Ontology, Otherness, Deconstruction, and Scientific Belonging: Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, and Obregón in Dialogue

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.