Ontology refers to a taxonomy of concetps (classes/sets) and their logical relations. Although buidling ontology is not widely used to analyzse speeches, we think that it is an effective means to have a comprehensive idea of speeches we analyze.
The source of this ontology is the thematic analysis of the Aga Khan's speeches. While the thematic analysis is more objective (i.e., different researchers will find almost the same themes and concepts), ontology is more interpretive (i.e., two researchers can have different ontologies of the same speech, roughly speaking).
The easiest way to represent an ontology is a tree-like graph.
The professional way to represent an ontology is using OWL langauge or Description Logic, but then it will not be readible easily by people.
This ontology re-orders and sometimes redefines concepts of the Aga Khan's speeches (as presented in the thematic analysis) to make the whole ontology simple as much as possible and coherent. Therefore, we advise people to read firstly the thematic analysis before reading the ontology or the graph.
The "nested" text below represents the hierarchical relations between the concepts in the ontology and defines each concept (all the definitions are taken from the thematic analysis). However, this nested text does not show the relations between the concepts. The graph shows the relations.
Note that a sub-class (lower class/concept) from a parent class (upper class/concept) means that the child-class is imlpied by the parent class.
The Divine has two aspects: Oneness and the Absolute Limitless
Allah is continuously creating the created world, and His creation never stops. So, in front of this endless creation, human beings should show modesty and sincere desire to discover more and more about God's creation. That is why education should be characterized by open inquiry. We can never embrace the whole creation of God. See The Limitless Divine in the thematic analysis.
For the Aga Khan, faith is eminently based on logic, is iteself logical, and is rooted in reason. We can conclude easily from the Aga Khan's speeches that no intellect means no faith; and the intellect itself is a continuous effort to know and realize one's Self, the environment, and God's creation, which seem to be the basic telos of our existence. See Intellect
See what is written under Open Inquiry concept (in the thematic analysis). Empathetic Knowledge has been used by the Aga Khan to allude to ethical efforts and commitment to KNOW; it is an endeavour taken both spiritually and materially and is necessary for both our spiritual well-being and our coping with the continuous changes in the world.
Media should be responsibile towards people, free from governments' control, connect and inform people instead of looking for what makes profits. Media is necessary to impair knowledge about political systems and about constitutions. Media should not decline towards using freedom as a license to do what people desire to hear (for profits) without being responsible.
Education is sine qua non for individuals, societies, and states to achieve progress and growth and also to nurture moral values. It is an avenue not only to survive the seemingly accelerating change and growing complexities in the world, but also to lead the change, steering it for both spiritual and material progress.
Open Inquiry is the essential condition for high-quality and productive education. It means that education should be led by intellectual curiosity, by the morality of honesty, by creativity, and it should be free from inculcation of dogmas.
Intellect, nurtured by education, is a great transformative power ennobling individuals, developing societies, enriching peace and the unity of humanity, and it helps individuals reach spiritual wisodm.
The Aga Khan approaches and uses the concept of Progress and Growth comprehensively and broadly. Human beings must pursue achieving progress and make higher growth; this is their destiny and their role in this world. In other words, Progress and Growth seem to be a sacred call or a divine call. Hence, material progress is not enough, and it is only a condition to achieve spiritual and ethical progress and growth. Therefore, we see that progress/growth is not per se the endpoint or the essential telos. Rather, it is a role human beings take to achieve self-realization, reflection on God's creation, and the one's potential that is given by God.
Quality of Life is what development should produce. It means (1) higher living standards and spiritual well-being (such as better education and healthcare, beautiful/responding architecture, and better housing); (2) positive freedom; (3) personality; (4) effective democracy; and (5) developed and sustained culture (which includes values that are comprehended and uniqueness that is protected).
Development is a complex concept as it appears in the Aga Khan's speeches, and it has constantly appeared in His speeches since 1957. The following quotation shows the systematic nature of development in the Aga Khan's doctrin.
Leading and achieving development requires good management of the institutions. The Aga Khan has indicated, among many other things, the importance of adopting the high quality of efficient management techniques that are used by business sectors.
Practically, good management should produce well-beings:
Enabling Environment is a central concept in the AKDN work and has been asserted many times by the Aga Khan. Enabling Environment implies providing sustainable development projects, agency to people who are targeted by development. Thus, Enabling Environment can be defined as the environment (it is an environment not a "machine," tool, or program) in which people and institutions can "naturally" realize and fulfil their potential.
Agency means the ability and power of a person, a group, a state to achieve their needs and to actualize their dreams by their own.
Humility, help, unity, generosity, kindness, seeking truth, integrity, serenity, no superiority over nature, balance between the worldy progress and the spiritual well-being.
Positive Freedom refers to our freedom TO DO and to be active, while negative freedom means being free only FROM restrictions. Positive freedom entails responsibility and obligations, while negative freedom ONLY guarantees our freedom from being restricted by others.
Democracy that can achieve well-being of people; it requires an active civil society (i.e., high level of people participation), informing and responsible media, and ethics that are espoused by people because ethics (and religion) is what directs the power - given by democracy - to its final goal.
Oneness or the Real unity of realms and realities in this existence has appeared in the Aga Khan's speeches as essential and fundamental inextricability: (1) between body/the material and spirit, (2) between this world and the next, (3) between the everyday life and religion, (4) between human being and nature, and (5) between thought and existence.
It refers to our commitment as stewards of God's creation in all directions and to all aspects of God's creation.
Commitment and responsibility towards humanity; all human beings are brothers and sisters.
Commitment towards habitat. Habitat is the site where people live and ought to live; it is both, at the one hand, a target for development as it hosts human life and reflects the relations between human and nature and, thus, between the creation of God and human capabilities, and, on the other hand, it per se impacts human life by its natural and human made-aspects. Habitate is the site where we can sustain our particularities in front of hegemonic elements coming from the globalization. Habitat calls us to carve out its aesthetics - through architecutre - as our relation with it is a shadow of our relation with God's creation. It imapcts our life as much as we, humans, imapct it.
Pluralism has increasingly and essentially been presented in the Aga Khan's speeches since, specifically, the 1990s. Pluralism is not a pragmatic compromise and maneuver but a sacred religious imperitive and a necessary condition for human survival. It goes beyond merely accepting the Other as it implies seeing him (the Other) as he sees himself, which requires a hard work, education, and dedication to reach this level of interacting with the Other. Pluralism is a human-specific reality and is what distinguishes the human being from other living creatures. This notion roots pluralism deeply in the human ontology, in the nature of human beings.
The Aga Khan used the term Creative Encounter in a speech in 1994 in the wake of the Soviet Union collapse. Creative Encounter refers to the specific moment of meeting, interaction, or the collide between two or more persons, cultures, or groups; this encounter has complex outcomes as a result of the particular moment of the meeting, the collide, and as a result of the general repertoire from which the meeting, encountering parties or entities form their general understandings and attitudes. An encounter is creative when the meeting entities allow for the complex productive outcomes to emerge, when they free themselves from priori dogmas, and when they desire to acheive a new understanding or a new horizon from this encounter. Hence, creative encounter is the opposite to the clash of civilizations (which is indeed nothing but the clash of ignorance) because creative encounter works actively on both sides: (1) the general repertoire that form the attitudes and general ideas of the encountering parties; and (2) the particular moment, and its conditions, of the encounter itself. These two sides impact each other, and in the case of creative encounter, they produce a complex productive outcome.
The reality itself is complex; we should comrehend this complexity, which implies that there is no simple solution, no one actor that can succceed alone. It means that we need each other.
Adopting multiple inputs of development (see the thematic analysis, Multiple Inputs) is a way to resonate with the compleixty of the reality. It means also that at the grassroots level multiple factors are impacting and forming the societies. The multiple is the idea of having and embracing multiple approaches and trying to see through whatever lenses that we can be useful. That means we have to try to look through others' eyes as well. That is why diversity is a blessing from the God.
See elusiveness from the thematic analysis. The Aga Khan said describing the various elements and factors making an architecture endeavor possible, "we are recognising as unique a creative and generative process in which the imagination of one architect or the expectation of Muslim patrons and users interact constantly. Within this continuum no single moment or decision can be isolated like the element of a chemical compound, because it is creative like itself; it is the elusive process of human existence which is the winner, not merely a monument…" http://ismaili.net/news/801023.html 1980. The Aga Khan has described the relations between various scales (e.g., individual and community, man and environment, rural and urban, local and universal) as forming a unity that is unique and inseparable, although its compoenents (i.e., the scales forming a unity) are individually discernable.
For example, squaring the local with the universal, rural and urban...
It is our ability/reality to be unique; i.e., different from others. And, it refers to the particularity of a context; such that, there is no one universal and simple solution to all contexts.
To identify one's identity by what it is and for what it is more than against what it is.
Cosmopolitanism is the soul of pluralism, without which diversity will result in devastation. Cosmopolitanism is a set of ethics, which necessitates secure and positive identity (i.e., an identity that is defined by for what it is not against what it is), and which productively responds to the increasing complexity in the world.
Activating cosmopolitan ethics requires TRUE sensitivity, which is a hard working task, going behind a mere feeling of accepting the Other and going towards seeing the Other as he sees himself. This requires in turn concentrated education.