onticos

Ontics, also encountered as onticos in some texts, is a philosophical term describing the domain of existing beings and concrete facts about them. It contrasts with ontology, which studies the nature and structure of being.

In usage, ontic describes particular entities and facts about the external world, while ontological concerns the general conditions for being and the system of categories in which entities can be subsumed. The distinction helps separate description of actual things from inquiry into their underlying nature.

The ontic-ontological distinction is found in phenomenology and analytic philosophy; early uses include Husserl's ontic versus ontological considerations and Heidegger's emphasis on the shift from dealing with beings (ontic) to being itself (ontological). The terminology is often employed to clarify whether a statement is about concrete facts or about the fundamental nature of existence.

In information science and artificial intelligence, ontologies are formal representations of a domain; ontics would refer to the actual domain entities described by such ontologies, though the term ontics is less common in that field. The word is typically used to discuss the factual inventory of beings within a given framework, as opposed to the theoretical structure that explains why such beings exist.

See also: ontology, ontic, ontological, ontological commitment.