The sea without shores: A philosophical mythology of the water

Abstract

This text aims to deepen into the origins of metaphysics as a philosophical exercise based on some mythical narrations from the Egyptian and Greek civilizations. For this, the elementary rescued figure from these stories is “the water”, which, in its various manifestations, latently expresses the way in which man relates to his most recondite origin and the mysteries that surround him. This concern survives from the 18th century metaphysics, despite the rational burden that conceals it. In particular, the image of the water as linked to the attractive forces of the unknown, is revisited in the Immanuel Kant's work, which characterizes metaphysics in the Critique of Pure Reason as a sea without shores, whose exploration is the temptation of reason. This exercise is intended to investigate the philosophy's own motives.