Our awareness of links and of our insertion in the process of inhabitation shows in an expansion of the field of possibilities "on the horizon" rather than as explictly focal self-reflection. We can widen our peripheral vision for links and possibilities, joinings and discontinuities.

This sounds nice, but what does it come to in day to day life? Isn't it a bit like saying you're can be free in your mind even though you are physically in chains? I get the point that a wider horizon is supposed to change the meaning of what you encounter, and so encourage creative moves, but you ignore the numbing ideological powers that block our vision and thin our imagination.

I have felt at times that I was veering a little too close to Stoic acceptance instead of reformist ardor, but on this point I don't think so. Widening peripheral vision or adding possibilities to the horizon changes the contrasts that give meaning to focal things, so more actions become available. When numbing ideological powers are seen for what they are, there is more imaginative room.

None of this, it is true, solves the issues like shortage of resources or police abuse, or the "concrete" issues of design, but those are variable with each situation and shouldn't be dictated by general rules. They are matters for practical wisdom, in Aristotle's sense; what I'm concerned with is finding ways to increase or change the perception of the particular case, which is what Aristotle says is needed for practical wisdom to function.

Index
Return to Benjamin's problem
Continue on the objections path
objections/replies

(c) David Kolb, 1 August 2001