ABSTRACT
I have long thought that one of the deepest roots of philosophical thinking lies in the urge to look for some better understanding of one’s situation in life, at it has come to be marked by the interplay between what is universally the case so far as human beings are concerned and what is peculiar to one’s own particular personal situation. The complexities and tensions of this interplay between the particular and the universal lie at the heart of many of the problems most characteristic of philosophy. My own encounters with them have, philosophically speaking, been much influenced by my attempts to follow them through in the versions in which they appear in the philosophy of Kant – and on a less explicit but more personal level much influenced also no doubt by my Jewish heritage of a world-view with a claim both to universal truth and to a special significance for a particular people. It would seem that we are “in the end” brought to the recognition that to these inherently paradoxical tensions we shall never find any definitive resolution while yet remaining rationally committed to a continuing search for one.
