Concept

Fundamental ontology

Overview

In Being and Time, the philosopher Martin Heidegger makes the distinction between ontical and ontological, or between beings and being as such. He labeled this the "ontological difference." It is from this distinction that he develops the concept of fundamental ontology (German: Fundamentalontologie).

The history of ontology in Western philosophy is, in Heidegger's terms, ontical, whereas ontology ought to designate fundamental ontology. He says this "ontological inquiry" is required to understand the basis of the sciences.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Philosophers who discussed Fundamental ontology

• Mou Tsung-san
• Martin Heidegger
• Herbert Marcuse

Related ideas

• Western philosophy
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Richard Rorty
• Ontology
• Theory of forms
• Martin Heidegger
• Essence
• Phenomenon
• Being and Time
• Phenomenology (philosophy)
• Edmund Husserl
• Will to power

Opposing perspectives

• Existential phenomenology

Place in the tradition

Part of Existence.

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