Carlos Federico Obregon Diaz

Being Is Belonging presents a systematic philosophical architecture grounded in the ontological thesis that the human being exists in and through relations. The book develops the Philosophy of Belonging as a comprehensive framework integrating ontology, epistemology, philosophical anthropology, axiology, ethics, political philosophy, and institutional theory. Its central claim — that being is belonging — reinterprets individuality, freedom, creativity, and social life as emergent from structurally imperfect but necessary forms of affective, social, and existential belonging. Rather than opposing individuality and community, the work proposes an anti-fusion relational ontology in which imperfect belonging becomes the ontological condition of individuality, real freedom, and creative agency. The volume also advances a normative theory of reliable belonging, emphasizing repair, recognition, institutional reliability, and habitability as core ethical and political criteria. Designed as both a theoretical system and an interdisciplinary research platform, the book dialogues with contemporary philosophy, psychology, institutional economics, social theory, and empirical sciences (neurobiology, attachment theory, and social cognition). It offers a conceptual diagnosis of contemporary malaise as a structural crisis of belonging and proposes a new paradigm for understanding human flourishing, institutional legitimacy, and dynamic societies in a fragmented modern world.

This work develops a comprehensive ontological reconstruction of the human being based on a foundational thesis: to be is to belong. In contrast to the modern paradigm of the sovereign individual—conceived as an isolated, self-sufficient entity prior to its bonds—this work proposes an Ontological Revolution of Belonging that redefines the subject as a Self of Belonging: biologically, affectively, temporally, and institutionally bound from its origin. The Philosophy of Belonging (PB) articulates this turn through a coherent theoretical architecture that integrates ontology, epistemology, science, psychology, economics, politics, and ethics. At its ontological core, belonging is established as a primary category of being, completed by an Ontology of the Limit, which demonstrates that every habitable belonging requires non-arbitrary boundaries in order to be compatible with freedom. The work grounds this thesis in a non-ergodic universe, where vital stability emerges from systemic integration against entropy, and anchors it materially in the neurobiology of bonding, identifying the limbic system as the central interface of inclusion and exclusion. At the epistemological level, the work shows that to know is to belong: truth, rationality, and science always emerge from epistemic communities governed by non-arbitrary rules. Post-truth thus appears as a rupture of epistemic belonging, not as a mere informational deficit. In critical dialogue with contemporary philosophical tradition, PB overcomes existentialist melancholy by showing that anguish, absurdity, and solitude are not ultimate truths of being, but symptoms of an incomplete ontology of the bond. In the psychological domain, the work introduces the Clinic of Action, which redefines psychic suffering as a real rupture of belonging, rather than as a merely internal cognitive error. This clinic is articulated with a systematic typology of Pathologies of Belonging, explaining how closed, conditional, instrumental, arbitrary, or phantasmatic belongings generate anxiety, depression, trauma, and social pathologies. Psychology is completed with a Theory of Relational Temporality, in which memory, presence, and promise constitute the ontological continuity of the Self, and with a theory of imaginative fantasy as a reparative faculty that sustains meaning and action in the face of the imperfection of real belonging. At the economic and institutional level, the work replaces Homo Economicus with the Self of Economic Belonging, redefining money, institutions, and law as collective fantasies of shelter whose function is to guarantee open, stable, and non-arbitrary belongings. Economic policy is reorganized around five objectives, culminating in the satisfaction of belongings as the supreme criterion of social success. Justice is reformulated as effective ontological recognition: place, continuity, and protection against arbitrariness. Finally, the work proposes an ethics of belonging and an Art of Living based on relational mastery, creative repair, and systemic responsibility, projecting a civilizational horizon founded on open belonging, creative freedom, and ontological continuity. The Philosophy of Belonging thus presents itself as an original transdisciplinary paradigm, capable of reorienting science, clinical practice, economics, institutions, and everyday life in the twenty-first century. This article was written with the assistance of ChatGPT and Gemini.

This essay develops a systematic ontology of harmony within the framework of the Philosophy of Belonging (FDP), articulated with the Psychology of Belonging (PDP) and the Economy of Belonging (EDP). It argues that harmony is neither an aesthetic ideal nor a state of perfection, but a minimal relational condition of possibility for existence: nothing exists in isolation; to be is to belong. The work distinguishes between synchronic time (regularity, repetition, measurable order) and diachronic time (irreversibility, finitude, transformation), and characterizes the universe—especially social life—as non-ergodic: the future is not a probabilistic repetition of the past, and historical novelty is real. From this perspective, the pursuit of total harmony appears as an ontological and practical error. Integrating physics (irreversibility and thermodynamics), evolutionary biology (diversification and adaptation), psychology (attachment, hospitalism, affect regulation), institutional theory, economics (uncertainty, non-ergodicity, path dependence), religion, and aesthetics (music and beauty as lived harmony), the essay proposes the principle of sufficient harmony. Life, institutions, and social design should not aim at eliminating conflict or diachrony, but at constructing resilient and reparable architectures of belonging capable of sustaining trust, dignity, inclusion, and creativity in a non-ergodic world. The fundamental thesis is ontological and practical at once: belonging is always imperfect, yet it is the condition of existence. The art of living consists in seeking sufficient harmony without demanding impossible perfection.

This article offers a systematic comparative reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative rationality and the Philosophy of Belonging (PB) in order to clarify the conditions of possibility of sustainable cooperation in complex, pluralistic societies and fragmented international systems. While Habermas provides the most robust contemporary framework for grounding normative legitimacy through discourse ethics, communicative action, and deliberative law, this work argues that discursive legitimacy alone cannot explain the stability of cooperation under conditions of structural inequality, institutional fragility, economic shocks, and geopolitical tension. The Philosophy of Belonging expands the Habermasian framework by introducing belonging as an operative institutional bond composed of symbolic recognition, material inclusion, credible expectations of reciprocity, and enforcement capacity. The central thesis is that discursive legitimacy is a necessary condition for normativity, but only institutional belonging—open to individual freedom and creativity—makes cooperation durable, inclusive development sustainable, and social peace possible. The article develops a multi-level analytical comparison (semantic–pragmatic, normative, institutional, and dynamic), proposes a causal mechanism explaining the endogenous transition from cooperation to coercion, and articulates a theoretical synthesis linking political philosophy, institutional economics, and conflict theory. It contributes to contemporary debates on democracy, polarization, political economy, and international order by integrating legitimacy and institutional sustainability within a unified explanatory framework.

This essay contrasts two ethical architectures: (i) Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics of alterity, where ethics is “first philosophy” and responsibility toward the Other manifests itself in the face-to-face encounter as a prior and asymmetric demand; and (ii) the Philosophy of Belonging (PB), whose ontological thesis — to be is to belong — shifts the source of normativity from an essentialist ethical a priori toward the concrete construction of habitable, open, and non-arbitrary forms of belonging, sustained by healthy limits, institutions, and material arrangements. The key difference expanded here is that Levinas, although anti-rationalist and relational in his phenomenology, preserves an essentialism: responsibility would be constitutive of the human prior to relation; PB rejects this a priori due to lack of scientific grounding and due to historical and empirical evidence of moral variability, and instead introduces an operational program: diagnosis of failures of belonging (pathologies), distinction between individual–group–institutions, a criterion of non-arbitrariness, and a praxis of peace based on economic-political integration and institutional design, within a non-ergodic universe. This article has been written with the assistance of ChatGPT.

Existence and Time: Philosophical and Scientific Inquiry is an interdisciplinary philosophical work that integrates ontology, philosophy of time, and contemporary science in order to address the classical questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? and Where are we going? The book argues that philosophical inquiry can no longer rely exclusively on deductive reasoning or abstract metaphysics, but must be grounded in the advances of modern science. Drawing from physics (relativity, cosmology, thermodynamics), evolutionary biology (Darwinian evolution, genetics, DNA), neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and social theory, the manuscript develops a comprehensive ontological framework in which existence, time, and belonging are inseparable dimensions of human reality. A central thesis of the book is that human thought has historically oscillated between two major conceptions of time: 1. Cyclical and/or repeatable time, associated with essentialism, stability, and universal order. 2. Directional and irreversible time, associated with finitude, evolution, historical change, and existential anxiety. While much of philosophical tradition has privileged cyclical time and essentialist metaphysics, and modern existentialism has emphasized irreversibility and anxiety, this work proposes that human existence unfolds simultaneously within both temporal structures. At the core of this synthesis lies the concept of belonging. Human beings are biologically and evolutionarily structured to belong: to close others, to the social group, and to the biological and material universe that surrounds them. Belonging is not merely emotional or social; it is an ontological and evolutionary condition for the development of consciousness, meaning, and psychological stability. Existential anxiety, often treated as an unavoidable feature of human finitude, is here analyzed as historically intensified under specific cultural and institutional conditions that weaken belonging. The book therefore reframes existential ontology by situating individuality, temporality, and mortality within a broader relational structure grounded in evolutionary science. Ultimately, existence is inseparable from time, and time is inseparable from belonging. Human beings exist simultaneously in a directional temporal flow that leads to death and in a cyclical relational structure that connects them to the continuity of life and the cosmos. This work offers a systematic reconstruction of ontology in light of contemporary science and proposes belonging as a foundational category for understanding human existence.

The Belonging Emotional Self: The Path to a Fulfilling Life develops a comprehensive interdisciplinary framework that repositions emotions at the center of human life, culture, and evolutionary survival. Drawing on evolutionary neurobiology, affective neuroscience, psychology of belonging, and social theory, the book challenges the dominant rationalist paradigm of Western thought and argues that human beings are fundamentally emotional and belonging-oriented organisms. The work advances a precise definition of emotions as affective states that integrate two dimensions through a continuous feedback loop: (1) inherited evolutionary feelings grounded in homeostasis and nonconscious survival mechanisms, and (2) culture, language, and reason. Emotions are not opposed to reason but are biologically prior and structurally indispensable to conscious cognition. The book introduces the concept of the belonging emotional self and develops the theory of the three belonging ways: existential belonging (relation to the material and biological universe), social belonging (relation to the broader social group), and love (belonging to the primary relational nucleus, especially early caregiving bonds). These three modes are presented as evolutionary survival requirements that shape individual psychology, social institutions, and cultural systems. By integrating neurobiology, attachment theory, evolutionary theory, and philosophical reflection, the book provides both an ontological and practical framework for understanding emotional development, individual well-being, and the foundations of emotional societies. It argues that a fulfilling life requires the conscious integration of emotions and reason within a belonging-centered perspective that reconnects humans with their evolutionary heritage and social embeddedness. This work contributes to contemporary debates on consciousness, artificial intelligence, cultural evolution, and the role of emotions in shaping civilization.

Being and Existence offers a systematic philosophical and scientific critique of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, proposing an alternative ontological framework grounded in contemporary neurobiology, evolutionary theory, psychology, and social science. The book argues that there is no unified metaphysical “Being,” but rather multiple beings embedded in distinct social and evolutionary contexts. It challenges Heidegger’s central thesis that temporality—particularly diachronic time oriented toward the future—constitutes the fundamental existential condition of human beings. Instead, it introduces the concept of synchronicity with the existential universe as the primary ontological condition of human existence. The work develops a scientifically grounded theory of belonging as the core existential structure of human life. It identifies three fundamental ways of belonging: 1. Love (attachment to close others), 2. Social significance (belonging to a social group and its institutions), and 3. Existential significance (belonging to the biological and material universe). Drawing from attachment theory, neurobiology, evolutionary anthropology, sociology, and cross-cultural analysis, the book argues that existential anxiety does not primarily arise from awareness of death or responsibility for future self-definition, as Heidegger maintained. Rather, anxiety emerges from failures in belonging. The manuscript also provides a comparative analysis of Heidegger and Sartre, critiques essential ontological freedom, and reinterprets human existence through the scientific distinction between synchronic time (cyclical, relational, structural time) and diachronic time (irreversible, entropic time). The book concludes that human existence is fundamentally defined not by temporal projection toward death, but by relational synchronicity with the existential universe. By integrating philosophy with contemporary science, Being and Existence advances a post-essentialist ontology that redefines the meaning of being, freedom, anxiety, and human existence.

This article develops a critical reconstruction of the contemporary paradigm of recognition —represented by Charles Taylor, Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser— through its systematic contrast with the Philosophy of Belonging. While theories of recognition have explained in great depth the formation of identity, the moral development of the individual and the institutional structures of justice, this work argues that these perspectives operate mainly on normative, symbolic and institutional planes, without fully thematizing the ontological level that makes social existence itself possible. The central thesis defended is that recognition explains how the subject is valued, but does not explain why the subject can exist. Before recognition there is belonging: the real insertion of the individual into affective, social, economic and institutional networks that sustain life. Identity, self-esteem, justice and participation presuppose a deeper prior condition: existential integration into systems of cooperation that allow the continuity of human life. From a detailed comparison between Taylor, Honneth and Fraser, the study shows that each places recognition at a different level: cultural, moral-interpersonal and institutional-structural. However, all three share a common assumption: that recognition is the central organizing principle of social life. In contrast, the Philosophy of Belonging introduces a radical ontological shift by affirming that social cohesion, the historical accumulation of knowledge, institutional stability and large-scale cooperation depend, above all, on real structures of belonging. The article especially deepens the existential, psychological, economic and institutional dimension of belonging, showing that it is not only a conceptual category, but a material, emotional and structural condition that transforms the other into part of the “we.” From this perspective, belonging does not only dignify: it sustains life, stabilizes the social world and makes possible the historical continuity of human cooperation. This article has been written with the assistance of ChatGPT.

Contemporary philosophy of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first has been marked by a profound critical movement against the modern subject, universalist humanism, and the idea of stable foundations of knowledge and social life. In this context, the works of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Byung-Chul Han represent three decisive moments of this intellectual transformation. Each one, from a different angle, has shown that the individual, truth, power, meaning and subjectivity are not natural or permanent entities, but historical, linguistic and social configurations. Foucault revealed the radical historicity of institutions, systems of knowledge and forms of subjectivation, showing that the modern subject is a construction situated within relations of power. Derrida took this critique even further by demonstrating that every conceptual system is founded on a priori principles that cannot be proven and that language does not reflect a prior reality, but structures the very field of what can be thought. Han, for his part, described the passage from the disciplinary society to the performance society and psychopolitics, where the subject is no longer repressed from the outside but exploits himself from within, producing a generalized scenario of fatigue, depression and loneliness. However, although these philosophies offer extraordinarily powerful diagnoses about the historicity of power, language and subjectivity, they share a common limit: they lack a positive ontology of the bond that allows explaining why the rupture of social structures produces suffering, disintegration and loss of meaning. By concentrating on historical relativity, linguistic mediation, or the mutation of power, these approaches tend to dissolve the individual into conceptual systems, discourses, or processes of subjectivation, without being able to fully explain the persistence of certain structural traits of human existence. The Philosophy of Belonging proposes a different path. It accepts the critical diagnosis of these authors, but introduces a fundamental ontological thesis: the human being does not exist as a self-sufficient entity, but as a relational particular. To be is to belong. Belonging is not a moral value nor a secondary cultural construction, but a condition of biological, social and temporal existence. The individual exists as a creative particular, but can only subsist within networks of bond that provide continuity, identity, meaning and possibility of action. From this perspective, the historicity of power described by Foucault, the historicity of language analyzed by Derrida and the subjective collapse diagnosed by Han can be reinterpreted as partial dimensions of a deeper process: the transformation and, in many cases, the rupture of the structures of belonging that have historically sustained human life. Contemporary fatigue is not only psychological, nor exclusively political, nor purely cultural. It is ontological. It is the result of a way of life in which the individual is progressively separated from stable bonds, enduring institutions and relational structures that organized his existence. The Philosophy of Belonging also introduces a decisive distinction between two dimensions of time: diachrony, which corresponds to the historicity of conceptual systems, and synchrony, which corresponds to the network of relations between particulars at a given moment. Foucault and Derrida have explained with enormous depth the diachrony of meaning and power, but have paid little attention to the relational synchrony that allows the continuity of social life. Without this dimension, it becomes difficult to explain the accumulation of scientific knowledge, the relative stability of institutions and the universal need for social integration. The article argues that power, language and psychopolitics are real and decisive dimensions of social life, but they do not constitute its primary ontological foundation. The fundamental relation between individual and group is not power, nor discourse, nor self-exploitation: it is belonging. Power appears when belonging is instrumentalized; language organizes meaning within belonging; and psychopolitics emerges when structures of bond weaken and the individual is forced to sustain himself. From a psychological point of view, this rupture manifests itself in the expansion of depression, anxiety and structural loneliness. From an economic point of view, it is expressed in the precarization of work and in the loss of stable economic belongings. From a political point of view, it is reflected in institutional fragmentation and in the growing difficulty of producing lasting forms of collective integration. In all these planes, contemporary malaise can be interpreted as a crisis of belonging. This work integrates and expands the analyses of Foucault, Derrida and Han within a broader ontological framework that allows understanding simultaneously the historicity of social systems, the linguistic mediation of knowledge and contemporary subjective collapse, without renouncing the affirmation of the existence of the individual as a biological-relational particular nor the idea that knowledge can accumulate through time through interaction with an external reality. The central thesis that articulates the whole text can be formulated synthetically: Foucault explains the historicity of power, Derrida the historicity of meaning and Han the exhaustion of the contemporary subject. The Philosophy of Belonging, by contrast, introduces an ontology of the bond that allows understanding why the loss of stable relational structures produces psychological, economic and social disintegration. Where contemporary philosophy has deconstructed traditional foundations, the Philosophy of Belonging proposes an empirically grounded ontological reconstruction: the individual exists as a particular, but can only exist within real belongings. This article has been written with the assistance of ChatGPT.