Ontologization as an Epistemic Basic Operation Functional Stabilization, Intersubjectivity, and Malfunction

This paper develops a functional reconstruction of ontologization as a basic epistemic operation. Ontologization is not understood as a metaphysical claim about what exists, but as a necessary process of stabilization through which finite epistemic systems render a dynamic experiential field manageable. Within the framework of Epistemics, ontologization constitutes a form of epistemic model formation by stabilization, whose validity is domain-specific and in principle revisable.The analysis distinguishes between individual and intersubjective ontologization and reconstructs their transition through shared attention and shared reference. While individual ontologization enables perception, memory, and action within the subjective domain, intersubjective ontologization transforms stabilized units into shared reference points that reduce coordination costs while simultaneously increasing the costs of revision across the intersubjective domain. A central contribution of the paper is the determination of declarative pointing as an explicit epistemic marker of this transition. Pointing establishes shared reference prior to language and addresses others as ontologizing epistemic systems, thereby making ontologization itself intersubjectively explicit.In addition, the paper situates ontologization within the functional-empirical domain by showing how stabilized ontological units are further consolidated through linguistic fixation, theoretical modeling, and institutional embedding. These secondary stabilizations increase reach, durability, and load-bearing capacity, but also amplify the structural risk of malfunction.Against this background, the paper analyzes the malfunction of ontologization. Malfunction does not arise from ontological stabilization as such, but from its absolutization, when functionally stabilized epistemic set-ups are misinterpreted as final descriptions of reality. Ontologization thus emerges as both an enabling condition of cognition and a structural source of epistemic rigidity under finite conditions.