Unlimited

Sometimes I feel that philosophy should be situated between or in terms of what is limited and what is unlimited.

I have two statements to say that I believe are utterly true:

There is nothing that arises outside of discourse.

Discourse is just one thing of the universe, Or one aspect — however one would put that right now.

I feel that typically people feel that human beings are a kind of creature, as opposed to a thing, that has arisen in the universe such that it is able to become aware of the universe of how it actually is, as opposed to merely constantly responding to things without actually knowing much about why it might be the case. For example we could say that A one celled animal merely responds without knowing. And then at the other end we have the human being, and then we have all the graduations in between.

I think this kind of estimate upon what the human being is in what the world is and what it does, is an unlimited view. It views the universe as a sort of container without limits that moves in a particular direction of which human beings are at the forefront, or at least involved with in someway that human beings came about and is able to view the universe in such a way as I just described, that is, that human beings are able to know the universe and change things in it. Just as a very quick summary.

Now, all sorts of people will argue that it is somewhat the case, or that really there is no necessary direction, and every argument in between. But the simple fact is that it doesn’t matter what philosophy we have upon existence, because ultimately every human being behaves as if we/I/individual self/ human group is the end and most progressed result of evolution, of this progressive motion of the universe, even if we don’t have a “scientific” view upon the universe. At least in our modern day. 

Now I say “it doesn’t matter” as a way of bringing in limit. As long as I say that something matters, then there is something at stake with which the human being gets to think or behave in such a manner responding to the known universe in order to change things for its own interest. If we can do that then the view is inherently not limited. Of course we could point to some limitations, but the basic view is that human beings in the potential to do things and to know is unlimited, and I probably mean this in time, as the human species, etc. Not necessarily the single human being. Because that’s another aspect of being human is we get to move back-and-forth about what we’re talking about, whether were talking about the individual human being, or whether we are talking about the “human project” which began EXO mount of years ago and continues infinitely in the future unless we make choices so we don’t kill ourselves, as a group of species.

When I say it doesn’t matter it means that I’m involved in a certain project that doesn’t really have anything to do with what it is to further the human being in the world. Basically when I say it doesn’t matter I’m committing a foul in philosophy. Because it most often appears that the underwritten catalyst of philosophy must be that it Hass to concern the betterment and sustenance of the human species.

And so when I talk about it doesn’t matter, I’m really talking about limits as limits. And this is to say to view the human being and the universe as necessarily involved with each other in totality. No outs created by the imagination, no unknown potential that the human being can come across at random, simply that when we speak of the universe we must be speaking of everything. And everything that can be spoken of must be inherent and within the universe itself.

So when there’s a rebottle to say that I must be talking about the human being or I must be implying it somewhere, then I have to see that that rebuttal is involved with an ethical promotion, and thus that the human being and its potential is unlimited. 

 

And because of the contradiction that arises between these two manners of approaching philosophy, to argue that one is more true or is the case and that the other one is not the case is to an act a non sequitur. It is a situation that arises together, side-by-side, to situations that no argument can ever convince or compel the other side to understand, so far as a route into the world.

Limit and limitlessness is the theme of the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard. In his philosophy he asserts that what is viewed as limitlessness, what he calls “the universal is the ethical” is actually limited. And that’s his philosophy is about freedom in the sense that it is utterly contained and limited by ethics, and thus when one comes upon this feature of existence, one has been totally released from the imperative Of the ethical universe. In short, the entirety of Kierkegaard’s project is from the orientation of not ethical.

Some 150 years later we find the completion, the complete psycho of this kind of knowledge in non-philosophy. One could even say that the midpoint between this containment, perhaps the measure which stretches the diameter of the completed circle, is the existentialism which arose in the mid 20th century, which posits that human beings need be responsible and revolt from the Abbas of freedom in order to own or an act choice. Yet the complete formation of the existential thought, even found in Sartre, Is that the true freedom of authentic individuality is to be utterly limited, which is to say, not ethical. Ironically.