Ontology Timeline & Philosophical Traditions
Ontology, in the context of InnerDialogue, is not a system of thought, but a song of being. It is the slow unveiling of essence beneath habit, beneath history — a remembering through the body’s grammar. What has been missing, forgotten, or rendered contingent by time and trauma begins to stir. We do not define what is; we listen for how being speaks. Through gesture, stillness, and the unravelling of narrative, being reveals itself — not as a concept, but as resonance. The body, once held by stories it could not speak, begins to reorient around something quieter, truer. In this way, ontology is not known, but lived — a becoming that flows from Source through soma into presence.
Explore how thinkers across civilisations shaped our understanding of Being — from Plato and Ibn Arabi, Ken Wilber and Clare Graves.
Plato (c. 428–348 BCE)
Tradition: Classical Greek / Idealism
Contribution: Introduced the Theory of Forms. Asserted that abstract, non-material Forms (e.g., Goodness) are the most real entities. Laid the foundations for metaphysical dualism.
Aristotle (384–322 BCE)
Tradition: Classical Greek / Substance Theory
Contribution: Developed substance theory and the concept of “being as being.” Grounded ontology in physical reality, causes, and categories.
Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980–1037 CE)
Tradition: Islamic Peripatetic (Neo-Aristotelian)
Contribution: Distinguished between essence and existence. Created a metaphysical framework influencing both Islamic and European scholastic thought.
Al-Ghazali (1058–1111 CE)
Tradition: Islamic Theology / Ash’arism
Contribution: Critiqued rational causality and proposed that all events are directly caused by God’s will (occasionalism). Merged mysticism with theology.
Ibn al-Arabi (1165–1240 CE)
Tradition: Sufi / Islamic Metaphysics
Contribution: Proposed “Unity of Being” (Wahdat al-Wujūd), where all apparent multiplicity derives from a single divine reality.
Maimonides (1135–1204 CE)
Tradition: Jewish Aristotelianism
Contribution: Harmonised Jewish theology with Aristotelian thought. Emphasised God’s unknowability and negative theology.
Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 CE)
Tradition: Christian Scholasticism
Contribution: Synthesised Aristotelian philosophy with Christian doctrine. Proposed the distinction between essence and act-of-being (actus essendi).
G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831)
Tradition: German Idealism
Contribution: Introduced dialectical ontology — Being becomes through triadic development. Reality is Spirit unfolding historically.
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)
Tradition: Phenomenology / Existentialism
Contribution: Reframed ontology around Being itself (Sein), focusing on the being for whom Being is a question (Dasein).
Clare Graves (1914–1986)
Tradition: Evolutionary Psychology
Contribution: Developed Spiral Dynamics, modeling the evolution of human value systems and cultural consciousness.
Ken Wilber (b. 1949)
Tradition: Integral Theory
Contribution: Created a developmental ontology integrating science, mysticism, and psychology. Known for the AQAL model (All Quadrants, All Levels).
Solihin Thom (b. 1950)
Tradition: Human realms
Contribution: Created a developmental ontology integrating constitutional, physiological, behavioural, mental and spiritual growth and the contingencies that support this.
Tradition Map
- Greek Classical: Plato, Aristotle
- Islamic Philosophical: Avicenna, Al-Ghazali, Ibn al-Arabi
- Jewish Scholastic: Maimonides
- Christian Scholastic: Aquinas
- German Idealism: Hegel
- Phenomenological: Heidegger
- Contemporary Integral/Systems Thought: Wilber, Graves, Thom