This article develops the Philosophy of Belonging (PB) as an ontological reformulation of the classic individual–society dilemma. Rather than prioritizing methodological individualism or collectivist holism, the paper argues that the ontologically primordial category is the relation of belonging: to be is to belong. Freedom, creativity, and agency are not original attributes of isolated individuals but emergent outcomes of functional structures of belonging embedded in evolutionary, psychological, and institutional contexts. The framework integrates evolutionary biology, psychology of attachment and relationality, institutional economics, and game theory into a unified relational ontology of social adaptation and survival. It introduces the Central Theorem of Belonging, according to which psychological suffering, institutional failure, and limits to social adaptability cannot be fully resolved without intervention in structures of belonging. The article contributes an ontological microfoundation to contemporary debates in liberalism, communitarianism, institutionalism, capability theory, and social psychology, positioning belonging as the condition of possibility of freedom, creativity, and effective capabilities. It proposes a dual evaluative criterion for social systems that combines economic growth with the quality of belonging as co-constitutive conditions of long-term societal viability. Written within the broader research program of the Philosophy of Belonging, the paper offers a transdisciplinary synthesis linking ontology, clinical psychology, institutional design, and political economy.
Carlos Federico Obregon Diaz (Thu,) studied this question.