RESPONSIBILITY AND EVENT. AN EVENT-ONTOLOGICAL OUTLINE

Abstract

The study examines the ontological and moral-philosophical interrelations between event and responsibility. It undertakes to develop an event-ontological approach in which being, event, and process are not sharply distinguished from one another, but rather interpenetrate — perichoretically — as mutually enfolded elements. The event is not a rupture in the rigid order of substances, but a process interwoven with the fabric of being, giving rise to the dynamism and metamorphosis of ontological structures. The acts and events that determine the structure and horizon of human existence are of decisive significance; some of these reach us in the form of acts performed by others. The second main thesis of the study is that the person’s being is not a static given, but an ontic possibility that becomes actualized in the contingencies of encounter and of taking responsibility. Its medium is the field of influence referred to as the proximity field, and its form is the so-called alternal responsibility — one that stands neither on the ground of abstract duty (Kant) nor on that of radical otherness (Lévinas), and is grounded not merely in consequences or norms, but in the concrete and addressing presence of the second person, the ‘you.’The existence and unfolding of the person fundamentally depend on whether someone assumes responsibility for that person. This active and supportive response opens the dynamic field of sacrifice and reciprocity. The background of the inquiry is provided by a branch of realist phenomenology — referred to here as noumenology — which conceives reality not as a construction of consciousness, but as an order that calls for response. Reality exists in itself and unfolds as a multiplicity of challenges that bear an addressing character. According to the conclusion, the event is not a radical rupture but a metamorphosis — an ontological arc or wave that, in certain cases, tends toward the other person. At the same time, the contingency of the event renders visible the weight of our freedom and responsibility: Personal existence is not a necessity but a possibility that reveals itself anew — again and again.