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Philosophy Seminar Series - Crisis and Criticism II Moderator: Emre Şan Speaker: Ferda Keskin “Criticism as Historical Ontology” Although the concept of criticism, which comes from the Ancient Greek verb krinein, has a number of different meanings related to each other, it has been considered together with the concepts of border, demarcation, and separation in the history of Western philosophy, especially since the 18th century. For example, according to Kant, who left his mark on the end of the century in question, drawing the boundaries of reason is the fundamental philosophical activity that both determines the conditions of possibility of knowledge and makes a scientific metaphysics possible. The boundary, on the other hand, is undoubtedly a concept that has had a very wide field of application since Ancient Greece and holds an important place in ontology as the conceptualization of being. Among the important questions that can be asked in this context are the universality or historicity of boundaries, their surmountability or impassability, as well as modalities such as whether they are necessary to be surpassed. Historical ontology aims to show that boundaries are historically established and not necessary. Considering that they define boundaries for human action in terms of the conditions of belonging, the evaluation of identities within the framework of these modalities carries the discussion to an ethical and political dimension on the axis of freedom. Therefore, whether it is necessary to transcend historical and contingent boundaries and, if necessary, the forms that such transcendence can take become not only a theoretical but also a practical question. In this talk, we will discuss the above questions in the context of modern political philosophy and ethics.