A Estrutura Ontológica do Ser: Explorando a Visão de Paul Tillich sobre a Relação entre o Humano e o Mundo

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the considerations of the philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich on the constitution of being, with a special focus on the human being who consciously recogni-zes this constitution. It is an intrinsic part of existence that the human being finds himself distan-ced from nature, incapable of understanding it in the same way that he understands himself. He can describe the behavior of various beings, but he cannot directly uncover what this behavior really represents to them. This is the essence of the behaviorist method — a truth that is ultima-tely tragic. It shows that all beings are, in a certain way, strangers to each other. We can appro-ach other beings, but only through analogies, that is, in an indirect and uncertain way. Myth and poetry have striven to overcome this limitation of our cognitive capacity. Knowledge, in turn, either accepted its failure or transformed the world, excluding the cognitive subject and conver-ting it into a vast machine, in which all living beings, including the human body, are mere Car-tesian parts. The objective of this text is to reflect on how the ontological structure of the “I” and the world is presented in the works of the aforementioned philosopher.