The Enlightenment and Our "Before"

Abstract

In the world of things we will hardly find two equals, for heterogeneity and dissimilarity are its currency, its charm and its permanent novelty. The same would have to be said, if we were to rise to the piano of concepts: there are certain notes that, however subtle they sometimes seem to us, force us to establish hierarchies between them. And so we cling to one more than others, precisely because we regard them as possessors of greater or lesser value. What ultimately happens is that conceptual and axiological hierarchies are mutually reductible.

From a strictly Iogic perspective, concepts are susceptible to stratification, depending on the extent and understanding they possess, which, in short, means nothing but ontological wealth which, as the case may be, expressed there. According to the above, three concepts arise here to which, by their conjunction, we can well install in the highest degrees of valoraci6n and importance: life, time and circumstance; concepts, these, which, moreover, form one as a triad, in which, far from a full independence, they find are closely linked in their significance and clarification.