The history of ontology goes back over 2000 years to Aristotle and his Categories. The influence of his concept of hierarchical structures can be seen in many current categorisation schemes, ranging from the Linnaean schemes used in the life sciences to the various library categorisation schemes of Dewey and the Library of Congress. The history of the study of ontology has not been one of smooth progress with, for example, Kant (1787, p. 80) even rejecting ontology as a valid area of study. Kant’s attitude was based on his belief that ontology was a synthetic a priori knowledge of things in general. Franz Brentano (1933, p. 81) asserts that Kant completely misunderstood Aristotle’s theory of categories, approaching it without a sound understanding of Aristotle’s point of view. Rather than an a priori assumption, as Kant believed, Aristotle’s categories were based on empirical observations of being, of individuation and of collection into species.

Despite Brentano’s rejection of Kant, some of his views regarding perception had similarities. Brentano’s ontology is based on the investigation of two types of phenomena. First, he identifies our inner perceptions, facts about ourselves and our intentional activity. Second, the sensations we have of the external world: colour, sounds, smells are identified. In his comments on intentionality we begin to see a way of accommodating perceived diversity:

One of Brentano’s students was Edmund Husserl, who continued investigations into the concept of intentionality. In the course of this he created phenomenology, the key idea of which is intentionality. Husserl identified problems with Brentano’s approach when dealing with serious misperception and hallucinations. In these cases, what is the object? Husserl considered those features of consciousness that make it as if of an object. The collection of all these features he called the act’s noema. The noema includes all the object’s features, whether perceived or unperceived, including features we may take the object as having without having ever reflected or paid attention to those features. Because this is determined by perception you could, in a particular situation, see a man, but later realise it was a mannequin, with a corresponding shift of noema. An example closer to our research area might be Isaac Asimov’s The endochronic properties of resublimated thiotimoline (1948). This is written using the structure and language of a chemistry research paper, but was a parody intended to entertain, and not a scientific work intended to establish and transmit cognitive results. Some members of the research community took the paper seriously until the ruse was revealed. In this way, perception is always fallible and noema must shift with reconsidered perceptions (Routledge, 2000, p. 369).

The results of information systems research are reported in the research literature. For this reason, and because the Index of Information Systems Journals can be considered a surrogate of information systems research literature when considering relevant search terms, examining and understanding what the research literature consists of is fundamental to understanding the domain of information systems research, and for discovering other dimensions of the literature which might be useful as search attributes. The philosophical approach reviewed thus far resulted in a seminal investigation of literary works.

The results of information systems research are reported in the research literature. For this reason, and because the Index of Information Systems Journals can be considered a surrogate of information systems research literature when considering relevant search terms, examining and understanding what the research literature consists of is fundamental to understanding the domain of information systems research, and for discovering other dimensions of the literature which might be useful as search attributes. The philosophical approach reviewed thus far resulted in a seminal investigation of literary works.