Philosophy & ThoughtGreek → English
Ontic
/ˈɒntɪk/adjective
Concerning particular entities and the facts about them, as opposed to the nature of being itself.
The Greek roots
ὄν
ón
being, that which is
Literally: “of what is”
Follow a root:ὄν3 words
The story of the word
The word entered English mainly through translators of Heidegger, who insisted on a distinction his readers keep having to relearn: ontic questions are about beings, ontological ones about Being. ὄν is the neuter participle of εἶναι, to be, so the Greek is doing nothing more exotic than saying that which is. Parmenides had already built a poem out of that participle two and a half thousand years earlier.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → German philosophy → English
- First recorded
- 20th century
Same family
ontologyontogenypaleontology
In a sentence
Counting the particles is an ontic question; asking what it means for anything to exist is not.