From Necessity to Possibility

Summary

In this essay an effort is made to develop the thesis that over the past 400 years in the West we have witnessed a gradual shift from a preoccupation with necessity in the direction of a preoccupation with the possible. It is suggested that between 1600 and 1950 people in the West have gradually come to appeal to the category of the possible where formerly, to some degree under the influence of ideas first developed by the ancient Greeks and Romans, one would have used the category of necessity to articulate one’s conception of the world and of one’s own self. This basic thesis is illustrated and justified by reflections on classical physics and rationalist moral theories on the one hand, and quantum mechanics and hermeneutic moral theories on the other. In view of the fact that at first sight Kant’s approach to science and the moral order seem to be in conflict with the basic thesis proposed here, Kant’s ideas have been given a special place in the argument.