This central concept in the onto-ethics of Nicolai Hartmann describes a neganthropic aspect of the mode of being of the real: we imagine that everything that is conceivable is possible; but in fact it is really only ever the actual that is possible, or that was possible before it was made actual. If we cherish a belief in a – so to speak àhalf-existent – plurality of numerous possibilities and potentialities which are all somehow “at our disposal”, this is because this belief helps to console us and to avert our attention from the true “hardness of the real”.
