Identity versus Otherness: Propaedeutic Considerations

Abstract

The present article attempts a philosophical, ontological and anthropological in-depth investigation of the conceptually opposed dual model identity-alterity in view of essentialist propaedeutic considerations, therefore contributing to the avoidance of reductionist interpretations. Thus, identity lays emphasis on the metaphysical problem of the "thing in itself", endowed with particular, unique properties and its relations with reality, as well as that of becoming, whereas alterity develops into a co-constructive—once the status of positive primordiality validated—total and irreducible concept. Being part of meta-categories of thinking about "Being", the opposing binomial identity-alterity is to be found as a fundamental concept in various disciplinary fields: logic, mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, etc. thus, contributing to attempts to identify and individuate things, people, phenomena, facts, processes, etc. In the current era of globalization/mundialization processes, alongside with the opposing trends in this regard, when humanity and contemporary societies develop a gnoseological (re)evaluation of anthropological valorization, the in-depth knowledge of the antagonistic-integrative concept of identity/alterity profiles an epistemological technique and an open, complex, systemic and integral approach based on a series of considerations: discontinuity and non-separability, syncretic and integrative unity of co-constructive dualities, polytropic perception, propagation of complementarity, gnoseological and epistemological (co)relativity integrated into a real-rational-relational dynamic interface.