In the absence of a singular deity, Man creates his environment. Man, a limited finite being, names, gathers, and develops systems of knowledge to organize and categorize it, i.e. statistics. This capacity for partition - division, ennumeration, and categorization - remakes 'the world' into compartments and a whole. Knowledge describes and limits environment. The world, as understood by Man, is finite. Knowledge, historically constituted, endures and comes to predate man - that mortal, fleeting, limited beast.
Knowledge (logic, numbers, ideas) compose and limits 'the world'. Man is enslaved to systems of knowledge and its techne - its much too large to be mastered. As a consequence, man fears the world - a fear stemming from an inescapable impotency.
"Fear, whether an instinct or an acquisition, is a function of the environment. Man fears because he exists in a fearful, an awful world. The world is precarious and perilous."
- John Dewey, Experience and Nature.
The modern subject is a paradox. It aspires towards autonomy, but is fearful of what it may entail. Descartes is rejected. "I think, therefore I am" is incomplete. To be free, truly free, the modern subject cannot avoid venturing into 'the world', the environment shared with other subjects, who are equally free - a confounding notion for the ostensibly unique and autonomous subject. To be free is to be limited. To be limited is to be exposed to limiting relations with 'others' and the environment - when the world challenges, can one simply retreat?
