Ontological distinction

From eg

An ontological distinction is one that defines, that is, creates a new type or category of body, being or object, one which performs different as subject from others. For instance there are clearly ontological distinctions between the six styles of capital. An ontological metaphor organizes the distinctions into more and less important by analogy, such that those that matter the most in the analogized case are presumed to also matter the most in the applied case. See verb:define for more detail on definition mechanics, and contrast to verb:disjunct and verb:diagnose.

[edit] Those called trolls

As an example of framing, those called trolls are victims of analogies between medieval mythological creatures and persons expressing strong opinions on the Internet. The way one would deal with such creatures, typically by killing them with swords and blocking up entryways to exclude them from castles and homes, has an analogy: to use a killfile and block IPs. Notice that "kill" and "block" are used in the same sense in both the medieval castle defense and hard security usage.

[edit] More than semantics

An ontological distinction is more fundamental than a semantical distinction. A detailed examination of the difference shows up in Klima's comments on Peter King's comments on Ockham:

"...the most fundamental disagreement between realists and nominalists is not ontological, but semantical...Soto retains the semantic distinction between that which an absolute term materially signifies, which he calls its material significate, and that in respect of which it signifies its material significate, namely, that which it formally signifies, and which, therefore, he calls its formal significate. Still, Soto denies any 'ontological distinction between the two (In Praedicamenta, c. 5, q.1), and so, despite his "realistic" semantics, he ends up with the same ontology as the nominalist Jean Buridan. In fact, Soto’s and Buridan’s only ontological difference from Ockham is their common refusal to identify quantity with substance. But they still can endorse the same ontology, despite their radically different semantics. However, it is precisely their semantical difference that accounts for the fact that Soto’s theory is still compatible with the above-mentioned requirement, whereas Buridan’s, just like Ockham’s, is not...Ockham’s failure to give an acceptable answer to... [questions of similarity and causality ] is not so much his nominalist ontology as his nominalist semantics of absolute concepts."

[edit] Obsures operational

An ontological distinction obscure/conflate/confuses those operational distinctions which it deems to be contrary to the ontology being enforced.

Some fields, like economics, for instance, rely on "elaborate models positing equilibrium between money supply and demand via interest rates, arrived at via intricate marginalistic computations. The inevitable departures from equilibrium that we continuously observe are then all explained by equally complex ad hoc mechanisms. This is favoured over the simple explanation that deposit money is a free good and therefore in no determinate relation to interest rates." - Dirk Bezemer email