Contemporary ontological frameworks increasingly reject static substances in favor of processes, relations, and individuation. Despite their diversity, these frameworks share implicit presuppositions that remain underexamined. This paper articulates a minimal meta-ontological condition—termed responsiveness—that underlies a broad class of non-substantialist ontologies. Responsiveness is defined as the capacity for state modification in systematic dependency on difference, without presupposing subjectivity, intentionality, or experience. Through systematic analysis of process ontologies, relational frameworks, individuation theories, autopoietic systems, and enactive approaches, the paper demonstrates via reductio arguments that responsiveness functions not merely as a common feature but as a necessary precondition for relational and processual existence—without which these ontologies collapse into the substantialism they oppose. The analysis engages critically with related concepts including affordance, disposition, and potentiality, clarifying responsiveness’s distinct meta-ontological status, its compatibility with both realist and constructivist interpretations, and its non-empirical character as a condition for intelligibility rather than a competing ontological posit. The paper concludes with targeted provocations for constructivist, enactivist, and process-philosophical research, arguing that making responsiveness explicit exposes unresolved tensions in each tradition.
Makoto Sueyoshi (Sun,) studied this question.