THE POLITICS OF BEING, THE BEING OF POLITICS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL ONTOLOGY AND NEW ONTOLOGIES OF BECOMING

Abstract

This study aims to clarify the complex and multi-layered relationship between the concepts of "political ontology" and "new ontology" within the context of the "ontological turn" in twenty-first-century thought. Using an analytical and comparative method, the article first examines the definition, main concerns, and intellectual genealogy of political ontology. It then distinguishes between two different meanings of the term "new ontology": the historical school of Nicolai Hartmann and contemporary currents such as speculative realism and new materialism. The main thesis of the study is that the most productive and fruitful intersection with political ontology is established with these contemporary "new ontologies" rather than with Hartmann's. In conclusion, it is argued that contemporary problems such as climate change, artificial intelligence, and ecological crises cannot be adequately understood through the anthropocentric concepts of traditional political theory. In this context, it is emphasised that the dialogue between political ontology and new ontologies provides a fundamental basis for the "re-politicisation of being" and is a condition for imagining a more just and sustainable political future that includes the non-human world.

Keywords

• Political Ontology
• New Ontologies
• Ontological Turn
• Speculative Realism
• New Materialism

VARLIĞIN POLİTİKASI, POLİTİKANIN VARLIĞI: POLİTİK ONTOLOJİ VE YENİ OLUŞ ONTOLOJİLERİN ELEŞTİREL BİR ANALİZİ

Öz

Bu çalışma, yirmi birinci yüzyıl düşüncesindeki "ontolojik dönüş" bağlamında , "politik ontoloji" ve "yeni ontoloji" kavramları arasındaki karmaşık ve çok katmanlı ilişkiyi aydınlatmayı amaçlamaktadır. Makale, analitik ve karşılaştırmalı bir yöntemle öncelikle politik ontolojinin tanımını, temel kaygılarını ve entelektüel soykütüğünü inceler. Ardından, "yeni ontoloji" teriminin Nicolai Hartmann'ın tarihsel okulu ile spekülatif gerçekçilik ve yeni materyalizm gibi güncel akımları ifade eden iki farklı anlamını ayrıştırır. Çalışmanın temel tezi, politik ontoloji ile en verimli ve üretken kesişimin, Hartmann'dan ziyade bu çağdaş "yeni ontolojiler" ile kurulduğudur. Sonuç olarak, iklim değişikliği, yapay zekâ ve ekolojik krizler gibi güncel sorunların geleneksel siyaset teorisinin antroposentrik kavramlarıyla yeterince anlaşılamayacağı savunulmaktadır. Bu bağlamda, politik ontoloji ve yeni ontolojiler arasındaki diyalogun, "varlığın yeniden siyasallaştırılması" için temel bir zemin sunduğu ve insan olmayan dünyayı da kapsayan daha adil ve sürdürülebilir bir siyasi gelecek düşünmenin bir koşulu olduğu vurgulanmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Politik Ontoloji
• Yeni Ontolojiler
• Ontolojik Dönüş
• Spekülatif Gerçekçilik
• Yeni Materyalizm

References

1. Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. eds. Werner Hamacher & David E. Wellbery. California: Stanford University Press, 1998.
2. Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
3. Baysoy, Cengiz. “Marksizm’in Aporia’sı: ‘Devlet’.” PolitikART, August 08, 2023, 319, Access Date: April 15, 2025, https://www.politikart.net/yazi/marksizmin-aporias-devlet.
4. Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010.
5. Benson, Melinda Harm. “New Materialism: An Ontology for the Anthropocene.” Natural Resources Journal 59, no 2 (2019): 251-80.
6. Bilgin, Pınar. “Identity/Security.” in, The Routledge Handbook of New Security Studies, ed. J. Peter Burgess, 81-89. London & New York: Routledge, 2010
7. Bourdieu, Pierre. The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger. trans. Peter Collier. California: Stanford University Press, 1991.
8. Braidotti, Rosi. “Posthuman, All Too Human: Towards a New Process Ontology,” Theory, Culture & Society 23, no 7-8 (2006): 197–208.

9. Bryant, Levi R. The Democracy of Objects. Michigan: Open Humanities Press, 2011.
10. Castoriadis, Cornelius. The Imaginary Institution of Society. trans. Kathleen Blarney. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005.
11. Chin, Clayton. “Just What is Ontological Political Theory Meant to Do? The Method and Practice of William E. Connolly.” Political Studies 69, no 4 (2021): 771-90.
12. Collins, James. “The Neo-Scholastic Critique of Nicolai Hartmann.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 6, no 1 (1945): 109-32.
13. Coole, Diana. “Agentic Capacities and Capacious Historical Materialism: Thinking with New Materialisms in the Political Sciences.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 41, no 3 (2013): 451-469.
14. Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008.
15. Guzzini, Stefano. International Political Sociology, or: The Social Ontology and Power Politics of Process. Copenhagen: Danish Institute for International Studies, 2016.
16. Harman, Graham. Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything. London: Pelican, 2017.
17. Hartmann, Nicolai. New Ways of Ontology. trans. Reinhard C. Kuhn. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1953.
18. Hartmann, Nicolai. Possibility and Actuality. trans. Alex Scott and Stephanie Adair. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013.
19. Hartmann, Nicolai. Ontology: Laying the Foundations. trans. Keith R. Peterson. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019.
20. Hoel, A. S., & van der Tuin, I. “The Ontological Force of Technicity: Reading Cassirer and Simondon Diffractively.” Philosophy & Technology 26, no 2 (2013): 187–202.
21. Hunt, Sarah. “Ontologies of Indigeneity: The Politics of Embodying a Concept.” Cultural Geographies 21, no 1 (2014): 27-32.
22. Kuhn, Helmut. “Nicolai Hartmann’s Ontology.” The Philosophical Quarterly 1, no 4 (1951): 289-318.
23. Latour, B. An inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns. trans. C. Porter. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013.
24. Meillassoux, Quentin. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. trans. Ray Brassier. London: Continuum, 2008.
25. Nancy, Jean-Luc. Being Singular Plural. trans. Robert D. Richardson & Anne E. O'Byrne. eds. R. D. Richardson & A. E. O'Byrne. California: Stanford University Press, 2000.
26. Oakeley, Hilda D. “Professor Nicolai Hartmann’s Concept of Objective Spirit.” Mind 44, no 173 (1935): 39–57.
27. Peterson, Keith R. “Translator's Introduction: Hartmann's Realist Ontology,” in Ontology: Laying the Foundations, by Nicolai Hartmann, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019.
28. Peterson, Keith R. “Flat, Hierarchical, or Stratified? Determination and Dependence in Social-Natural Ontology.” In New Research on the Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann, eds. Keith Peterson and Roberto Poli, 109–29. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016.
29. Plato. Republicç trans. C.D.C. Reeve. Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company. 2004.
30. Poe, Andrew. “Review Essay: Things-Beyond-Objects.” Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 19, no 1 (2011): 153-164.
31. Schlaretzki, W. Ernest. “Ethics and Metaphysics in Hartmann.” Ethics 54, no 4 (1944): 273-82.
32. Schmitt, Carl. Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. trans. George Schwab. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
33. Strauss, Leo. The City and Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
34. Strauss, Leo. Thoughts on Machiavelli. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958.
35. Winther Rasmus G. & Jonathan M. Kaplan, “Ontologies and Politics of Biogenomic 'Race'.” Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 60, no 136 (2013): 54-80.
36. Yenigün, Halil İbrahim. “Siyaset Teorisinde Yeni Ontolojik ve Teolojik Tahayyüller ve Demokrasi.” Dîvân: Disiplinlerarası Çalışmalar Dergisi 18, no 34 (2013): 1-48.
37. Žižek, Slavoj. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso, 2009.