Introduction

Abstract

Ontology, the study of being, the assessment of the nature of reality, is unavoidable. Every time we utilise, or react to, something, we consider that something according to its nature, whether it be a car, bull, mouse, snake, pencil, chair, mirror or river. Focussing on science, the question is not whether ontological reasoning occurs (of course it does) but whether it figures in a manner that is largely implicit and unacknowledged or explicit and systematic. In the non-social sciences it is frequently the latter. Einstein and Bohr continually debated the nature of the quantum. Today it is the nature of dark matter, black holes and Higgs boson fields that captivate. The electronic accelerator at CERN was constructed with the goal of addressing a series of pressing ontological puzzles and questions. The social realm has its specific ontological concerns. Matters are by no means settled as to the nature of money, firms, technology, industries, markets, institutions, value, gender, development, social power, social relations, norms, rights, obligations, or even on the general nature of society or economy let alone versions referred to as capitalism, socialism, market economies, surplus-based economies and such like. What even is the nature of social being and social causation?