Towards the Concept of Calling: Existential Philosophy and Ethics

• Main Author: Є. І. Мулярчук
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Publishing House "Grani" 2019-08-01
• Series: Granì
• Subjects: call; ontology; morality; the Other; subjectivity; responsibility; self-actualization; personal choice
• Online Access: https://grani.org.ua/index.php/journal/article/view/1397
• ISSN: 2077-1800; 2413-8738

The article is devoted to the analysis of the philosophical approaches to the concept of calling relevant to study of this phenomenon in the views of the contemporary world. On the base of his own previous research and the trends in philosophy, the author proves the priority of persons’ subjectivity, self-development and selfdetermination in the contemporary scientific and commonplace understanding of calling. Thereafter adequate for the research of the phenomenon of calling in philosophy is existential ontology related to M. Heidegger and his followers. However, this approach should undergo the critical analysis from the ethical point of view the principles of which were developed by the philosophy of E. Levinas. The tension between the senses of existential philosophy and ethics is evident on the base of S. Kierkegaard’s existentialism. The philosopher argues that the personal choice for calling comes into collision with everyday morality. Heidegger makes this trend even deeper in his research of the themes of attentive listening to the call of being and caring for its truth, the themes of existential conscience and persuasion to be oneself, looking for individual possibilities and solitude of the person in the being-toward-death. However, on the base of the philosophy of Levinas calling is interpreted as openness of a person for the Other, as obligation to take care of the good which is higher than the person’s own. The author defines calling as response of a person to the call of being which gains the ethical meaning together with the responsibility before the other people. The novelty of the study is the attempt to combine within the theoretical frame of the concept of calling the lines of philosophic approaches of Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Levinas. Moreover, the author proves the actuality of the research in this combined approach to the phenomenon of calling in the situation of the renascence of the paradigm of subjectivity in the contemporary philosophy. The further development of concept of calling is in the view of the unity of ontology and ethics, in the context of understanding of person’s existence and of goodness of person’s coexistence with other people.