Uz zināmā un nezināmā robežas: Kants un Rāners
Authors:   LU Filozofijas un socioloģijas institūts, Kūlis Rihards 
Published: February 2025

The beginnings of Western philosophy are largely marked by Parmenides’ (6th century BC) question, full of wonder and awe: “why there is something instead of nothing?” Parmenides does not know the answer to this question. Modern philosophy does not provide an acceptable answer either. However, the question itself is still alive, prompting one to consider the boundaries of existence and non-existence, known and unknown, knowable and unknowable (also thinkable and unthinkable).

Human existence on the border of the known and the unknown can be viewed from various angles and in different coherencies: one can rightly talk about the relationship between the known and the unknown in the cognitive process, in the daily practice of learning the world and in social developments; after all, all human existence transpires on this border, from a child’s efforts to learn about the world to a nuclear physicist’s questions about the nature of elementary particles or a theologian’s questions about God. I would like to claim that the statement “existence on the border of the known and the unknown” could justifiably be treated as a fundamental existential category.

In the history of Western philosophy and culture, the problem of the border between the known and the unknown has, over time, found expression in the form of specific cultural (philosophical) archetypes: B. Pascal’s “the abyss” (le gouffre), M. Heidegger’s “Existenz on hillside” (Existenz am Abhang), K. Jaspers’s “the Encompassing” (das Umgreifende), etc.

The article is dedicated to the problem of the known and the unknown, mainly based on the views of I. Kant and K. Rahner.

According to I. Kant, the world can be cognized endlessly, but one condition must be kept in mind: the result of this process does not bear the quality of absolute and complete knowledge. This would only be possible for divine intelligence, not human understanding. Kant limits knowledge or, more precisely, man’s illusion of the limitlessness of his cognitive abilities. Unlike the speculative metaphysician, he does not yearn to penetrate the mysteries of the transcendental. The philosopher wants to find a respectful place for faith, at the same time elevating science and allocating it (in the aspect of natural-science research) inviolable limits. At the point where science must stop, if it wants to remain science, we can allot the place to faith, which, according to the philosopher, is an integral element of human existence.

According to K. Rahner, a man inhabits the anteroom of a mystery whose name is God. God cannot be cognized in the same way as an object is cognized. However, Rahner thinks, the mystery can be approached by following a special cognitive path. This is the path of the mystic. Admittedly, Rahner separates this path from, in his opinion, subjective and empty fantasies. The philosopher, following the tradition of Western culture, is convinced that the practice of the mystic must also be subject to rational control.

Despite the fundamental differences, when thinking about the border between the knowable and the unknowable, the views of both philosophers hold similar elements. Whilst allowing for the presence of mysticism in the cognition and learning of the world, it is limited by preserving the fundamental orientations of the Western rationalist tradition.