In
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
, ontic (from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, genitive : "of that which is") is physical, real, or factual
existence
Existence is the ability of an entity to interact with reality. In philosophy, it refers to the ontological property of being.
Etymology
The term ''existence'' comes from Old French ''existence'', from Medieval Latin ''existentia/exsistentia' ...
.
In more nuance, it means that which concerns particular, individuated beings rather than their modes of
being; the present, actual thing in relation to the virtual, generalized dimension which makes that thing what it "
is". An example includes the particular person and their actions, and the
cultural background to which these actions bear relation and derive
meaning from, the former being ontic (located in physicality), the latter ontological (located in
virtuality
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), edu ...
).
Overview
''Ontic'' describes what is there, as opposed to the nature or properties of that being. To illustrate :
*
Roger Bacon, observing that all languages are built upon a common
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
, stated that they share a foundation of ontically anchored linguistic structures.
*
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th ce ...
posited the concept of ''Sorge'', or caring, as the fundamental
concept
Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs.
They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by ...
of the
intentional being, and presupposed an ontological significance that distinguishes
ontological
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
being from mere "thinghood" of an ontic being. He uses the
German word ''
Dasein
''Dasein'' () (sometimes spelled as Da-sein) is the German word for 'existence'. It is a fundamental concept in the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Heidegger uses the expression ''Dasein'' to refer to the experience of being that is p ...
'' for a being that is capable of ontology, that is,
recursively
Recursion (adjective: ''recursive'') occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematics ...
comprehending
properties
Property is the ownership of land, resources, improvements or other tangible objects, or intellectual property.
Property may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Property (mathematics)
Philosophy and science
* Property (philosophy), in philosophy an ...
of the very fact of its own
Being. For Heidegger, ''ontical'' signifies concrete, specific realities, whereas "ontological" signifies deeper underlying structures of
reality
Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence. In physical terms, r ...
. Ontological objects or subjects have an ontical dimension, but they also include aspects of being like
self-awareness, evolutionary vestiges, future
potentialities, and networks of relationship.
*
Nicolai Hartmann distinguishes among ontology, ontics, and
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
: (i) ontology concerns the categorical analysis of entities by means of the knowledge categories able to classify them, (ii) ontics refers to a pre-categorical and pre-objectual connection which is best expressed in the relation to
transcendent acts, and (iii) metaphysics is that part of ontics or that part of ontology which concerns the residue of being that cannot be
rationalized further according to
categories
Category, plural categories, may refer to:
Philosophy and general uses
*Categorization, categories in cognitive science, information science and generally
*Category of being
* ''Categories'' (Aristotle)
*Category (Kant)
* Categories (Peirce)
* ...
.
Philosophy of science
In the
philosophy of science
Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ult ...
, ''ontic'' is primarily used in debates over the nature of
explanation
An explanation is a set of statements usually constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts. It may establish rules or laws, and may clarify the existing rules or laws in relatio ...
and about
structural realism. Wesley Salmon's ontic conception of explanation, for instance, claims that explanations are ontic only if they are
mind-independent
things in the world.
Harald Atmanspacher suggests that accurate claims about "''ontic'' states describe all properties of a physical system exhaustively. ('Exhaustive' in this context means that an ''ontic'' state is 'precisely the way it is,' without any reference to
epistemic knowledge or ignorance.)"
In an earlier paper, Atmanspacher portrays the difference between an
epistemic perspective of a
system, and an ontic perspective:
:Philosophical
discourse traditionally distinguishes between
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
and
epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Epis ...
and generally enforces this distinction by keeping the two subject areas separated. However, the relationship between the two areas is of central importance to
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
and
philosophy of physics
In philosophy, philosophy of physics deals with conceptual and interpretational issues in modern physics, many of which overlap with research done by certain kinds of theoretical physicists. Philosophy of physics can be broadly divided into thr ...
. For instance, many
measurement-related problems force us to consider both our
knowledge
Knowledge can be defined as Descriptive knowledge, awareness of facts or as Procedural knowledge, practical skills, and may also refer to Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called pro ...
of the
states and
observables of a
system (
epistemic perspective) and its states and observables, independent of such knowledge (ontic perspective). This applies to
quantum systems in particular.
Critical realism
The
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
philosopher Roy Bhaskar
Roy is a masculine given name and a family surname with varied origin.
In Anglo-Norman England, the name derived from the Norman ''roy'', meaning "king", while its Old French cognate, ''rey'' or ''roy'' (modern ''roi''), likewise gave rise to ...
, who is closely associated with the philosophical
movement of
critical realism writes:
:"I differentiate the 'ontic' ('ontical' etc.) from the 'ontological'. I employ the former to refer to
:# whatever pertains to being generally, rather than some distinctively philosophical (or scientific) theory of it (ontology), so that in this sense, that of the ontic
1, we can speak of the ontic presuppositions of a work of art, a
joke
A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with ...
or a strike as much as a
theory of knowledge
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Ep ...
; and, within this
rubric
A rubric is a word or section of text that is traditionally written or printed in red ink for emphasis. The word derives from the la, rubrica, meaning red ochre or red chalk, and originates in Medieval illuminated manuscripts from the 13th cen ...
, to
:# the
intransitive
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs ar ...
objects of some specific, historically determinate,
scientific investigation (or set of such investigations), the ontic
2.
:"The ontic
2 is always specified, and only identified, by its relation, as the intransitive object(s) of some or other (denumerable set of) particular transitive process(es) of enquiry. It is cognitive process-, and level-specific; whereas the ontological (like the ontic
1) is not."
Writing in th
Bhaskar mailing list archive Ruth Groff offers this expansion of Bhaskar's note above:
:"'ontic
2' is an abstract way of denoting the object-domain of a particular
scientific
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
area, field, or inquiry. E.g.:
molecules feature in the ontic
2 of chemistry. He's just saying that the scientific undertaking ITSELF is not one of the objects of said, most narrowly construed, immediate object-domain. So
chemistry itself is not part of the ontic
2 of chemistry."
Some have argued that Bhaskar himself was too deeply entwined in the inherent vices and pitfalls of the English language to translate in simple terms the meaning of the terminology from a purely etymological sense. Derivative of ontic and
logos
''Logos'' (, ; grc, λόγος, lógos, lit=word, discourse, or reason) is a term used in Western philosophy, psychology and rhetoric and refers to the appeal to reason that relies on logic or reason, inductive and deductive reasoning. Ari ...
.
See also
*
Ding an sich
In Kantian philosophy, the thing-in-itself (german: Ding an sich) is the status of objects as they are, independent of representation and observation. The concept of the thing-in-itself was introduced by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, and ...
*
Interpretations of quantum mechanics
An interpretation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to explain how the mathematical theory of quantum mechanics might correspond to experienced reality. Although quantum mechanics has held up to rigorous and extremely precise tests in an extraord ...
*
Ontologism Ontologism is a philosophical system most associated with Nicholas Malebranche (1638–1715) which maintains that God and divine ideas are the first object of our intelligence and the intuition of God the first act of our intellectual knowledge.
...
*
Physical ontology
*
Substance theory
References
Sources
* Atmanspacher, Dr. H., and Primas, H., 2003
005
''005'' is a 1981 arcade game by Sega. They advertised it as the first of their RasterScan Convert-a-Game series, designed so that it could be changed into another game in minutes "at a substantial savings". It is one of the first examples of a ...
"Epistemic and Ontic
Quantum Realities
Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence. In physical terms, rea ...
", in Khrennikov, A (Ed.), ''Foundations of Probability and Physics'' (
American Institute of Physics
The American Institute of Physics (AIP) promotes science and the profession of physics, publishes physics journals, and produces publications for scientific and engineering societies. The AIP is made up of various member societies. Its corpora ...
2005, pp 49–61, Originally published in ''Time, Quantum and Information'', edited by Lutz Castell and Otfried Ischebeck, Springer, Berlin, 2003, pp 301–321
* Atmanspacher, Harald (2001) ''
Determinism Is Ontic, Determinability is
Epistemic''
University_of_Pittsburgh_Archives.html" ;"title="University of Pittsburgh">University of Pittsburgh
Archives">University of Pittsburgh">University of Pittsburgh
Archives
* Wright, Cory (2015) The ontic conception of scientific explanation. Stud in History and Philosophy of Science, 54: 20–30
* Bhaskar, R.A., 1986, ''Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation'' (London: Verso), pp 36 and 37, as quoted by Howard Engelskirchen in the
Bhaskar mailing list archive
{{Continental philosophy
Abstraction
Action (philosophy)
Cognition
Concepts in epistemology
Concepts in logic
Concepts in metaphilosophy
Concepts in metaphysics
Concepts in the philosophy of mind
Concepts in the philosophy of science
Epistemological theories
Knowledge representation
Martin Heidegger
Meaning (philosophy of language)
Metaphysical theories
Metaphysics of mind
Modal logic
Ontology
Philosophical concepts
Philosophical problems
Philosophical theories
Philosophy of language
Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of science
Reality