Boundaries and Beyond: Commentary on Arnold Goldberg's “Some Limits of the Boundary Concept”

With his characteristic incisive intellectual vigor, Arnold Goldberg alerts us to problems not only in what we think, but, more important, in how we think. While I shall address the common tendency to place theoretical points of view in competition rather than allowing them to sit side by side, I have no doubt about the value of his clarion call concerning our problem in theorizing. We are but hu-man—a transitory high point in biological evolution, a species whose major advance (the capacity to symbolize and thus interrupt rigid instinctual patterns with the ability to play with ideas and make behavioral choices) falls short of a full competence to contain the universe in its mind.

The world is entire, whole cloth, not a patchwork quilt. It contains intrinsic contradictions and subtleties beyond the grasp of human logic with its characteristic categorical thinking. To bring aspects of the world into view, we focus attention, teasing aspects out of context. Having minds that work by dichotomizing, we continuously subdivide our categories until we forget that science— our notion of knowledge—creates an artificial map with boundaries that do not exist in nature. Dangers ensue. It is no coincidence that Goldberg turns to boundaries themselves as a prototypical instance of the problem.