Constructing the existent: models and modelling

The article attempts to construct a classification of types of constructing as a form of being that is identified alongside the evident givenness of an object to a subject. Being (a subject-object relation) reveals itself in the process of its phenomenological description as the antinomy of constructing versus constituting. A special role is given to such form of constructing as modelling (a process providing us with object models), over and above object conceptualization. The basic peculiarity of modelling is that it takes into account the material properties of a model, i.e. the boundless and indeterminate semantic potential of matter. In what conceptualization differs from modelling is that the latter looks only at the formal or determinate semantic potential of a conception. The study elaborates the classification of modelling types and cognitive models.