Failure as an encounter with reality. in Bloomington, MN

According to Fichte, man is incomplete both physically and spiritually, or at least rationally. Fichte's idea helps us better understand Pépin's: "Nature has completed all her works, but she has abandoned man and handed him over to himself." Unfinished, man comes into the world to fulfill himself, to complete himself. Human fulfillment, therefore, requires the experience of reality. Pépin calls this experience failure. So it's by experiencing failure that man achieves fulfillment. In this sense, failure can legitimately be thought of as an anthropological reality.