The Comparability of Ontological Descriptions: A Structural Translation Theory Based on the Preservation of Descriptive Roles

Traditional ontology asks what exists. However, because each ontological theory presupposes its own criteria of existence and conditions of identity, comparison between theories is not straightforward. This paper reformulates the problem as follows: under what conditions can translations between ontological descriptions be constructed so as to preserve distinctions corresponding to descriptive roles? To formalize the comparability of ontological descriptions, this paper introduces a structure M=(X,H,Φ,V,U), which formalizes descriptive roles corresponding to identification, change, possibility, branching comparison, and structural transformation. Inter-theoretic translation is then defined in terms of conditions preserving the structural distinctions associated with these descriptive roles. A translation satisfying all preservation conditions is defined as a strong translation. On this basis, ontological disagreement is reformulated not as a disagreement over the content of entities themselves, but as a structural problem concerning how descriptive roles are realized and under what conditions their distinctions can be preserved. The paper thus provides a formal framework for the comparability of ontological descriptions through structure-preserving translation.