Roberto Mangabeira Unger - Thought - Philosophy

Philosophy

At the core of Unger's philosophy are two key conceptions: the infinity of the individual, and singularity of the world and reality of time. The premise behind the infinity of the individual is that we exist within social contexts but we are more than the roles that these contexts may define for us—we can overcome them. In Unger's terms, we are both "context-bound and context-transcending;" we appear as "the embodied spirit;" as "the infinite imprisoned within the finite." For Unger, there is no natural state of the individual and his social being. Rather, we are infinite in spirit and unbound in what we can become. As such, no social institution or convention can contain us. While institutions do exist and shape our beings and our interactions, we can change both their structure and the extent to which they imprison us.

The philosophy of the singularity of the world and reality of time establishes history as the site of decisive action through the propositions that there is only one real world, not multiple or simultaneous universes, and that time really exists in the world, not as a simulacrum through which we must experience the world. These ideas put Kant and his legacy on trial, and reaffirm the openness of the future through insight into "the actual and imagination into the possible."

These two concepts of infinity and reality lie at the heart of Unger's program calling for metaphysical and institutional revolutions. To insist on the embodiment of spirit in the world means that the routines that it cannot penetrate or transform must be broken, which can only be done by changing our social institutions in wholly new ways that leave open all possibilities and allow experimentalism in life and social structures. To see the individual as context transcending means that we must be able to recreate our context, which can only be done in a singular world within which time is real.