Given that reality as a whole hinges upon the “ontological condition of the quantum entity,” it follows that science arguably amounts to ontology, with ontology in turn amounting to the “science of the essence.” And given that the essence of existence is unknown or “undefinable” to borrow from Heidegger, it follows that science is essentially the science of the unknown, which again, amounts to a paradox.
And as Descartes suggested, there cannot be certain knowledge regarding the appearance of existence until the “source of existence” has been identified. Why a “source of existence” matters is because of the inherent logic of being, namely, the relation between “necessary being” on one hand and “contingent being” on the other hand. The question then becomes one of whether the essence is either material or mental. And as Alexander Wendt argued, the essence can be understood to a certain degree when “consciousness” is taken as the foundation for reality.
Essentially, and as certain philosophers and scientists have argued, the denial of the “ontological issues” which underlie physical theories ultimately render the theories as “incomplete.” What is invisible can nonetheless be ‘real.’ Social structures are said to be like ‘ontological issues’ in the sense that while both are invisible, they are both nonetheless real, hence the theory of “Structural Functionalism” in the social sciences. In turn, what is ‘unconscious’ is also real, and what is ‘unconscious’ is perhaps more real than what is conscious and in turn what is ‘unconscious’ actually encompasses and engulfs what is conscious, as many philosophers and scientists such as Sigmund Freud have argued.
And as Wael Hallaq argued, what is “ontological” is “not a stable or fixed ‘natural’ quality, incapable of mutation.” There is a “particular form of knowledge” which impacts existence and then “makes it what it is” to borrow from Hallaq. Thus, it follows that essence, as the foundation of existence, is intertwined with a “particular form of knowledge.” In turn, this “particular form of knowledge” is not “epistemological,” given that this particular form of knowledge cannot be obtained through contracting or expanding the boundaries and contours of empirical knowledge and data, given the “ontological issues” which ultimately underpin knowledge.
But as Donald Hoffman argued, ontologies are ultimately theories. The role of a theory is to be “parsimonious,” which means that a theory seeks to explain everything. And like other theories, the theory which contends that reality emanates from consciousness and that consciousness is fundamental to ontology and thus fundamental to the essence of existence “must compete to endure.”
But if there is a central argument or main point by which the “science of essence” can contend with the central argument or main point of an “empirical science,” it is such that the essence of existence or reality and thus existence or reality itself is “undefinable” to borrow from Heiddeger. Whereas an empirical approach to reality and science seeks to “measure” reality based on the assumption that reality has boundaries and limits, an ontological approach to reality and science does not confound itself to such measurements. To conclude, one must consider the words of Edmund Husserl, who is essentially the figurehead of an ontological and phenomenological approach to the understanding of reality in the modern age of Western philosophy and science:
“The ‘true Being’ would therefore be entirely and fundamentally something that is defined otherwise than as that which is given in perception as corporeal reality, which is given exclusively through its sensory determinations, among which must also be reckoned the sensori-spatial. The thing as strictly experienced gives the mere ‘this,’ an empty X which becomes the bearer of mathematical determinations, and of the corresponding mathematical formulae, and exists not in perceptual space, but in an ‘objective space,’ of which the former is the mere ‘symbol,’ a Euclidean manifold of three dimensions that can be only symbolically represented.”
Thus, the whole of reality can only be “symbolically represented,” which means that what is conceived and perceived by human perception and the senses can only stand as a “symbol” for something bigger and much more profound which in turn is not entirely comprehended or understood.
Adam A. Azim 