A Phenomenological Approach to Analyzing User Queries in IT Systems Using Heidegger's Fundamental Ontology

TL;DR

The paper introduces a phenomenological IT system that applies Heidegger's Fundamental Ontology to distinguish beings and Being and to analyze user queries through two non-overlapping languages bridged by phenomenological reduction. It describes an architecture that processes queries in a categorical language of beings while internally analyzing them in an existential language of Being, enabling detection of recursive and self-referential structures and offering ontologically grounded resolutions. Through use-case scenarios and a comparison with modern systems, the authors argue that this approach yields deeper ontological insights and practical outputs, particularly for AGI-related queries and metaphor-heavy IT dialogues. The work outlines the requirements for formalizing the language of Being and discusses practical limitations and the need for prototype work to realize a universal ontological query analysis tool.

Abstract

This paper presents a novel research analytical IT system grounded in Martin Heidegger's Fundamental Ontology, distinguishing between beings (das Seiende) and Being (das Sein). The system employs two modally distinct, descriptively complete languages: a categorical language of beings for processing user inputs and an existential language of Being for internal analysis. These languages are bridged via a phenomenological reduction module, enabling the system to analyze user queries (including questions, answers, and dialogues among IT specialists), identify recursive and self-referential structures, and provide actionable insights in categorical terms. Unlike contemporary systems limited to categorical analysis, this approach leverages Heidegger's phenomenological existential analysis to uncover deeper ontological patterns in query processing, aiding in resolving logical traps in complex interactions, such as metaphor usage in IT contexts. The path to full realization involves formalizing the language of Being by a research team based on Heidegger's Fundamental Ontology; given the existing completeness of the language of beings, this reduces the system's computability to completeness, paving the way for a universal query analysis tool. The paper presents the system's architecture, operational principles, technical implementation, use cases--including a case based on real IT specialist dialogues--comparative evaluation with existing tools, and its advantages and limitations.