Thus, “Good and evil are certainly mutually exclusive in a relative sense; but perhaps in an absolute, divine sense, existence is simply good, in a way that contains both the relative good and the relative evil. Certainly intellectual progress and intellectual stagnation are in irreconcilable opposition; but perhaps the overall intellectual process is one of absolute progress, in which the empirically progressive factor is something relative and that which we call stagnation is also an element of progress. And so perhaps life and death, though they seem to exclude one another logically and physically, may be only relative contrasts, encompassed by life in its absolute sense, which grounds and transcends the reciprocal confrontation and mutual determination of life and death.”

DEFINE: Introduces a philosophical framework distinguishing relative from absolute truth, where apparent opposites are reconciled at a transcendent level.

XREF: Recalls Taoist and Hegelian dialectics where apparent opposites are sublated within a higher unity.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 915