Horismata: The Ontology of Constitutive Bounding Acts

What is a horisma? This paper develops a systematic account of horismata — constitutive bounding acts — as the foundational units of Configurational Realism (CR). A horisma is not a property, not an essence, and not a relation: it is the ontological act by which something determinate exists rather than not existing at all. Three negative theses are established and defended. (1) Horismata are not properties: properties presuppose a determinate subject; horismata constitute subjects. (2) Horismata are not essences: essences answer "what kind of thing is this?"; horismata answer "how does differentiation occur at all?" (3) Horismata are not relations: relations connect pre-existing terms; horismata are the acts that bring terms into being in the first place. Against this negative background, the paper develops a positive account structured around the Axiom of Constitutive Differentiation — the claim that there is no ontological state between nothingness and differentiated being — and defends CR's constitutive-relational ontology against the bootstrapping objection in a four-move argument. The paper concludes by situating horismata within a stratified account of configurational space and grounding the entire structure theologically in the divine intellect as the source of all horismatic possibility.