physical or methodological systems guide us toward comprehending the world, they simultaneously become limitations to our understanding. By dictating the one proper way to view the world, we are denied the experience of viewing the world in a different fashion.
Some examples may be in order. If society accepts a purely mechanical model of political philosophy in which human nature and the universe are explained by reference to matter and motion, then any discussion about spiritual values and non-physical events is philosophically irrelevant. Similarly, if the only appropriate model of analysis is the empirical method of science in which hypotheses are verified through observable events, then such issues as morality and enlightened introspection must be ignored. Conversely, if the model of analysis emphasizes the spiritual and immaterial aspects of life, then considerations of matter, observable events and scientific "fact" become unimportant.
The point is that philosophical models of the world-"paradigms" of understanding the universe, so to speak-embody specific principles and methods that are vital for understanding phenomena from that particular perspective. But at the same time these intellectual suppositions also create limitations on our being able to understand other aspects of the same phenomena that are not highly valued by the given paradigm.
In a way, existential thought also can participate in this dilemma of political philosophy, providing simultaneous guidance and limits to human understanding. But in another sense, existential philosophy is quite unique from other models of political philosophy-sufficiently unique as to avoid the stringent limitations of other political philosophies and open up the potential for an ever-broader approach to political inquiry and human knowledge. One of the central problems of existential thought is precisely that it can find no absolute values in the traditional sense, n...