Possibility, Necessity and Contingency

Before language, reality was not conceived or considered. It was only known.

Before language, metaphysics was impossible. Without language, man is no different from anything else. It is language which creates the possibility of difference, language which actuates the disconnection of mankind from reality. But language is no merely negative force, and disconnection is not always alienation.

Language, as disconnection, opens up a space between man and reality. For this reason, man seeks to reconnect with reality by way of language. That is the purpose of metaphysics.

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Language disconnects man from reality, and thereby creates the very possibility of possibility.

Before the conception of reality, it was impossible to imagine anything as contingent. It is the mark of primitive man that everything is seen as necessary and inevitable. Similarly, it is the mark the civilized, that is to say, those who have become enamored with civilization, that everything is seen as contingent.

The wiser man understands that the being of possibility is inherent to language, and the being of necessity is inherent to the world. It is only within man that any mediation between contingency and necessity is possible.

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There is no longer any primitive man. To know civilization is to become civil. Even those who are at a remove from civilization are themselves civilized. We are all of us spouses trapped in a loveless marriage. Civilization has seduced us, and we have become enamored with it. We know not life without it; that is to say, we know not even that we are always already within it.