Ontic
Ontic refers to the specific qualities or facts about a particular being or entity, while ontological refers to the study of being itself and the fundamental nature of existence. You can think of it as the difference between studying what a thing is (ontic) versus studying what it means to be (ontological).
Ontic
- Focus: The concrete, observable properties of individual things.
- Examples:
- The chemical composition of a substance.
- The biological functions of an organ.
- The physical laws governing a specific object.
- In a nutshell: This is about the details and characteristics of a thing.
Ontological
- Focus: The nature of being, existence, and reality itself.
- Examples:
- What it means for anything to exist at all.
- The fundamental structure of reality.
- The essence of a thing, rather than just its specific attributes.
- In a nutshell: This is about the theory of existence.
Key takeaway
The distinction, famously made by philosopher Martin Heidegger, is that the ontic is about the “beings” themselves, whereas the ontological is about the “being” of those beings. For example, physics studying the ontic properties of a chair (its mass, material, etc.) is an ontic science. A philosophical inquiry into the ontological nature of the chair—what makes it a chair in the first place and what it means for it to be—is an ontological one. [1, 2, 3, 7, 8]
AI responses may include mistakes.
[2] https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/47711/ontic-vs-ontological
[5] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-ontic-and-ontological-in-philosophy
[6] https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/6abw9n/when_should_i_be_using_ontic_rather_than/
[7] https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6557/ontic-versus-ontological
[8] wikipedia/en/Fundamental_ontology
Ontological vs. Ontic
Heidegger makes the important distinction (without which you won’t understand his work at all) between the ontological (Ontologisch) and the ontic (ontisch). Heidegger writes, “The ontical distinction of Dasein lies in the fact that it is ontological” (BT, 12). The ontological refers to the Being of a particular being, while the ontic refers to what a particular being (for example, Dasein) can or does do. For example, what makes Dasein different from all other particular beings (ontically) is that it takes up the question of its Being (ontological level). To make matters worse, Heidegger refers to the “ontic” categories of Dasein (that is, what particular Daseins do in light of the Being of their being) as “existentielle” (existenziell) and to its ontological categories (the Being of Dasein as care, as always with others, as futural, etc.) as existential (existenzial). That is to say, ontically and “existentielly” you may be engaged in reading this, but this is because ontologically and “existentially” you are always already in a world where you have a set of involvements. The point for Heidegger, though, is to think the difference between the two in order to understand at the same time that you are always both—your “care” always is filled in with “ontic” concerns.
In philosophy, “ontic” refers to matters of being and existence, like the nature of reality or the actual things that exist, while “iterative” refers to a process of repeated, step-by-step generation, such as how sets are formed from their members. Ontic concepts concern the substance and nature of existing things, while iterative concepts concern the process or method by which something is constructed or generated in a sequence.
Ontic
- Definition: Pertains to the actual being or existence of things and their fundamental nature.
- Focus: What is real, the specific instances of being, and the underlying structure of reality itself.
- Example: An ontic explanation isn’t a representation but a description of the actual physical entities and their causal relationships, says University of Michigan (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ergo/12405314.0005.038/—ontic-explanation-is-either-ontic-or-explanatory-but-not?rgn=main;view=fulltext). Similarly, ontic structural realism argues that what is truly real in science are the structures or relations, not the individual entities themselves, according to Reddit users (https://www.reddit.com/r/PhilosophyofScience/comments/1e4uats/ontic_structural_realism_coherencetheory_of_truth/).
Iterative
- Definition: Describes a process of repeated, cyclic, or step-by-step generation.
- Focus: The method of construction or formation, often involving a sequence where a new step builds on the previous one.
- Example: The iterative conception of sets is a model where sets are formed in a sequence, with each new set being created from elements that are “available” before it, notes PhilArchive users (https://philarchive.org/archive/DALVEA). This is also a model used in engineering and design to describe a process of planning, implementing, and testing in a cycle.
Key difference
- An ontic view looks at what is, or the actual state of affairs.
- An iterative view looks at how it was made, or the process of becoming.
- For example, a philosophical approach to innovation could be iterative, focusing on the step-by-step creative process. In contrast, an ontic approach to innovation would focus on the resulting “artefacts” or the constitution of the digital world itself, as seen in PhilArchive (https://philarchive.org/rec/BLOPRO). [1, 2, 4, 5, 9]
AI responses may include mistakes.
[1] https://philosophersannual.org/39articles/schechtman-three.pdf
[2] https://philarchive.org/rec/BLOPRO
[3] https://philarchive.org/archive/DALVEA
[6] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/notes.html
[8] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/agile-iterative-vs-incremental-debate-shahan-mafuz
[9] https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/6abw9n/when_should_i_be_using_ontic_rather_than/