One of the most interesting discussions I feel we’ve had on Kant so far has been on his idea of unity. I was particularly interested in the suggestion that we, humans, unify at the expense of reality and our experience is a perversion of the given. I find Kant’s suggestion that we create unity because we are one, in spite of the fact that pure unity doesn’t actually exist. I love the image of a human being taking in the manifold before her through senses and thoughts and then having it come out on the other side (or in her mind) as a unified perceptive experience.  This way of experiencing things seems to be a natural reflex and our discussion reminded me of the same idea as relates to history.  

In Dr. Pete Kuryla’s class a few weeks ago he drew a circle on the board which represented the past, then he drew a small dot in the center of the circle which represented history.  This idea of synthesizing  the manifold, a.) for the sake of simplicity and b.) because we can’t possibly take it all in, seems to be very true to how humans work in the world.  I can feel better about this when I realize that, most of all, this represents a space into which we can grow.