Fissure; opening infinity and consolation

 

 

“Since the infinite, as infinite, is unknown, it is unknowable by us, for to know is to circumscribe and determine. But the infinite is precisely that which cannot be circumscribed or determined.”

Nicholas of Cusa, De Docta Ignorantia

 

 

The philosopher loves the possibility as much as the poet loves the interplay of  words. The philosopher has a strong urge for explanations about the world, from the Universe itself down to the forces that act in human relations. But those explanations do not reach the level of certainty, and the distance between the explanation and certainty of the content of explanation should be integrated into the explanatory narrative as well.

 

The love of possibility originates in doubt. And those who doubt, with such doubt that is a solemn but above all humble question, understand themselves as a small element that participates in existence, a perfectly indomitable existence that extends infinitely in all directions. That is where the love of possibility is born. The greatness and complexity of the world, in its divisions (nature, human, divine, social), defies any explanation that does not assume itself to be only a possibility. Hence the flourishing of incompatible theses and theories.

 

An explanation, in philosophy, must assume itself as possibility, and only then can the verbalization or textualization of this work of reading the world be born. If there is nothing more than doubt, that is, if the infinite extension of possibilities is not reduced, distilled, concentrated into one, then the thesis, the explanation, the theory is not born. The explanation that the philosopher loves only brings him an even greater awareness of infinity and, although this is not always easy to admit, of the vulnerability of his discourse. At the same time, discussing the merely possible integrates us more deeply into the fissures of reality, where the colossus of being can be contemplated more capably.

 

In this fissure of reality dwell the philosopher, the poet, and the artist. For them, their work is understood respectively as: partial discourse on Being, a play between words and truth, and creation ex materia.

 

In their productions, the philosopher, the poet, and the artist must renounce the expression of impartial, absolute, and unified truth, and yet bring their glimpse of it to our enjoyment. That is why philosophy, poetry, and art are truly a tension that brings comfort. What they produce falls short of the spiritual ecstasy that invokes them, but these creations open a door to the distance that lies between explanation and Being, between word and world, between the artist’s creation and the original creation. When a door opens, a space becomes available, and often the glimpse of this extension that can be seen through the crack no longer allows us to ignore its tragic and beautiful charm.

 

The infinite, God, the origin, reality, the Being are all different words for the unknowable. An infinite, absolute unknowable that turns into something (albeit unknowable) by the providence of our human attempts to figure it out.