The term 'ontological mode' circulates through the depth-psychology corpus primarily as an inheritance from Heidegger's fundamental ontology, where it designates the specific manner in which an entity has its Being — not what an entity is, but how it is. Heidegger's Being and Time provides the conceptual architecture: entities can be present-at-hand, ready-to-hand, or existent (as Dasein), each constituting a distinct ontological mode irreducible to the others. The significance of this distinction for depth psychology lies in its pressure upon the concept of soul and image. Wolfgang Giegerich imports the tension most explicitly, arguing that imaginal psychology remains captive to a particular ontological mode — the substantializing, entity-like status conferred upon archetypal figures — and that genuine psychological thinking requires seeing through this mode toward the logical life of soul itself. James Hillman, from a different angle, recasts the psychological field by insisting that soul functions as a mode of being that encompasses the human rather than inhering within it. Gilbert Simondon's philosophy of individuation extends the inquiry by treating relation itself as a 'modality of being,' dissolving the priority of the individual-substance paradigm. Paul Ricoeur enters from the side of selfhood and narrative, pressing the ontological bearing of attestation and ipseity. Together these voices reveal an abiding tension: whether the ontological mode proper to psychic reality is imaginal, logical, relational, or existential.
In the library
16 passages
The ontologizing and substantiating that goes on in personifications is taken at face value. In other words, imaginal psychology does not see through the substrate character that inevitably comes with the images on account of the imaginal mode.
Giegerich argues that imaginal psychology is structurally bound to a particular ontological mode — the mode of entity-like substantiality — and that genuine psychological reflection requires the sublation of this mode.
Giegerich, Wolfgang, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020thesis
Relation is a modality of being; it is simultaneous with respect to the terms whose existence it guarantees. A relation must be grasped as a relation in being, a relation of being, a manner of being.
Simondon proposes that relation constitutes an irreducible ontological mode — not a secondary link between pre-given substances, but a primary manner of being coeval with the terms it sustains.
Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis
"World" is used as an ontical concept, and signifies the totality of... But is this a way of asking ontologically about the 'world'? The problematic which we have thus marked out is one which is undoubtedly ontological.
Heidegger distinguishes the ontical use of 'world' from its ontological interrogation, exemplifying the methodological primacy of asking after the mode of Being rather than cataloguing entities.
If the term 'Reality' is meant to stand for the Being of entities present-at-hand within-the-world (res) (and nothing else is understood thereby), then when it comes to analysing this mode of Being, this signi...
Heidegger specifies 'presence-at-hand' as a determinate ontological mode and insists that reality as ordinarily conceived remains confined within this single mode, failing to address Dasein's existential constitution.
towards the ontological structure thus conceived can 'life' as a state of Being be defined a priori, and this must be done in a privative manner. Ontically as well as ontologically, the priority belongs to Being-in-the-world as concern.
Heidegger insists that 'life' must be defined through a privative analysis of Dasein's ontological mode of Being-in-the-world, not through biology or ontic description.
Dasein is an entity which is in each case I myself; its Being is in each case mine. This definition indicates an ontologically constitutive state.
Heidegger identifies 'mineness' as the ontologically constitutive mark of Dasein's mode of being, distinguishing it categorically from the presence-at-hand characteristic of things.
An initial question posed concerns the general ontological commitment of all our studies and can be formulated on the basis of the notion of attestation, with which the Introduction concluded.
Ricoeur situates the notion of attestation as bearing a general ontological commitment, linking selfhood's mode of being to the act of witnessing one's own existence as same in the sense of ipseity.
in each case mine, is free either for authenticity or for inauthenticity or for a mode in which neither of these has been differentiated.
Heidegger identifies authenticity, inauthenticity, and their undifferentiated middle as three ontological modes available to Dasein, each expressing a possible way of owning or failing to own one's Being.
Only in some definite mode of its own Being-in-the-world can Dasein discover entities as Nature. This manner of knowing them has the character of depriving the world of its worldhood in a definite way.
Heidegger shows that the theoretical cognition of nature presupposes a specific ontological mode of Dasein's Being-in-the-world, which achieves its object only by abstracting away worldhood.
the being qua being is fully given in each of its phases, yet with a certain reserve of becoming; it could be said that the being has several forms and consequently several entelechies, not just one.
Simondon challenges the Aristotelian reduction of being to a single entelechy, proposing instead that being harbors multiple simultaneous phases — each constituting a distinct ontological mode of actualization.
Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
This move, which places man within psyche (rather than psyche within man), revisions all human activity whatsoever as psychological. Every piece of human behavior, whatever its manifest and literal content, is always also a psychological statement.
Hillman's reversal of the human-psyche relation implies a shift in ontological mode: soul is not a property of the human entity but the encompassing field within which the human appears.
Hillman, James, Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account, 1983supporting
This move, which places man within psyche (rather than psyche within man), revisions all human activity whatsoever as psychological. Every piece of human behavior, whatever its manifest and literal content, is always also a psychological statement.
The same argument as Hillman 1983a: placing the human within soul redefines the ontological mode of psychological existence from containment to encompassment.
As compared with this ontical interpretation, the existential-ontological Interpretation is not, let us say, merely an ontical generalization which is theoretical in character.
Heidegger demarcates existential-ontological interpretation from ontic generalization, insisting that Care as an ontological structure designates Dasein's mode of Being rather than a psychological trait.
Here 'God' is a purely ontological term, if it is to be understood as ens perfectissimum. At the same time, the 'self-evident' connotation of the concept of God is such as to permit an ontological interpretation.
Heidegger reads the theological concept of substance through its ontological mode — the mode of needing nothing — revealing how classical metaphysics concealed its own ontological presuppositions.
Everything that derives its existence from participation in some other reality presupposes the ontological priority of that other reality.
The Philokalia passage invokes ontological priority in a participatory-theological register, providing a comparative framework for understanding how different traditions articulate the dependency-relations between modes of being.
Palmer, G. E. H. and Sherrard, Philip and Ware, Kallistos (trs.), The Philokalia, Volume 2, 1981aside
it is in man that conatus, or the power of being of all things, is most clearly readable and, on the other hand, that everything expresses to different degrees the power or life that Spinoza calls the life of God.
Ricoeur's reading of Spinoza's conatus as the universal 'power of being' provides a monist alternative to the pluralist ontological modes of the Heideggerian framework.