An entity is something that has a distinct, separate existence, though it need not be a material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is animate. Entities are used in system developmental models that display communications and internal processing of, say, documents compared to order processing.
An entity could be viewed as a set containing subsets. In philosophy, such sets are said to be abstract objects.
Sometimes, the word entity is used in a general sense of a being, whether or not the referent has material existence; e.g., is often referred to as an entity with no corporeal form, such as a language. It is also often used to refer to ghosts and other spirits. Taken further, entity sometimes refers to existence or being itself. For example, the former U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan once said that "the policy of the government of the United States is to seek . . . to preserve Chinese territorial and administrative entity."
The word entitative is the adjective form of the noun entity. Something that is entitative is "considered as pure entity; abstracted from all circumstances", that is, regarded as entity alone, apart from attendant circumstances.
Specialized uses
- A DBMS entity is either a thing in the modeled world or a drawing element in an ERD.
- A SUMO, Entity is the root node and stands for the universal class of individuals.
- In VHDL, entity is the keyword for defining a new object.
- An SGML entity is an abbreviation for some expanded piece of SGML text.
- An open systems architecture entity is an active routine within a layer.
- In computer games and game engines, entity is a dynamic object such as a non-player character or item.
- In HTML, entity is a code snippet (ie: "®" for "Registered Trademark") which is interpreted by web browsers to display special characters. See List of XML and HTML character entity references.
- In law, a legal entity is an entity that is capable of bearing legal rights and obligations, such as a natural person or an artificial person (e.g. business entity or a corporate entity).
See also
- Boltzmann brain, a hypothesized self-aware entity.
- Digital identity
- Entity realism, a form of scientific realism.
- Ontology, the study of being, existence and entities
- Object (philosophy)
- Entity class
|
|||||||||||||||||
Categories: Philosophical concepts | Data modeling diagrams
|
The Age, Australia
... approval is given for the Directors to allot and issue a total of up to 176667 options to Reginald Gillard and his associated entities on the terms and conditions set out in the Explanatory Memorandum accompanying this Notice of General Meeting. ...
Christine McLaren
Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:24:00 GM
The first, she said, is the issue of who counts as government and therefore, who is subject to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, since the Charter only applies to government . entities. . The decision ruled that Translink is indeed a ...
Q. What types of business or entities use managerial accounting information?
Asked by Saj P - Tue Jul 21 08:22:38 2009 - - 2 Answers - 0 Comments
