Abstract
Recently, but independently from each other, several publications in contemporary philosophy mention a concept or idea called 'ontography'. This concept, however, never is characterized in detail and serves at its best as a visual and intuitive correlative for the rational and often logical reflections within the discipline of ontology.
This book provides not only an explicit and detailed discussion, but also a definition and conceptual analysis of this hardly researched idea of visualizing ontological categories as an alternative to a rather discursive reflection. The book develops the hypothesis that a systematic elaboration of the concept of ontography could deliver a meta-ontological key for alternative, art-oriented, and phenomenological ontologies.
In order to prove this hypothesis, the example of the philosophy of Heinrich Rombach (1923-2004) is used, which is introduced and interpreted 'ontographically' such that in return, Rombach's almost unknown philosophy can be classified and recontextualized. In so doing, the relationship between ontography and ontology will be explored, as well as the possibility of a terminological self-transcendence of the former, through which its etymological orientation towards 'being' could be integrated into a more encompassing framework.