[kitchi]

I'm not a native speaker so I had to look up what "ontology" means specifically, and what I got is : "The branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being. " (among other things)

I agree in that sense that physics does not do well here. I actually think physics _cannot_ do well here. Physics (and the "hard" sciences more generally) are good at describing what something is, and how it interacts with things around it. We "know" by assembling individual pieces of information that form a consistent model, then declare that model to be true. When a piece of information outside of that model arises, we then have to call that model in question.

I do not "know" the Earth is spherical from direct experience. I do "know" it from other indirect means - reading, measurements, images from space and so on. I do not also think that Asimov is saying anything about how we know what we know - he just talks about how "science is wrong" is not a true statement. Science is always approximately correct, but how approximate is the question.

So perhaps I'm missing the point entirely here, but I don't understand your distinction of "instrumentalist knowledge" vs other kinds of knowledge. If you say physics cannot explain my knowledge that I enjoy watching the sunrise - then absolutely yes. That is not it's realm. In the same way that physics cannot explain the history of medieval China to me. A common issue among physicists is to assume that this is the only way to view the world, and I disagree with that. There are many systems of knowledge, and each is good at certain things. Rejecting one as the "global" system misses the richness of other kinds of knowledge building.