Complementarity in Science and Philosophy: The Plurality of Descriptions and the Limits of Theoretical Systems

This essay advances a simple but controversial thesis: complementarity has gained full methodological legitimacy in science because scientific inquiry is constrained by its object and by operational verification. In philosophy, by contrast, complementarity often remains marginal or suspect, since the discipline tends to privilege the internal coherence of theoretical systems and, in many of its contemporary forms, appears relatively detached from empirical and pragmatic constraints. Complementarity is understood here not as undifferentiated pluralism, but as the structural recognition of the descriptive limits of any theory. The theme of the “Other” is used as a case study to show how apparently divergent theories—Sartre, Levinas, and Lacan—can be interpreted as complementary descriptions referring to different levels of the intersubjective phenomenon (phenomenological, ethical, and structural). The essay concludes by proposing the idea of a philosophical complementarism as a corrective to the self-referential tendency of academic philosophy and as a condition for re-establishing a more direct relationship between philosophical reflection and reality.