From Complexity to Belonging: Edgar Morin and the Philosophy of Belonging on the Organization of Reality

This paper presents a systematic comparison between Edgar Morin’s complex thought and Carlos Federico Obregón Díaz’s Philosophy of Belonging. Both frameworks reject reductionism, linear causation, disciplinary fragmentation, and the conception of the individual as an isolated and self-sufficient entity. Their theoretical purposes, however, are different. Morin primarily develops an epistemological and methodological framework for understanding complex reality, whereas the Philosophy of Belonging proposes an ontology of organized existence. The article reconstructs Morin’s dialogical, recursive, and hologrammatic principles within the four fundamental principles of the Philosophy of Belonging: all existence is organized existence; reality is stratified into material, biological, and human-institutional levels; organization is simultaneously synchronic and diachronic; and every belonging is imperfect. The comparison shows that Morin’s principles have ontological counterparts within the Philosophy of Belonging. The dialogical principle appears in the inseparability of synchrony and diachrony and in the coexistence of belonging and autonomy; recursion appears in the mutual constitution of organizations and their components; and the hologrammatic principle appears in the reciprocal dependence of parts and wholes. The relationship between the two systems is consequently asymmetrical. The Philosophy of Belonging can explain why Morin’s epistemological principles are appropriate for understanding reality, but Morin’s principles do not independently entail the proposition “Being is Belonging,” the stratification of reality, dual temporality, or the necessary imperfection of belonging. The article concludes with a balanced assessment of the strengths and limitations of both projects and identifies the Philosophy of Belonging as a broader ontological architecture within which Morin’s complex thought can be preserved and reformulated.