HORIZON
The word “horizon” refers to that which delimits from outside some
finite whole, both in the sense of limiting it and of making it possible. By
definition, such items as the Universe, a closed time series, a complete
system or the act of being must lack any horizon insofar as there is nothing
outside them that limits them. The approach to this topic will be through
such contemporary currents of thought as phenomenology, hermeneutics,
the life-world, the theory of systems and epistemology. The entry will
conclude with some considerations about its ethical and theological
implications.
1. Historical Views of Horizons of Knowledge
For Greek Philosophy knowledge is envisioned as a problem of
intracosmic movement. The cosmos is often represented as a sphere, whose
uniform circular movement is the only per-fect movement, since in it every
point is simultaneously a beginning and an end. Greek Philosophy tends to
regard a horizon as what sets limits to being, and this notion was only
challenged with the arrival of the metaphysical concept of creatio ex nihilo.
Mindful that all human understanding occurs by grasping the form
or limits of a thing, the Greeks tend to regard infinity as something suspect
precisely because a lack of limits. In contrast, from the perspective of
creation the infinite refers to something positive, since the creature,
proceeding from nothing, has to be positively sustained by the Creator in
order to exist and the distance between Creator and creature is
incommensurable: the creature must be continuously brought out of
nothing by the Creator.
1.2. Deductive-hypothetical method
Let us see now how modern Science surpasses the Greek horizon
too. In the modern era, since Kepler and Galileo, the bases of Greek
Science have been shifted. The understanding of the Universe does not
consist now of researching the causes of the movements, but of deciphering
the mathematical language in which Nature is written. Consequently, ideal
conditions for the appearance of phenomena are feigned within a
quantitative and homogeneous, general framework, which is indefinitely
extendable. The new suppositions of modern Science are the isotropical
space and isochronical time, both imaginatively dissociated from the
observable movements. Isotropical space means that it extends itself
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unlimitedly in all possible directions, so that one meter is always the same
wherever it is. Isochronical time means that time always flows equally,
without becoming faster or slower in its course.
The relational character of modern Science is visible in that it puts
certain magnitudes in relation with others according to a function. It is not
interested in things as they are, but in functional dependence of some
behaviours with respect to others. Newton clearly establishes the difference
between mathematical-physical law and fact, paving the way for the
experiment in Science. So begins the deductive-hypothetical method.
Euclidean Geometry and Newtonian Physics were the Sciences that
drew the horizon of Kantian Critical Philosophy. Space and time as a priori
forms of sensitivity satisfy the conditions of the flat geometric figures of
Euclid, and categories of intellect, such as unity or causality, are
convenient to objectivize corpuscula or points of force with which
Newtonian Mechanics is built. Still in Logical Neopositivism the verifiable
physical sentences are set up as the paradigm of all scientific sentences.
Again the horizon of Science is broadened with the foundational
crisis at the beginning of twentieth century. The first signs of crisis would
not affect the validity of the former scientific paradigms, but their
exclusivity. With the discovery of the universal force of gravity between all
the masses Newtonian concepts like action over distance are abandoned, as
is the absolute system of spacetime coordinates of the constrained Theory
of Relativity, which is substituted by the curvature of the Universe,
determined by gravitational fields. Likewise continuity of space and time,
reflected in the uniform and indefinite trajectories of classical Physics,
would be affected by the adoption of the quanta as discontinuous physical
units. The modifications at macroscopic level due to the Theory of
Relativity would be completed by new modifications at microscopic level.
2. Contemporary conceptions of horizon
2.1. Horizon in Phenomenology and Existential Analytics
For Husserl the horizon starts with external perception. What is
immediately given to perception are the objective profiles, amassed in the
object as its common internal horizon. Analogously, objective
determinations are thematized in judgement, while their logical subject is
the horizon that gives coherence to the transit from one determination to
the others, without being thematized itself as universal concept. And going
round all the objects and perceived configurations the world as ultimate
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external horizon is found, where all the partial external horizons or
immediate perceptive backgrounds come together. The world is not given
outside the things, but constitutes its continuous horizon or, in other words,
the horizon of the horizons. For Husserl world is the indefinitely open and
movable horizon, which is co-present with the perceived objects.
But where does the notion of horizon proceed from, if it does not
designate an objective feature? Husserl’s answer is precise: it comes from
the temporal dynamic presentification by the consciousness, which consists
of extending the present by retaining the earlier moments (Retention) and at
the same time opening an indeterminate horizon (Protention), which has its
replicate in the worldly horizons in continuity.
The next step would be taken, when the subject itself incorporates
the differences between foreground and background introduced by the
horizons, and not only the dynamism of presentification which opens the
horizons. This step is taken by the Existential Analytics of Heidegger. The
horizons would have their origin in the differences in the temporality of
Dasein once they have been projected upon the world. It is not the
consciousness which unfolds in horizons, but for Heidegger the horizons
are due to the existential project, and in both cases the subjective origin of
these stands out in their junction with wordly facticity.
2.2. Horizons in the Hermeneutics
Existential Analytics is the bridge that will lead us now to the
hermeneutical sense of the horizons, which is applicable to texts and
historical events, such as Gadamer has expounded. Understanding a verbal
utterance, a piece of writing or the work of a writer implies the prior
understanding of the linguistic context, of the literary genre where the piece
is inserted or of the period to which the writer belongs, that work as
horizons with regard to the parts which we want to understand.
With regard to the historical horizons, they purport certain
assimilation to the language, but now the explicit intentions of the
historical agents stand out on an implicit background of events.
Reconstructing a historical period means placing it in the continuous thread
of historical antecedents and subsequent events, in such a way that it
intervenes as response to the challenges of former events and seeks
simultaneously an answer from subsequent events. Gadamer calls this
network of events fusion of horizons. The indistinct use of the same terms
for language and history is significant: period, posing questions, giving
answer…
2.3. The world of life as horizon
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A new concept at stake is the world of life. The pragmatic
concatenations refer dynamically to the world, as do the social action and
the communicative action. In the three cases the world of life constitutes
the necessary horizon for their unfolding. Let us examine some examples.
A) Alfred Schutz pays attention to the horizon taken from the world
of life and through which we understand the social action. The horizons fit
together and mix according to a triple spatial, temporal and social
perspective. The spatial fusion of the horizons is what leads various hunters
to say “we see the same bird”, when each one sees it from his own angle of
vision. Reciprocal perspectives merge in a same space of vision as if there
were only one viewer. As for the temporal horizon, it links distinct
biographical events and memories of successive generations in a single
narrative time, where moments lived, remembered and transmitted are
arranged in a ficticious continuous chronological series, notwithstanding
the contextual differences of each period. With regard to the social
horizons, these are transposed to a single functional network, which is
stretched over the complementary nature of the different roles.
B) Habermas transcendentally links the world of life with the
communicative action, which is suitable to open it up and unfold it in the
course of the communication by virtue of the horizons that appear
performatively with the speech acts. Unlike supposing it in the social
action, now we are before a word of life that arises constantly and renews
itself with the variation of starting situation. Habermas gives the example
of the builders who take a mid-morning break to eat. It is the established
custom for the youngest of them to go to the nearest shop for the
sandwiches. And each time that a break-down in the communication
occurs, it is because some of the horizons, which are open up by it, has
become blocked –when the boy who must get the drinks replies “why me?”
(normative component), when the shop is closed (informative component)
or if one of the workmates says he is not hungry (expressive component). In
any of these cases it would be necessary to redefine communicatively the
horizons of the action.
2.4. Analytical method versus system as horizon
In the Modern Age Mechanics was the prevailing model of
knowledge, to the point of somehow impregnating the various Sciences
with mechanicism. But the concept of system provides a new key to unify
physical, biological and human Sciences and introduces the notion of
horizon for the parts. Indeed, not only does the material Universe become
more intelligible as an electromagnetic field than with the corpuscular
Physics; but also Genetics has replaced the isolated consideration of gens
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by structured configurations, and Evolutive Psychology has adopted the
notion of functional autonomy within the system to account of the learning
of higher capabilities.
More problematic is applying the system to man. Although in
contrast to the Cartesian Dualism system safeguards the unity of man by
coordinating biological and psychical activities through the brain, it shoud
be noted that system does not assume the hierarchy of immaterial activity
over the sensory acts. The horizon of man is the possibilities of own act of
being beyond every closed precint. Reality is the horizon within which man
inserts what he encounters outside and what belongs to himself.
2.5. Horizon in objective knowledge
The horizon has simoultaneously something manifest and something
hidden; it is what is beyond, but at the same time what stands out in the
visible to a certain extent. This has been already expounded. There is
horizon in what is perceived, in a fragment of a text or in the historical
event, in the pragmatic connections of the world of life and in the
functional correlations, as inserted in a system, which is their horizon.
Sometimes we can invert foreground and horizon, like in perception and its
background or in the historical series, where the same events give account
of the previous ones and are explained by these; in contrast, this is not
possible when the horizon designates a whole that is contained in another
greater whole. But there is a paradigmatic case to show heterogeneity
between the horizon and what is delimited by it, without its being a totality:
the dichotomy between the general idea and the fact. The object of thought
has a horizon what exceeds the thinking –the first sense of the fact– or what
remains below the threshold of thought –second sense of the fact.
As for the former, a dog is typified by general ideas: animal,
mammal, vertebrate…, but it is always more than the sum of these notes. A
single dog behaves as the horizon of all those ideas with which we
surround it. According to Husserl’s example, things are typified as tree,
bush, bird… and have their horizon of experience which prescribes an
indefinite typification of notes not yet experienced, but expected: so, when
we see a dog, we see beforehand its way of eating, playing, or jumping.
The fact surpasses the ideas by which the mind objectivizes it, and the
mind passes from one idea to another by negation: if in a order of gradual
generalization I say that Lassie is a dog, it is because there are dogs that are
not Lassie; if I say the dog is mammal, it is because there are mammals that
are not dogs; if I say the mammal is an animal, it is because there are
animals that are not dogs… The operative enlargement of the mind
advances with negations. But the fact does not correspond to any these
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operations, rather it condenses what is not thinkable, but as horizon it
surpasses all general ideas commensurate with correlative operations.
Thus this lack of adjustment between the general idea and the
abstract ones to which the idea is attributed is what allows the indefinite
enlargement of the mind and its stopping in the notion of fact. This does
not occur with the divisions in the numbers. Negations in the typs of the
numbers do not originate indeterminated cases, but determinations, which
perfectly fit operation of denying. In fact from the natural numbers we
arrive at the negative ones, if the positive ones are excluded, without the
surplus of the case remaining; on the other hand, if we deny that dog is cat,
we do so from the general idea of mammal, of which both are cases. If we
exclude fractional number from the natural ones, we are before the
positive/negative integers…, but in no case does a factual horizon of
indetermination appears, in such a way that it is partly irreduceable to being
thought.
The second sense of fact is what does not reach the threshold of
object of thought. This can be called horizon too, but in a negative sense. It
is the body itself, which does not appear when objectivizing, but without
which objectivizing is not possible. As the object enjoys antecedence or it
is given with mental presence, the body as precondition cannot appear. So
when I am aware of being tired, it is because the body is already tired. I am
not present when as the body tires, but I notice it when the tiredness is
already in me.
3. Ethical and theological horizon of man
Finally some words about the ethical and theological implications of
the horizon. At a first level the horizon of good, as common end of the
actions, is the framework of horizontal movements from one to another
good; these goods are present as more or less suitable to attain the end,
which naturally guides me. But at another level horizon opens up with
choice, since were it otherwise, it would be tied to fulfilling a primary
satisfaction; here horizon is a touchstone to reach the ethical level. While in
the first case choice moves horizontally, since it remains on the same level
with the transit from the end to the means, in the second case freedom
vertically surpasses itself with the option, by deciding on itself, on its
conformity with the Ideal of the practical reason. What is chosen is not then
one possible object among others, but something faciendum, i.e., what from
itself calls to freedom and increases it once the free subject opts for the
duty.
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The horizon of freedom cannot lie under it, neither in freedom itself,
but it refers to another higher freedom, so that this freedom accepts the
offer of the morally good act. For otherwise, it is to say, if freedom itself
does not find correspondence, such a freedom would cancel itself out like
something nonsensical. The voluntary morally good deed does not
disappear with its performance, rather it ethically calls for its increase with
regard to the never saturated horizon.
The notion of horizon has played a decisive role in man’s access to
God within the theological thought of K. Rahner, who is clearly influenced
by Maréchal. Taking on board the modern approaches of the philosophy of
consciousness, the French author replaces the fixed categories of the
intellect, as used by Kant, with the act of affirmation, in which intelligence
fulfils the fundamental synthesis of phenomenal datum with the esse. Esse
is not a mere subjective a priori form, but the dynamic horizon of
subjective-objective understanding through which intelligence transcends
itself.
Rahner takes on the problem of the supernatural, according to which
the gratuitous elevation to the supernatural order must reconcile itself with
natural aptitude for God or being capax Dei, as Aquinas says, expressed in
the human potentia obedientialis. Transcendence is the athematic horizon
in which categorial choices move. The most problematic and controvesial
aspect of Rahner’s approach is that the transcendental revelation or divine
communication would consist of a fruit of the Christian elevation through
grace, such that it works in an anonymous way in all humankind and faith
only makes explicit what is implicit. What in the horizon is present in the
distance and athematic, becomes under the action of grace the God who is
close and reveals Himself to man from his absolute mystery. Among others
von Baltasar, Latourelle, De Lubac or Fabro have stressed the difference
between revelation and salvation, barely operative in Rahner, and the
superfluous duplication of the revelation, both as transcendental and
historical, has been questioned.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
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CORETH, E., Grundfragen der Hermeneutik, Herder, Freiburg i. B.,
1969.
FINANCE, J. de, Essai sur l´agir humain, Université Gregorienne,
Rome, 1962.
GADAMER, H-G., Wahrheit und Methode, J.C.B. Mohr, Tübingen,
1975.
HEIDEGGER, M., Sein und Zeit, Werke II, V. Klostermann, Frankfurt,
1977.
HUSSERL, E., Erfahrung und Urteil, Hamburg, 1948.
MARECHAL, J., Le point de départ de la metaphysique, Cahier V: Le
tomisme devant la critique, Desclée de Brower, Bruxelles, 1949.
RAHNER, K., Grundkurs des Glaubens, Herder, Freiburg im
Breisgau, 1976.
SCHUTZ, A., Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt, Suhrkamp,
Frankfurt, 1993.
SPET, G.G., Die Hermeneutik und ihre Probleme, Alber, Freiburg i
B./München, 1993.
ZUBIRI, X., Naturaleza, Historia y Dios, Ed. Nacional, Madrid, 1963.
Urbano Ferrer
Department of Philosophy
Universidad de Murcia, Spain (2013)
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