Carlos Federico Obregon Diaz

This work develops a theoretical extension of the Philosophy of Belonging, grounded in the ontological thesis “to be is to belong.” The article argues that human well-being is not primarily sustained by cognition or mental control, but by the strengthening of affective, social, and existential belongings, with emotions functioning as the foundational layer from which reason operates. Within this framework, art is conceptualized as a central anthropological and existential mechanism that activates emotion, expands imagination, and deepens existential belonging toward the universe as a whole. Unlike analytical scientific knowledge, which fragments reality into measurable parts, art relates to the whole through emotional experience, restoring unity, meaning, and presence in human life. The paper integrates philosophical anthropology, psychology of emotion, and existential theory to propose a “circuit of belonging” in which body, emotion, imagination, and social bonds precede rational reflection. Art plays a structural role in the first stages of this circuit by naturally developing emotional regulation, symbolic integration, and community belonging without cognitive overload. The contribution positions the Philosophy of Belonging as an interdisciplinary paradigm connecting ontology, psychology, aesthetics, and social theory, offering a novel framework for understanding well-being, existential meaning, and cultural practices through the strengthening of belonging rather than individualistic cognition. The study is part of the broader theoretical corpus on the Ontological Revolution of Belonging and the Economy and Psychology of Belonging.

This article develops a post-metaphysical and interdisciplinary reformulation of 20th-century continental philosophy by placing Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida in dialogue with Carlos Federico Obregón Díaz’s Philosophy of Belonging. The paper argues that, unlike traditional metaphysical categories such as Being, Otherness, and différance, belonging should be understood as a scientific and evolutionary fact grounded in neurobiology, evolutionary psychology, attachment theory, and institutional analysis. The study proposes that human subjectivity is structured not by abstract ontological or ethical absolutes, but by a fragile and contingent evolutionary competence: belonging. This competence can fail, collapse, or become partial, thereby reintroducing risk, vulnerability, agency, emotional creativity, and institutional struggle into philosophical anthropology. In contrast to Heidegger’s ontological structures, Levinas’s infinite responsibility, and Derrida’s deconstruction of presence, the Philosophy of Belonging restores the individual as an active agent who constructs, defends, and reconstructs inclusion within social, emotional, and institutional environments. By integrating philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, ethics, institutional theory, and economic thought, the article advances a new interdisciplinary paradigm for understanding subjectivity, recognition, exclusion, and institutional belonging in the 21st century. The work contributes to post-metaphysical philosophy, philosophical anthropology, and the emerging scientific philosophy of belonging, offering a framework applicable to ethics, political theory, development theory, and global institutional analysis.

This article develops a comparative and interdisciplinary analysis between classical and contemporary existentialism (Heidegger, Sartre, Lévinas, Taylor, Nussbaum, Foucault, Butler, Han, Ricoeur, Merleau-Ponty, Damasio, Braidotti, among others) and the Philosophy of Belonging formulated by Carlos Federico Obregón Díaz. The study proposes a theoretical shift from being-toward-death and radical freedom toward a relational, emotional, institutional, and scientific ontology of belonging, grounded in the thesis “to be is to belong.” Integrating philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, economics, evolutionary biology, and institutional theory, the article argues that subjectivity, freedom, identity, ethics, and justice are not merely individual or abstract phenomena but capacities constructed through affective bonds, shared narratives, and stable institutional structures. In contrast to traditional existentialist pessimism centered on alienation, anguish, and finitude, the Philosophy of Belonging introduces a constructive post-existential framework oriented toward emotional stability, structural inclusion, and institutional architectures of belonging. The paper positions belonging as the ontological infrastructure of human existence, the ethical foundation of recognition, and the socio-economic condition for agency, development, and dignity. It also advances a scientific relational humanism that synthesizes existentialism, neurophilosophy, social theory, and political economy into a unified framework applicable to contemporary challenges such as inequality, exclusion, institutional fragility, and the crisis of meaning in modern societies. Ultimately, the work contributes to 21st-century philosophy by proposing a post-existential paradigm in which freedom is understood as co-belonging, justice as structural inclusion, and identity as emotional-institutional belonging within interdependent human and social systems.

This work presents a systematic scientific reconstruction of the Philosophy of Belonging developed by Carlos Federico Obregón Díaz, grounded in contemporary physics, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, developmental psychology, and the social sciences. The central ontological thesis—“to be is to belong”—argues that no entity exists in isolation and that all forms of existence emerge, persist, and transform within networks of constitutive relations. The study integrates relational ontology from physics (interaction-based universe), evolutionary biology (genetic variability, adaptation, mortality), and neuropsychology (attachment, mentalization, and identity formation) to propose a unified interdisciplinary framework explaining human existence, identity, freedom, and well-being through belonging structures. It introduces the concepts of dual temporality (diachronic and synchronic time), the three pathways of belonging (love, social significance, and material-existential belonging), and the neurobiological architecture of belonging as foundational to survival, mental integration, and existential regulation. The work contributes to contemporary debates in ontology, philosophy of science, philosophical anthropology, psychology of belonging, and interdisciplinary philosophy by offering a scientifically grounded relational ontology applicable to ethics, social theory, and human development. This publication is part of the broader research program on the Philosophy and Economy of Belonging, which develops a relational scientific ontology where existence, adaptation, and human flourishing are understood as dynamic processes of constitutive belonging across biological, social, and symbolic domains.

This article develops a novel reconceptualization of political freedom from the Philosophy of Belonging proposed by Carlos Federico Obregón Díaz. Departing from dominant liberal, republican, Marxist, and capability-based frameworks, the manuscript argues that freedom is not a primary attribute of an isolated individual nor a universal normative essence, but an emergent psycho-institutional property sustained by functional belonging, non-arbitrariness, and institutional mentalization. Through a historical genealogy of Western political and economic freedom and a comparative analysis of traditional, hybrid, and global institutional systems, the paper demonstrates the structural limits of Western freedom when evaluated outside its historical ecology. It introduces key analytical concepts such as functional domination, psychological freedom grounded in belonging, institutional synchrony, and comparative political freedom beyond liberal democracy. The article proposes an expanded theoretical framework integrating philosophy, psychology, economics, and institutional theory, in which freedom depends on psychosocial belonging, stable legality, minimum material thresholds, and non-arbitrary institutional arrangements across state, market, and social orders. By replacing ontological individualism with a relational ontology of belonging, the work offers a globally applicable and empirically sensitive theory of freedom that avoids both cultural relativism and normative imperialism. This contribution forms part of the broader theoretical program of the Philosophy of Belonging and advances a new interdisciplinary paradigm for analyzing freedom, institutions, global governance, and comparative political systems in an integrated world.

This article develops a central thesis of the Philosophy of Belonging formulated by Carlos Federico Obregón Díaz: freedom and belonging are not opposites but mutually reinforcing dimensions of human development. Challenging classical liberal interpretations that equate freedom with independence from social ties, the paper argues that real freedom emerges from secure emotional, institutional, and structural belonging. Drawing on interdisciplinary foundations in philosophy, economics, neuroscience, and development theory, the study shows that emotional insecurity limits rational agency, weak institutions undermine effective rights, and fragile social structures transform freedom into a merely formal condition. In contrast, secure belonging enables rational deliberation, social cooperation, market stability, and inclusive development. The article reinterprets Adam Smith within a moral-institutional framework of belonging, emphasizing that self-interest becomes socially productive only when embedded in ethical norms and inclusive institutions. It further argues that the historical success of modern capitalism depended not primarily on free trade alone but on the expansion of the middle class, democratic institutions, welfare systems, technological investment, and global integration. The work proposes an integrated theoretical model where: freedom = belonging + institutional security + human capacities + fair development. By linking emotional belonging, institutional design, global integration, and human flourishing, the article contributes to contemporary debates in political philosophy, development economics, institutional theory, and global justice. It positions the Philosophy of Belonging as a unified framework connecting freedom, justice, markets, and human development in the 21st century.

This article develops the Philosophy of Belonging as an original relational–emotional ontology and a normative framework for justice, institutional design, and global development. In critical dialogue with major modern and contemporary philosophical traditions—including liberalism, Marxism, existentialism, the capabilities approach, and critical theory (Foucault, Butler, Agamben, Han, Ricœur)—the paper argues that the central problem of contemporary societies is not only inequality of resources or formal rights, but the structural organization of belonging: who is stably integrated into institutions and who is systematically excluded. The study introduces the concept of habitable institutions and proposes that justice should be evaluated in terms of dignified, stable, and emotionally sustainable forms of belonging at four interconnected levels: global system, nation-state, social groups, and individual life. From this perspective, poverty, discrimination, insecurity, war, and psychological suffering are interpreted primarily as failures of belonging rather than merely economic or legal deficits. Drawing on relational ontology, political philosophy, development theory, and game-theoretic reasoning, the article shows that inclusive belonging—such as the construction of a broad global middle class and the institutional integration of marginalized populations—is not only ethically superior but also economically and strategically more efficient than exclusionary or punitive models. The Philosophy of Belonging thus offers a unified theoretical framework that connects justice, institutional legitimacy, emotional recognition, and global stability, redefining philosophy as a discipline oriented toward designing inclusive structures of co-belonging in the contemporary world.

This article develops an ontological synthesis of the debate on human nature through the lens of the Philosophy of Belonging, proposing that the human being is constituted by relational and institutional orders of belonging rather than by an ontologically isolated individual. It critically reviews canonical traditions (Hobbesian conflict theory, liberalism, Kantian autonomy, neoclassical economics, and psychological theories of motivation and attachment) and integrates contemporary relational approaches such as recognition theory, communitarianism, social ontology, and republican non-domination. The central thesis is that belonging is not merely a social good but a constitutive condition of the self, and that freedom is best understood as non-arbitrariness within stable and revisable orders of belonging. Within this framework, individual creativity emerges as an enabled and distributed institutional capacity rather than as an exogenous individual trait. Authentic belonging does not homogenize individuals; instead, it protects productive difference and transforms dissent and innovation into collective resources for social dynamism, competitiveness, and institutional learning. The article introduces a comparative ontological matrix of theories of human nature, freedom, institutions, and creativity, demonstrating that non-arbitrary belonging generates effective freedom, psychological security, and adaptive social change. The Philosophy of Belonging is presented as an ontological turn that bridges individual agency and relational constitution, offering a unified framework for understanding identity, institutional design, distributed creativity, and long-term social survival in environments of accelerated global change.

Living Better: The Philosophy of Belonging in Daily Life presents an accessible and practical exposition of the Philosophy of Belonging, whose central ontological thesis is that human fulfillment does not emerge from isolated individuality but from relational existence: to be is to belong. The work argues that quality of life is primarily grounded in the strength of affective, social, and existential belongings rather than in individual happiness, cognitive control, or personal achievement. The text develops a life-oriented philosophical framework that places emotion, action, embodiment, imagination, and relational bonds at the center of human flourishing. It introduces the “circuit of belonging,” a six-step dynamic model linking movement, instincts, emotional development, imagination, awareness, and reason as an integrated structure of lived experience. Positioned at the intersection of philosophy of life, philosophical anthropology, existential philosophy, and applied ethics, the book proposes that weakened belongings—social isolation, bodily disconnection, and loss of existential meaning—are core sources of contemporary dissatisfaction. Instead of purely cognitive or individualistic approaches to well-being, it advances a relational ontology where belonging functions as the fundamental condition of meaning, vitality, and sustainable life orientation. The Philosophy of Belonging integrates emotion before reason, action before abstraction, and relational embeddedness before individual optimization. It also highlights the constructive role of imagination and fantasy in making imperfect belonging habitable, offering a humane philosophical guide for everyday living, embodiment, social connection, and existential meaning in modern life.

This work develops a theoretical extension of the Philosophy of Belonging, grounded in the ontological thesis “to be is to belong.” The article argues that human well-being is not primarily sustained by cognition or mental control, but by the strengthening of affective, social, and existential belongings, with emotions functioning as the foundational layer from which reason operates. Within this framework, art is conceptualized as a central anthropological and existential mechanism that activates emotion, expands imagination, and deepens existential belonging toward the universe as a whole. Unlike analytical scientific knowledge, which fragments reality into measurable parts, art relates to the whole through emotional experience, restoring unity, meaning, and presence in human life. The paper integrates philosophical anthropology, psychology of emotion, and existential theory to propose a “circuit of belonging” in which body, emotion, imagination, and social bonds precede rational reflection. Art plays a structural role in the first stages of this circuit by naturally developing emotional regulation, symbolic integration, and community belonging without cognitive overload. The contribution positions the Philosophy of Belonging as an interdisciplinary paradigm connecting ontology, psychology, aesthetics, and social theory, offering a novel framework for understanding well-being, existential meaning, and cultural practices through the strengthening of belonging rather than individualistic cognition. The study is part of the broader theoretical corpus on the Ontological Revolution of Belonging and the Economy and Psychology of Belonging.

This article develops a structural rereading of the history of philosophy through a long-term oscillation between two ontological architectures: the integral cosmology of the whole and the modern ontology of the isolated rational individual. Against this historical polarity, it introduces the Philosophy of Belonging (PB) as a contemporary relational synthesis grounded in the ontological thesis “being is belonging.” The work argues that belonging is constitutive of human existence while always imperfect (anti-fusion), thereby grounding individuality, real freedom, and creativity as ontological consequences rather than merely moral or political concessions. The paper integrates historical philosophy, relational ontology, social theory, and institutional analysis, proposing a tripartite architecture of belonging (affective, social, and existential) and translating relational ontology into normative and institutional criteria such as reliability, repair, dignified public language, and a habitable “we.” Positioned within contemporary relational philosophies (recognition theory, hermeneutics, care ethics, pragmatism, and communitarianism), the Philosophy of Belonging advances a distinct ontological framework that reconstructs community without suppressing individual creativity and freedom, offering a theoretical foundation for understanding polarization, institutional fragility, and the reconstruction of social cohesion in modern societies.

This article develops the Ethics of Belonging within the broader framework of the Philosophy of Belonging formulated by Carlos Federico Obregón Díaz. It argues that morality and justice are grounded in the biological, emotional, and evolutionary need to belong, integrating insights from psychology, neurobiology, anthropology, and institutional economics. The paper places the ethics of belonging in systematic dialogue with major ethical traditions—Kantian deontology, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, care ethics, recognition theories, and Marxism—showing how it overcomes the classical dilemma between abstract universalism and relativism. Instead of starting from an isolated autonomous subject, the work proposes a relational ontology summarized in the thesis “to be is to belong,” from which emerges a scientific foundation of ethics centered on the protection, integration, and repair of human belongings. Conceptually, the study articulates the chain: belonging → social ethics → justice, defining justice as the institutional organization that safeguards dignified belongings and prevents exclusion. The article also introduces the notion of the emotional belonging self and the autonomy of belonging as a reformulation of freedom beyond methodological individualism. Overall, the paper contributes to contemporary debates in moral philosophy, political theory, and interdisciplinary ethics by offering an original relational and scientifically grounded alternative to individualistic and purely rationalist ethical frameworks, with implications for institutional design, social cohesion, and the crisis of justice in fragmented societies.

This article develops a relational ontology centered on the concept of belonging as the fundamental condition of human existence. Building on the Philosophy of Belonging proposed by Carlos Federico Obregón Díaz, the work integrates philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, and social theory to reinterpret temporality, narrative consciousness, and existential meaning. The paper distinguishes between synchronic time (cyclical, stabilizing) and diachronic time (irreversible, finite) and argues that human existence is best understood not as isolated being-toward-death, but as belonging-in-time. Contrary to classical existentialism,_toggle anguish and finitude as primary ontological categories, the article proposes that existential anxiety emerges mainly from disruptions in affective, social, and existential belonging. The study reconstructs the architecture of belonging through three interconnected pathways: affective belonging (love and attachment), social belonging (institutions, norms, and recognition), and existential belonging (nature, cosmos, spirituality, and meaning). It further develops the ethical and political implications of an ontology of belonging, particularly through the notion of the art of living and the construction of just institutions of belonging. By offering an interdisciplinary and scientifically grounded framework, the article contributes to contemporary debates in philosophical anthropology, existential ontology, recognition theory, and the ethics of relational life, positioning belonging as the ontological foundation of meaningful human existence.

This article develops a neurophilosophical and ontological reconstruction of imaginative fantasy within the Philosophy of Belonging formulated by Carlos Federico Obregón Díaz. It argues that belonging—loving, social, and existential—constitutes the fundamental structure of human existence, while imaginative fantasy operates as an evolutionary and adaptive function that sustains these forms of belonging despite their structural fragility. The paper integrates philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and social theory, proposing that fantasy is not mere illusion or pathology but a representational and affective mechanism that makes reality emotionally habitable and ethically transformable. Through a comparative dialogue with psychoanalysis, existentialism, rationalism, and individualistic liberalism, the article advances an original theoretical framework in which imagination, emotion, and belonging are co-constitutive dimensions of the human condition. Special attention is given to the three paths of belonging (loving, social, and existential), the six-step model of a psychologically full life, and the role of fantasy in emotional regulation, resilience, symbolic institutions, and collective meaning. The work contributes to contemporary debates in philosophy of mind, existential philosophy, and social ontology by overcoming the classical dichotomies between reason and myth, reality and imagination, and individual and community. Within the broader project of the Philosophy of Belonging, the article positions fantasy as an indispensable evolutionary device that enables cooperation, attachment, meaning construction, and psychosocial survival in an uncertain and finite world.

This article develops the Philosophy of Belonging (PB) as an ontological reformulation of the classic individual–society dilemma. Rather than prioritizing methodological individualism or collectivist holism, the paper argues that the ontologically primordial category is the relation of belonging: to be is to belong. Freedom, creativity, and agency are not original attributes of isolated individuals but emergent outcomes of functional structures of belonging embedded in evolutionary, psychological, and institutional contexts. The framework integrates evolutionary biology, psychology of attachment and relationality, institutional economics, and game theory into a unified relational ontology of social adaptation and survival. It introduces the Central Theorem of Belonging, according to which psychological suffering, institutional failure, and limits to social adaptability cannot be fully resolved without intervention in structures of belonging. The article contributes an ontological microfoundation to contemporary debates in liberalism, communitarianism, institutionalism, capability theory, and social psychology, positioning belonging as the condition of possibility of freedom, creativity, and effective capabilities. It proposes a dual evaluative criterion for social systems that combines economic growth with the quality of belonging as co-constitutive conditions of long-term societal viability. Written within the broader research program of the Philosophy of Belonging, the paper offers a transdisciplinary synthesis linking ontology, clinical psychology, institutional design, and political economy.

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.