Abstract / DOI
The Obsession of Crossing Borders: On the Crisis of Modernity. Based on my study «Entgrenzungen» (Weilerswisst 22016) this article offers some historical sketches about the modern dynamic of crossing borders, which determines almost all fields of modern culture. The process of dis-limitations was mainly inaugurated by three heterogeneous developments in Renaissance philosophy. Firstly, before Copernicus Nicola de Cusa propagated the idea of a limitless universe based on a Neoplatonic speculation of the god as absolute reality where all limitations are dissolved. Secondly the Renaissance philosophy developed the revolutionary idea of human self-creation integrating the vis creative in the doctrine of the image Dei. Thirdly the expansion of the Iberian powers since the 15th century, above all the conquest of America, fostered the spirit of crossing frontiers in order to discover and conquest unknown fields and, not at least, a new cosmopolitanism. The dis-limitations of Renaissance philosophy inspired various intellectual and historical movements of the modern age, including the ideas of unlimited scientific and technical progress and economic growth.