In Being and Time, the philosopher Martin Heidegger makes the distinction between ontical and ontological, or between beings and being as such. He labeled this the "ontological difference." It is from this distinction that he develops the concept of fundamental ontology (German: Fundamentalontologie).
The history of ontology in Western philosophy is, in Heidegger's terms, ontical, whereas ontology ought to designate fundamental ontology. He says this "ontological inquiry" is required to understand the basis of the sciences.[1]