Abstract
We live in an age of movement. More than at any other time in history, people and things move longer distances, more frequently, and faster than ever before. If being is increasingly defined by the historical primacy of motion today yet existing ontologies are not, then we need a new historical ontology of our mobile present. This essay offers what is perhaps the first introduction, definition, and history of “the ontology of motion,” as well as the first steps toward a new historical ontology of motion for our time. In particular, the crux of this intervention is twofold: first, to provide a historical definition of the ontology of motion, its precursors, and their difference from process ontologies of becoming; second, to provide a list of limitations for both these traditions and lay out a few criteria for the creation of a new ontology of motion today.
