Thomas Bittner & Barry Smith (2003)

Methodology as metaphysics: how a method of accounting smuggles in substance

I. Abstract

The formal-ontological work of Thomas Bittner and Barry Smith—spanning the Theory of Granular Partitions and the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO)—is not a rival theory of existence in the CoD's sense. It is a methodological apparatus for the classification and representation of entities, presented as domain-neutral and applicable across scientific and information-systems contexts. This comparison argues that the apparatus is not neutral. It encodes substance-ontological presuppositions in its architecture, its primitives, and its treatment of time, and then presents the resulting picture as a description of reality as such. The comparison with the CoD is therefore not a contest between two ontologies but a demonstration of a category of error: mistaking the conditions of a method of accounting for the structure of being. The OMAF reveals that where Bittner & Smith must presuppose discrete, classifiable entities awaiting representation, the CoD treats the conference of difference—the process of bearing apart and bearing together—as primary, and treats entities as stabilized patterns within that process. This comparison's contribution is to show how a methodology can smuggle metaphysics and how the CoD avoids doing so.

II. Overview of the Bittner & Smith Project

Bittner and Smith's work is situated within formal ontology and is driven by applied concerns: data integration, biomedical informatics, and the unification of disparate information systems under common ontological schemas. Two frameworks are relevant here.

The Theory of Granular Partitions (Bittner & Smith 2003) is a two-part theory. Part A concerns the internal structure of partitions: how cells and subcells relate mereologically, how a partition can be refined or coarsened, and how labels attach to cells. Part B concerns reference: how a partition projects onto reality, and what makes a projection well-formed. The theory is explicitly a theory of classification and representation, not a theory of being. It asks how classificatory schemes relate to the world, not what the world fundamentally is.

The Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), primarily Barry Smith's framework developed with many collaborators, is an upper-level ontology with a bicategorial structure: continuant and occurrent. Continuants persist through time and are wholly present at each moment; occurrents unfold in time and have temporal parts. Spatial regions are a subcategory of continuant, not a peer category alongside objects and processes. BFO's signature move is realist perspectivalism: it treats the 3D continuant perspective and the 4D occurrent perspective as irreducible, and it accommodates both within a single framework rather than adjudicating between them.

Both frameworks share a commitment that is rarely stated as such: reality is the kind of thing that can be adequately captured by a formal classificatory apparatus. The apparatus is treated as a window onto the world, not as a participant in constituting what the world is taken to be. This is the presupposition the CoD brings into question.

III. Overview of the CoD

The Conference of Difference (CoD) model claims that, as a 'condition of being', existence is, by extension, a 'process of declaring together of action to be'. This condition: 'process of declaring together' can itself be described as a conference of difference: a 'condition of bearing together' transforming the 'condition of bearing apart'. Logically, every conference is of difference as every difference is born of conference. Critically, this is not a causal circle but a constitutive one: neither term precedes the other; each is intelligible only through the other.^[1] Therefore, the conference of difference is irreducible in and of itself and thus the process primitive of existence.

In the Conference of Difference: a CRUP-OMAF case study, its ontology is assessed as follows:

• On primacy-of-existence: The CoD reveals primacy, not in substance of entities but, in the relational process itself: the conference of difference—relation precedes relata. Entities are discerned as stabilized patterns within this ongoing process. As declared in Koan 10.1, 'all existence is a conference of difference'. Relation is not something that happens between discerned entities but rather the process primitive that transforms existence itself.
• On manner-of-existence: The manner-of-existence is fundamentally conferential and transformative. Thus, being: 'action to be' is a continuous, dynamic process of 'bearing together' and 'bearing apart' – a constant negotiation that defines the 'condition of being' that is existence. 'All existence transforms via binding, not freedom' (Koan 30.7).
• On the relationship-between-multiplicity-and-unity: Unity is an immanent and continuous achievement of the conference of difference itself. Koan 80.1 frames this as a universal reciprocity that moves toward equilibrium—a self-organizing principle inherent to existence itself.

Crucially for this chapter, the CoD does not begin with a classificatory apparatus and then apply it to reality. It begins with the conferring process and asks how classification—indeed, how any articulation into entities at all—arises within it. The method is derived from the phenomenon, not imposed on it.

IV. Comparison

Criterion 1: Primacy-of-existence

• The Bittner & Smith position grants primacy to a structured inventory of entities. Whether the inventory is the partition/cell structure of granular partitions or the continuant/occurrent divide of BFO, the framework is built upon discrete entities whose relations are then formally described. The ontological work is in correctly classifying and connecting these pre-existing building blocks.
• The CoD's position asserts that the relational process itself is primary. The 'conference of difference' is not a relation between prior entities but the generative ground from which all entities—whether conceptualized as objects, processes, or regions—emerge as secondary stabilizations.
• Interpretive analysis: The Bittner & Smith framework provides an excellent map of the ontological territory once the territory has been divided into countries. The CoD seeks to describe the tectonic activity that forms the continents. Where the former must take 'things' as its starting point, the CoD starts with 'thinging'—the active, differential process of manifestation.

Criterion 2: Manner-of-existence

• The Bittner & Smith position is that existence is a state of being categorizable. An entity's manner-of-existence is defined by which category it instantiates—continuant or occurrent, cell or subcell. This creates a world of relatively stable entities whose properties and relations can be formally mapped. The model scores highly on structural clarity but faces challenges with entities that blur these categorical lines, such as a standing wave or a flame, which possess both object-like and process-like qualities.
• The CoD's position is that existence is inherently active and relational. Its manner-of-existence is not static being but dynamic becoming—the continuous 'action to be' that is the conference of difference. An entity is not first and then related; it is its relational activity.
• Interpretive analysis: This difference is not merely technical but foundational. Where Bittner & Smith posit a categorical structure as primary, the CoD's insistence on dynamic relationality allows it to account for the pervasive flux and interpenetration of phenomena that a categorical model must either force into a box or dismiss as problematic edge cases.

Criterion 3: Relationship-between-multiplicity-and-unity

• The Bittner & Smith position resolves the relationship through formal summation or partition refinement. Multiplicity is handled by the mereological sum of individual entities or by the nesting of cells within cells; unity is achieved through topological connectedness or participation in a larger partition. Unity is an aggregate or a structured collection of the multiple parts.
• The CoD's position posits a co-constitutive relationship. Multiplicity (the 'bearing apart' of difference) and unity (the 'bearing together' of conference) are not separate elements to be joined but are two aspects of the same single ontological act. Unity is not a sum but a synergy—a new reality emerging from the conference itself that was not present in the parts considered in isolation.
• Interpretive analysis: For the formal ontologist, a whole is built from its parts. For the CoD, the 'parts' and the 'whole' arise simultaneously and mutually define each other within the conference. This allows the CoD to model emergent phenomena more naturally.

Criterion 4: The status of the method itself

This is the criterion that distinguishes this chapter from a standard ontology-versus-ontology comparison, and it is the heart of the argument.

• The Bittner & Smith position treats the formal apparatus as transparent. Granular partitions and BFO are presented as domain-neutral tools that can be applied to any domain without altering what they describe. The question of who or what performs the classification—the sentient agent who divides, labels, and projects—is bracketed. In BFO's perspectivalism, the 3D and 4D perspectives are attributed to 'human' or 'God', but this attribution is a confession rather than an account: the framework cannot derive the perspectival subject from its own categories. The categorizer is outside the ontology.
• The CoD's position does not bracket the categorizer. It treats the conference of difference—the very act of bearing apart and bearing together—as primary, and treats substances, objects, and categories as stabilized patterns within that process. The method is not applied to a pregiven reality; it is derived from the conferring process that constitutes reality in the first place.
• Interpretive analysis: This is the decisive divergence. Bittner & Smith's method smuggles in a substance-ontological commitment at the level of design: it presupposes discrete, classifiable entities, a categorizer who classifies them, and a reality that is the kind of thing that can be so classified. None of these presuppositions is argued for; they are built into the apparatus and then presented as neutral findings about the world. The CoD is not exempt from this problem in principle—any articulation, including the CoD's, is a human articulation—but the CoD includes the articulator within its account rather than leaving it outside the frame. It thematizes the conferring process as the condition under which entities and categories arise. In this sense, the CoD is the only framework in this comparison that does not mistake its own conditions of access for the conditions of being.

V. Implications

The single most important philosophical lesson from this comparison is that a methodology can carry metaphysics without declaring it. Bittner and Smith's frameworks are rigorous, useful, and internally coherent—but their rigor is purchased by treating the conditions of their own method as the structure of being. The substance-ontological presupposition is not argued; it is architectural.

This matters for the CoD in two ways. First, it clarifies the CoD's distinctive claim: not merely that relation precedes relata, but that the very possibility of classification, categorization, and formal representation depends on a conferring process that formal ontologies cannot themselves account for. Second, it sets a standard of self-reflexivity that the CoD must meet: if the critique of Bittner & Smith is that they do not thematize the categorizer, the CoD must thematize its own conditions of articulation. The conference of difference is not a view from nowhere; it is the process by which any view—including this one—is stabilized.

The comparison strengthens the argument for the CoD by demonstrating its capacity to solve a problem that methodological frameworks cannot even pose: the problem of the genesis of the articulations they presuppose. In a CoD framework, an entity that transforms from an object to a process, or which exists at the boundary of categories, is not an anomaly but a perfect expression of the core ontological principle. This opens a new line of inquiry into the 'life cycles' of ontological conferences themselves, asking not 'what category does this belong to?' but 'what specific conference of differences sustains this manifest pattern?'

Gospel of being

All existence is a conference of
difference

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