index
Self-comprehension without pure access
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Norms should express their own embodiment (York, England)
No pure access (Belfast, Maine)
I want to claim, with Hegel, that our own fullest life is lived in the self-awareness of the process by which we create and maintain social grammars, structure, and history.I would argue that social grammars should express their embodiment in the process of their own arising. Social practices should be self-reflective about their own status and changes and their belonging to a wider field they do not dominate.But there is no pure access to the form of that process, so no way to obtain absolute norms or a finally comprehensive historical narrative, such as Hegel desires.There is a danger in this, since unless there is some dynamism that forces us towards complete self-awareness, what reason have we for moving beyond the closed horizon of a narrow place or culture? If the mere existence of empirical pluralism will not be enough, is there anything else to ensure openness?What opens us up even in narrow places and cultures is our native spaciousness of inhabitation, though it will not automatically provide new alternatives.