Saturday 21 April 2007

Who is man behind his mask?

Welcome. Man is metaphysical by nature, said Schopenhauer, in his dialogue 'On Religion'. Did not Jacob Bronowski speak of the creation of metaphysical-cum-scientific unities in thought, be they scientific or poetic in kind? That science is the language by which we understand the mechanisms of nature and that ambiguities cannot be eliminated by language? In which case, why the much vaunted humanism of the last two millennia, that does rather more than imply that by full access to consciousness we can become, as humans qua humans, masters of our fate by being authors of our life's choices? This is hard an ascent of man, rather a descent. But why should descent from the temptation to master our fate be a setback?

As humans we author practical solutions to the issues which arise; but within a rather narrower field that that we think we can aspire to. We never go beyond the constraints of Schopenhauer's metaphysic. To what extent as humans should we participate, or contemplate, human affairs? To what extent has we been deceived into belief or control when we're simply the player in another's script?

Who is the other? Anonymous authority maybe?

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