Coda

Abstract

In this personal review of the important and independent contributions to this book, I want to consider the timing of their development and how it might be possible to draw some of the main ideas together. To do so, I have chosen the ideas of periodicity and rhizomes. A recognition of the real world as a place in which we live and flourish is not new in the ontological literature. How we deal with our being in this world, both personally and as members of communities, has been a central issue for thinkers from ancient times to the present. Many paradigms have been used to create understanding and have worked well in their time—from the seven days of creation to evolution—and given both structure and meaning to our existence. They have forged what we value into part of the way in which humanity regards itself through the advocacy of rights and obligations. The periodization of our self-knowledge and that of our existence in a world of other entities is represented in the practical applications and artefacts that flow from these separate identifiable epochs of time, epochs that are not universal but culturally constructed. I will speak of the Enlightenment and the Renaissance, which have resonance in Europe but little in China or Africa, countries that have their own equally compelling periodization.