What is Called Ontology: An Attempt for Equivalent Selection for a Concept

For the term ontology from philosophy, there has been used various equations in non-philosophical texts (artificial intelligence, information sciences, semantic web, etc.). These equations show that there is lexical confusion for both parts of this terminology (being and beings for the first part, and logy, graphy and mapping for the second one). The purpose of this survey is studying in this confusion, the reasons of selecting such equations and finally to obtain a suitable, accurate, documented and rational equation for this term. Research methodology is documentary/library to determine the correctness of equations of ontology. In this regard, two types of texts have been explored: 1) non-philosophical Persian texts about ontology, and 2) philosophical texts about Martin Heidegger’s views.Examining 112 non-philosophical Persian texts, showed that more than half of the equations were assigned to “Hastishenasi”, which was to be expected because it is an accurate translation of the ontology. But the tendency of authors to use “Hastanshenasi” and “Hastannegari” in recent years, shows the understanding of the difference in the meaning of this concept in the philosophical and non-philosophical fields. Most of authors have only mentioned that “ontology comes from philosophy” and a few authors have stated the reason for choosing the equivalent. For the second part of this concept, Hori’s, Fadaei’s and Lynch’s reasons do not leave any doubt in the acceptance of “Negari” instead of “Shenasi”. But for the first part of this term, regarding Heidegger’s persistence in distinguishing between “being/existence” and “beings/ entities”, it is necessary to separate the using this concept in philosophical and non-philosophical domains, by preferring “Hastan” to “Hasti”. Then the author suggests “Hastannegari” for non-philosophical texts.Due to Heidegger’s critique to Aristotle’s categorization for integrating of possible states of beings, we must be more careful in using and quoting this theory in non-philosophical texts.Finally, despite the above results and even the existence of the countless sources in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), the author raises a new question: is the term (ontology) appropriate for what we do in non-philosophical texts and couldn’t we select an independent term without borrowing this term from philosophy? In order to answer this question, the author suggests an independent research, especially by studying on lexical sources and linguistic theories