and we compared cell type annotations based on the Cell Marker Accordion with annotations from single database sources. Notably, we significantly improved in accuracy, increasing by more than 30% the number of cells correctly annotated with respect to any of the single databases. The Cell Marker Accordion is indeed a user-friendly and flexible tool that can be exploited to improve the annotation of hematopoietic populations in single-cell and, potentially, spatially resolved datasets focused on the study of hematogical pathologies. Figure 1View largeDownload PPTFigure 1View largeDownload PPT Close modal

Methods for development and application of data standards in an ontology-driven information model for measuring, managing, and computing social determinants of health for individuals, households, and communities evaluated through an example of asthma

ObjectiveTo describe methods to approach application of data standards to integrate social determinants of health (SDoH) into EHRs through evaluation of a case of clinical decision support for pediatric asthma. Materials and MethodsWe identified a list of environmental factors important for managing pediatric asthma. We identified and integrated data from local outdoor air quality monitors with elements available from the clinic’s EHR and self-reported indoor air quality questionnaire data. We assessed existing SDoH frameworks, assessment tools, and terminologies to identify representative data standards for these environmental SDoH measures. ResultsWe found many-to-many relationships between the multiple framework domains, the environmental exposure measures collected, and existing standards. The majority of concepts did not accurately align with environmental exposure measurements. We propose an ontology-driven information framework methodology to apply standards for SDoH measurements to support measuring, managing, and computing SDoH data. DiscussionTo support methods of integrating SDoH data in the EHR via an ontology-driven information framework, a common SDoH ecosystem should be developed descriptively and prescriptively integrating framework domains, assessment tools, and standard ontologies to support future data sharing, aggregation, and interoperability. A hierarchical object-oriented information model should be adopted to manage SDoH to extend beyond patient-centered orientation of EHRs to orient to households and communities. ConclusionSDoH data pose unique challenges and opportunities in collecting, measuring, and managing health information. Future work is needed to define data standards for implementing SDoH in a hierarchical, object-oriented information model representing multiple units of orientation including individuals, households, and communities.

Kropsmodernismen genbesøgt


 
 
 Danish literary histories often depict the 80ies as a period in which questions of corporeality moved to the foreground of the poetics of its poets. Dubbing this move »corporeal modernism« (»kropsmodernisme«), scholars have explained this new agenda as an attempt to reclaim stability in late modernity, an era in which all grand narratives have allegedly collapsed, and the world of new media increasingly fragments perceptions of reality. This article argues that such explanations fail to recognize that a significant amount of poetry from the 80ies does not view the body as the subject’s existential and ontological foundation, but perceives it, rather, as a fluctuating materiality that merges the human with a more-than-human world. The article takes Pia Tafdrup’s Intetfang (1982) and Henrik S. Holck’s Vi må være som alt (1978) as symptomatic examples of this trend and characterizes their more-than-human bodies as watery flesh and cosmological skin respectively. Ultimately, the aim of the article is to problematize established constructions of »corporeal modernism« and stake out some of the ways in which the literary history of Danish poetry in the 80ies could be re-written.
 
 

Ontology-based surgical workflow recognition and prediction

BackgroundSurgical context-aware systems can adapt to the current situation in the operating room and thus provide computer-aided assistance functionalities and intraoperative decision-support. To interact with the surgical team perceptively and assist the surgical process, the system needs to monitor the intraoperative activities, understand the current situation in the operating room at any time, and anticipate the following possible situations. MethodsA structured representation of surgical process knowledge is a prerequisite for any applications in the intelligent operating room. For this purpose, a surgical process ontology, which is formally based on standard medical terminology (SNOMED CT) and an upper-level ontology (GFO), was developed and instantiated for a neurosurgical use case. A new ontology-based surgical workflow recognition and a novel prediction method are presented utilizing ontological reasoning, abstraction, and explication. This way, a surgical situation representation with combined phase, high-level task, and low-level task recognition and prediction was realized based on the currently used instrument as the only input information. ResultsThe ontology-based approach performed efficiently, and decent accuracy was achieved for situation recognition and prediction. Especially during situation recognition, the missing sensor information were reasoned based on the situation representation provided by the process ontology, which resulted in improved recognition results compared to the state-of-the-art. ConclusionsIn this work, a reference ontology was developed, which provides workflow support and a knowledge base for further applications in the intelligent operating room, for instance, context-aware medical device orchestration, (semi-) automatic documentation, and surgical simulation, education, and training.

A tensor-based formulation of hetero-functional graph theory

Recently, hetero-functional graph theory (HFGT) has developed as a means to mathematically model the structure of large-scale complex flexible engineering systems. It does so by fusing concepts from network science and model-based systems engineering (MBSE). For the former, it utilizes multiple graph-based data structures to support a matrix-based quantitative analysis. For the latter, HFGT inherits the heterogeneity of conceptual and ontological constructs found in model-based systems engineering including system form, system function, and system concept. These diverse conceptual constructs indicate multi-dimensional rather than two-dimensional relationships. This paper provides the first tensor-based treatment of hetero-functional graph theory. In particular, it addresses the “system concept” and the hetero-functional adjacency matrix from the perspective of tensors and introduces the hetero-functional incidence tensor as a new data structure. The tensor-based formulation described in this work makes a stronger tie between HFGT and its ontological foundations in MBSE. Finally, the tensor-based formulation facilitates several analytical results that provide an understanding of the relationships between HFGT and multi-layer networks.

Process Metaphysics and Mutative Life: Sketches of Lived Time

Process Metaphysics and Mutative Life: Sketches of Lived Time

Ontology for Symptomatic Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis.

Symptomatic treatment is an essential component in the overall treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). However, knowledge in this regard is confusing and scattered. Physicians also have challenges in choosing symptomatic treatment based on the patient's condition. To share, update, and reuse this knowledge, the aim of this study was to provide an ontology for MS symptomatic treatment. The Symptomatic Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis Ontology (STMSO) was developed according to Ontology Development 101 and a guideline for developing good ontologies in the biomedical domain. We obtained knowledge and rules through a systematic review and entered this knowledge in the form of classes and subclasses in the ontology. We then mapped the ontology using the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and Ontology for General Medical Sciences (OGMS) as reference ontologies. The ontology was built using Protégé Editor in the Web Ontology Language format. Finally, an evaluation was done by experts using criterion-based approaches in terms of accuracy, clarity, consistency, and completeness. The knowledge extraction phase identified 110 articles related to the ontology in the form of 626 classes, 40 object properties, and 139 rules. Five general classes included "patient," "symptoms," "pharmacological treatment," "treatment plan," and "measurement index." The evaluation in terms of standards for biomedical ontology showed that STMSO was accurate, clear, consistent, and complete. STMSO is the first comprehensive semantic representation of the symptomatic treatment of MS and provides a major step toward the development of intelligent clinical decision support systems for symptomatic MS treatment.

An Ontology for Prognostic Health Management in Spacecraft Avionics

Prognostic Health Management (PHM) is the disciplined application of measurement, monitoring, and support strategies to protect structural, electrical, or data entities precluding the failure of measured systems in all phases of operation. Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) can be used to formalize system structure, operations, behavior, and requirements using an Architecture Framework (AF), Process Framework (PF), modeling language, and ontology; whereas the AF, PF, and modeling language may be specific to the program or mission employing MBSE, ontologies may be developed specific to a given domain. The PHM domain considers failure modes, effects, and criticality, and ontological system analysis in this domain can inform system structure, operations, behavior, or requirements. A reference ontology for the PHM domain in spacecraft avionics is presented here including aspects of existing ontologies such as the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), a Top-Level Ontology (TLO) newly recognized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the Information Artifact Ontology (IAO), and the Space Object Ontology (SOO). A distinction is made between a full PHM domain ontology, which would include many mechanical or electrical systems with myriad purposes, and a PHM domain ontology specific to spacecraft avionics. Present ontological development originated using the parlance and format of BFO and IAO in Stanford University’s Protégé software but diverged to include International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) terminology and classifications. When interacting with this ontology, engineers seeking to characterize system-specific failure modes, effects, and criticality can query the ontology with their hardware or software entities to obtain failure information specific to the operation of their system in a given operational environment. While this domain ontology is robust, the authors do not claim it to be complete or validated for all spacecraft avionics. It should be considered version one of a useful PHM tool with continual updates occurring after peer review and feedback.

Ontology-based categorization of clinical studies by their conditions

ObjectiveThe free-text Condition data field in the ClinicalTrials.gov is not amenable to computational processes for retrieving, aggregating and visualizing clinical studies by condition categories. This paper contributes a method for automated ontology-based categorization of clinical studies by their conditions. Materials and MethodsOur method first maps text entries in ClinicalTrials.gov’s Condition field to standard condition concepts in the OMOP Common Data Model by using SNOMED CT as a reference ontology and using Usagi for concept normalization, followed by hierarchical traversal of the SNOMED ontology for concept expansion, ontology-driven condition categorization, and visualization. We compared the accuracy of this method to that of the MeSH-based method. ResultsWe reviewed the 4,506 studies on Vivli.org categorized by our method. Condition terms of 4,501 (99.89%) studies were successfully mapped to SNOMED CT concepts, and with a minimum concept mapping score threshold, 4,428 (98.27%) studies were categorized into 31 predefined categories. When validating with manual categorization results on a random sample of 300 studies, our method achieved an estimated categorization accuracy of 95.7%, while the MeSH-based method had an accuracy of 85.0%. ConclusionWe showed that categorizing clinical studies using their Condition terms with referencing to SNOMED CT achieved a better accuracy and coverage than using MeSH terms. The proposed ontology-driven condition categorization was useful to create accurate clinical study categorization that enables clinical researchers to aggregate evidence from a large number of clinical studies.

Anthropocene, Technocene and the Problem of Philosophy of Education

The term Anthropocene began to appear more often in scientific discourse more than 20 years ago. It was an attempt to come closer to understanding the depth and seriousness of the impact of man and his activities on the planet Earth, with the intention in the future to mitigate these effects and prevent a possible globally catastrophic environmental collapse, which might involve the collapse of civilization itself. However, to date, our approach to the world has hardly changed at all. After the pandemic comes the threat of a world conflict, a nuclear war. Since our scientific wisdom seems powerless, even the most obvious and frightening scientific knowledge cannot somehow change the course of global society, we want to think about this situation from the perspective of the cosmological philosophy of education. We want to think about this situation from the perspective of the cosmological philosophy of education. Its central motive is the philosophical disclosure of the original ontological ground of our humanity, which is the world, the cosmos. This is a direct confrontation with the hitherto prevailing “market education”, which serves to maintain and consolidate the power schemes of capital policy.

Systematic Machine Translation of Social Network Data Privacy Policies

With the growing popularity of online social networks, one common desire of people is to use of social networking services for establishing social relations with others. The boom of social networking has transformed common users into content (data) contributors. People highly rely on social sites to share their ideas and interests and express opinions. Social network sites store all such activities in a data form and exploit the data for various purposes, e.g., marketing, advertisements, product delivery, product research, and even sentiment analysis, etc. Privacy policies primarily defined in Natural Language (NL) specify storage, usage, and sharing of the user’s data and describe authorization, obligation, or denial of specific actions under specific contextual conditions. Although these policies expressed in Natural Language (NL) allow users to read and understand the allowed (or obliged or denied) operations on their data, the described policies cannot undergo automatic control of the actual use of the data by the entities that operate on them. This paper proposes an approach to systematically translate privacy statements related to data from NL into a controlled natural one, i.e., CNL4DSA to improve the machine processing. The methodology discussed in this work is based on a combination of standard Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, logic programming, and ontologies. The proposed technique is demonstrated with a prototype implementation and tested with policy examples. The system is tested with a number of data privacy policies from five different social network service providers. Predominantly, this work primarily takes into account two key aspects: (i) The translation of social networks’ data privacy policy and (ii) the effectiveness and efficiency of the developed system. It is concluded that the proposed system can successfully and efficiently translate any common data policy based on an empirical analysis performed of the obtained results.

A FAIRification roadmap for ELIXIR Software Management Plans

A FAIRification roadmap for ELIXIR Software Management Plans

Semantic models for IoT sensing to infer environment–wellness relationships

Every time an Internet of Things (IoT) solution is deployed, every time a smartphone owner connects her/his wireless device to a wearable activity-tracker, every time groups of citizens use geo-mapping applications to move around the city, choosing the least crowded path, data are produced and information have to be exchanged appropriately via APIs. Even if novel added-value IoT-based applications appear on the market with increasing speed, true semantic interoperability is far from being achieved, thus limiting the large-scale exploitation, the scalability and the time-to-market of novel apps. Currently, connecting different data prosumers with multiple data sources is still hampered by the lack of standardized and sustainable solutions, especially due to the significant heterogeneity of IoT platforms. In such a landscape, ontologies come to the rescue, thanks to their formal semantics, knowledge representation formats, and shared vocabularies. In this paper we examine, from an ontological perspective, how to describe environmental sensing and wellness monitoring, two of the most popular application cases of Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS) and IoT, respectively. To this purpose, an ontology of sensor-agnostic APIs is proposed, along with a set of MCS-dedicated ontology modules (and the supporting platform), leveraging on standard and reusable domain ontologies. Moreover, it will be shown how to properly combine the proposed ontologies in order to support complex functionalities based on inference rules addressing the environment–wellness relationships. Finally, specific semantic modeling patterns suitable for typical IoT and MCS scenarios will be discussed.

The Integration of Psychology and Linguistics from the Perspective of Cognitive Science—The Example of the Psychological Reality of Language

In the traditional debate centered on the nature of language, the question of “the psychological reality of language” occupies a pivotal position. The key lies in the recognition of language (competence) as a natural entity that exists in the brain in some physical way. The empirical research perspectives supporting the psychological reality of language fall into four main categories: (a) linguistic perspectives based on introspective linguistic intuitions; (b) developmental psychology perspectives; (c) psycholinguistic perspectives; (d) neurolinguistic perspectives. In analyzing the four areas of research, it is clear that psychological realism does indeed reveal the physiological basis of language ability, but it does not fully explain how “reality” is expressed, i.e., at what level the operation and representation of language can be linked to human neurobiological mechanisms, and how the psychological reality of language is related to the semantic “material” reality of language. In essence, the ontological foundation of psychological realism is the logocentric tradition of “In the beginning was the Word,” while Chinese thought, which espouses “In the beginning was the Deed,” provides a transcendental framework for solving the dilemma of psychological realism by virtue of its self-cultivation theory of “heaven, in its motion, shows strength.” The focus is not on how language precisely maps reality, but how to mobilize the energy of language through the cultivation of the body and mind. This implies that human language and even its physiological basis develop according to how one learns to change the natural world, and that the most essential basis of language is the change in the world caused by its “doing” (self-cultivation), thus providing an adequate explanation for the problem of the psychological reality of language.

How social ontology is possible from the point of view of epistemology and philosophy of language?

The article critically examines the project of Brian Epstein's social ontology. The authors propose to interpret a social fact as derived from the appropriate perspective of an observer carrying out a structural reconstruction of a social phenomenon and identify difficulties in the way of analyzing social facts as structurally independent of causally determining factors. The article shows that the determination and foundation of social facts cannot be understood as asymmetric, substantiates the symmetrical nature of the relationship between the determinable complex fact and the ontological foundations that determine them, and suggests that the judgments describing them are equivalent, and also proves the need to involve philosophical and scientific methodology, the resources of the philosophy of language and epistemology to address the issue of the validity of projects “ontological fixation”, which the authors of the article propose to consider as a scientific classification. Understanding the ontology of the social is possible only when going beyond its limits, and any classifications can be idiosyncrasies of individual classifiers or observers, scientifically unequal and requiring epistemological evaluation. The authors note that epistemology allows us to judge the necessity or, on the contrary, artificiality of classification, and the question of the ontological basis of a social fact should be solved by analogy. Accordingly, the search for such ontological foundations is not possible without prior resolution of the epistemological problem: which classifications (fixations) of “natural” or “social species” are structurally necessary (in the sense that their macro-properties properties stem from the internal structure), and which are arbitrarily constructed by the observer, based on his idiosyncrasy or local-historical, cultural or ideological position.

Platon’un Etik ve Politik Düzensizliği Çevreleyen Varlık Anlayışı

From the very first ancient Greek thinkers on, it has always been a philosophically central activity to think on the universe, man and society comprehensively. These three problem nets were scrutinized also in Plato’s work exhaustively. Platonic system supposes the philosopher to philosophize by drawing on Ideas and this activity is on the one hand deals with the universe and with the man and social order on the other. In this regard, emergence of the existing things (ta onta) is examined in a way that links these to Demiurgos’ activity, who itself is not an existing thing. Nevertheless, there is a resemblance between Demiurgos’ deeds and the philosopher king’s duty, who is supposed to conceive the latter via reason: Both agents are masters of giving a form. Just as Demiurgos had projected Ideas upon the natural material and thus given the universe an order and done well, the philosopher king should, upon that ontological ground, form a city-state, where its settlers are able to live a just and happy life. In this essay, Plato’s thoughts on being and becoming are examined by including the ethical and political motivation behind these metaphysical conclusions.