The Limits of Reason – Leszek Kolakowski
For centuries philosophy has asserted it’s legitimacy by asking and answering questions inherited from the Socratics and pre-Socratics: how to distinguish the real from the unreal, true from false, good from evil. There came a point, however, when philosophers had to confront a simple, painfully undeniable fact: that of the questions which have sustained European philosophy for two and a half millenia, not a single one has been answered to general satisfaction. All of them, if not declared invalid by the decree of philosophers, remain controversial.
The human need for religion cannot be excommunicated from culture by rationalist incantation. Human beings do not live by reason alone. Life is more complex than rationalism allows. Reason has its limits and can never displace the deeper level of engagement with reality that is the essence of religious belief and practice. The rationalist lives in an impoverished, restricted world, defined by what reason alone can prove. Yet beyond those restrictions lies a whole new vibrant world awaiting discovery and disclosure. It does not defy or contradict reason; it simply lies beyond its scope.
(Ex-Marxist, Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski [1927-2009], Metaphysical Horror, 2001)
