PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY ONTOLOGY

Abstract

The purpose of this text is to offer some historical and philosophical insights that may contribute to the demarcation of the ontological problem as it has been approached by phenomenology, which I believe to be one of the most prominent branches of contemporary philosophy. Ontology can be characterized, in summary, as the claim to investigate reality in itself, that is, not in any of its parts or aspects, but in its maximum scope and aiming to explain its intelligible structure. In other words, as established since Aristotle, it consists of the science of “being as being and the properties that belong to it as such”. The “ontological problem” here designated would then be that of the status of such science, after the advent of sciences with specific objects and the awareness of the historical and heterogeneous character of cultures. Now, wouldn’t phenomenology defined as a rigorous foundation of all knowledge, escaping both the methodical reductionism of positive sciences and the relativism of individual and collective beliefs, be an adequate gateway into the ontological domain? But isn’t phenomenology just a branch of the modern philosophy of subjectivity and therefore inadequate as an introduction to ontology? The issue is complex, which is why my text addresses, without further analytical and exegetical penetration, some elements of the philosophies of Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre, in the topics entitled respectively: “postponed ontology” (1), “established ontology” (2) and “fractured ontology” (3). In the conclusion, entitled “ontology and nihilism”, I propose a brief outline of the background of my approach.

Keywords: Ontology, Metaphysics, Phenomenology, Intentionality, Being, Nihilism.