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The difficulty smuggled away

To say we must tell the possible from the inevitable, is that to answer the question, or to ask it again?

Objects to Knowing the difference

1. The path of discernment holds in a single formula: act on what depends on us, accept the rest, and know how to tell the difference. Who would not subscribe to it?
2. But it is precisely this knowing how to tell the difference that was the whole question. Where does the boundary of the possible fall? The Stoic draws it close to himself, the Promethean keeps pushing it back: their disagreement is about just this, and discernment settles nothing, it sends each back to his own judgment.
3. A wisdom that contents itself with saying « it depends » risks being no third path, but the polite name for hesitation: one avoids choosing by calling it moderation.

Therefore So discernment, as long as it does not say how to draw the boundary, might be only a question rephrased as an answer.