Agency and system cannot be synthesized, only alternated between

Evidence

Kant showed that we cannot hope to use these codes together or coordinate them in any meaningful way, and above all, that it would be vain (and metaphysical) to hammer them together into a “synthesis.” He did not exactly suggest, I think, that we were thereby condemned to an alternation between them; but that would seem to be the only conclusion to draw. — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 706

Categorization

• QUESTION: This frames the voluntarism-determinism duality as an irreducible alternation — worth chasing whether Jameson later offers any exit or only radicalizes the trap.
• XREF: connects to: A perpetual failed synthesis keeps the in-itself and for-itself inseparable yet independent
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: A perpetual failed synthesis keeps the in-itself and for-itself inseparable yet independent