breakdown, “ontic” means “beingthe thing”—that something exists or takes up physical and temporal space. If something is ontic, it is a thing—a noun. When you refer to yourself or someone else, do you refer to them as a thing—that is, as a noun? “Meet Jim. Jim is a heterosexual, cisgender man. Jim is 6’2.” He is a high school music teacher. He makes $35,000/year.” Check, check, check—the attributes of a thing. “Jim” is ontic.
“Onto-logical,” then, if you remember the earlier discussion, recognizes the becoming of that which exists. It refers to a process—that is, being as a gerund, like walk-ing and skiing. It would be you as an undetermined set of possibilities unfolding in the present. “Meet Jim. Let’s see what Jim does next.”
With “ontic” being, we find that the process of dis-covering and becoming has been removed, leaving one with simply ontos. Once more, following Plato’s ontological wedge, ontos is nothing more than an existing thing—that is, the lump of nature outside the window that one may point at or go outside and stand in. Macquarrie and Robinson (1962) summarize the difference in the translator footnotes: “Ontological inquiry is concerned primarily with Being; ontical inquiry is concerned primarily with entities and the facts about them” (p. 31, emphasis original). What kind of thinking are we taught to do in school?
While it is possible to imagine a type of thinking that might include both, Heidegger (1962) sees that modern science has been more concerned with things than their being. He writes,
And although research may always lean towards this positive approach, its real progress comes not so much from collecting results and storing them away in ‘manuals’ as from inquiring into the ways in which each particular area is basically constituted … —an inquiry to which we have been driven mostly by reacting against such an increase in information. (p. 29)
In this passage, Heidegger contrasts the practices of ontic- and ontological-scientific investigation. Ontic-scientific investigation is after a rough and naïve outline of subject matter, and this necessarily happens prior to any actual investigation. The practice of science conceived this way begins and ends with information. It would be possible to perform a study without even venturing into or consulting nature! If nature is never consulted, then this practice is tautological. One begins with the answer before one starts! This is the antithesis of scientific inquiry! The task of ontic-scientific investigation seems directed towards the collection of information about nature, which might subsequently be stored away in manuals. The information found in manuals is an abstraction of nature—useful, perhaps, for understanding nature. However, Heidegger here identifies a curious reversal that has increasingly taken place; the focus of such investigation seems to be in service to the proliferation of these manuals and not to the nature from which the manuals have been derived. For example, one’s understanding of the complexity of inter-personal relationships is not real—cannot be attributed to nature—until it has been published in manual-form.
This procedure could be called an ontological abstractification understood as follows: the initial abstraction—publishing a new bit of anthropological learning in a journal as a fact so others can be informed about it. This is useful, but it does not make the reader an anthropologist any more than does a college degree in anthropology. But now the bit of knowledge—the anthropological fact—is increasingly understood to be in service to its own factuality while the process is increasingly ignored; finally, the process is completely replaced by information concerning the thingliness of things.
From Heidegger’s perspective, the practice of ontic-scientific investigation seems to be chiefly interested in the increase of these manuals. Today, there are new academic journals—online and in print—that are popping up every week. I get two e-mails a week explaining how I can turn my research into academic currency though a short publication process. These journals—Heidegger’s manuals—are in service only to more journals (and, allegedly, tenure). That is, journal articles may be written despite exclusive consultation from other journal articles. Here information produces more information; things produce things. Processes come to be ignored almost in principle. Further investigation yields nothing more than the reproduction of itself.
If, at any point during this procedure, one endeavored to consult nature—an anthropologist investigates a people group by visiting with said group instead of merely consulting what has been published about said group—it becomes increasingly difficult to reduce these people to mere facts. We find that psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists who are in the field have difficulty reducing observations to basic facts about behavior. This is because people, provided you actually interact with them, resist being boxed into a category.
Suppose, for example, that a psychotherapist knew all about the nature of human psychopathology as it has been published in manuals. She understands psychopathology inside and out. However, as soon as the psychopath is consulted—interviewed or whatever—suddenly the diagnoses all seem ill-fitting, somewhat appropriate but also somewhat missing the bigger picture. There is, of course, a manual devoted to defining, with exacting detail, all of the diagnosable psychological illnesses that have been “discovered.” It’s called the Fifth Diagnostic and Statistical Manual on Mental Disorders (DSM-V). According to it, two people can be diagnosed as depressed and not share a single symptom in common.
Each of the academic disciplines have become entrenched in particular assumptions about Nature to such a degree that the Nature has eventually been reduced the pre-ontological assumptions about it—the abstractions about nature have replaced the concretions of nature.
We have been looking at two different ways of looking at nature: as a process and as a thing. Alfred North Whitehead differentiates these two approaches with terms that are delightfully informative: living and lifeless.
Where we have understood that Heidegger has discerned the ontological from the ontic, so too might we understand how Whitehead (1958) has discerned living and lifeless nature. Like Heidegger, Whitehead cautions against a science whose focus is restricted to what he terms “nature lifeless.” He explains,
Science can find no individual enjoyment in nature: Science can find no aim in nature: Science can find no creativity in nature; it finds mere rules of succession. These negations are true of Natural Science. They are inherent in its methodology. The reason for this blindness of Physical Science lies in the fact that such Science only deals with half the evidence provided by human experience. It divides the seamless coat—or, to change the metaphor into a happier form, it examines the coat, which is superficial, and neglects the body which is fundamental. (p. 211)
The detrimental consequences of “Natural Science”—that is, Heidegger’s ontic-science—are evident in the words of Whitehead. It is important to recognize that Whitehead does not have his arms crossed indignantly. Indeed, few have waved the flag of modern science more valiantly and piously than he. Whitehead is simply intent on pointing out that science, in its haste, has ignored the most fundamental part of Nature: the living part!
To be sure, the “rules of succession” that Whitehead sees in natural science are helpful in understanding the life of science. But these rules are not themselves alive—they are not capable of demonstrating enjoyment or creativity. When scientific discussion is restricted to the rules, one is left with “the grand doctrine of Nature as a self-sufficient, meaningless complex of facts. It is the doctrine of the autonomy of physical science” (p. 180). This includes manuals for the sake of still more manuals. Science takes on a life of its own, but rather than concrete experiences, it has only a succession of facts. This would be like mistaking a person’s coat for who they are as a person! Conan Doyle wrote a series of novels about such an approach to the world: Imagine that your niece has begun seeing somebody about whom she has grown increasingly serious. With talk of marriage, you decide to investigate said romantic partner. Upon their arrival to a family gathering, you take her partner’s coat and smuggle it into your laboratory. Here you proceed to do a comprehensive material analysis á la Sherlock-Holmes. From stitch-pattern and patchwork, you discern pedigree and aspirations; from an absent zipper-tooth, you discern frugality and trustworthiness; from oils lodged deeply into the fibers of cuff, you discern avocation; etc. Meanwhile, your niece and her partner are available for conversation in the adjacent room. The subject—now loading up on snack mix