Notes on Transcendence
Transcendence connotes permanence and irreversibility. That is, if one transcends a particular condition, the agent may no longer experience that condition. If I transcend “the tragic,” I can no longer experience tragedy.
It appears that transcendence, then, involves temporality. There must be a sequence of before, during, and after. The prefix trans assures us of this dimension of the word.
Or, is transcendence non-temporal? Is transcendence an attitude with which the agent perceives the world? Hence, I would continuously transcend. (I strongly doubt this. It seems impossible to me to transcend conditions that one has not yet encountered. Must one be familiar with or experience a condition in order to transcend it. Is transcendence retroactive?)
Transcendence is a way the agent relates to internal or external conditions. Transcendence is relational.
He transcends and is transcendent. As a verb transcend marks a process, as an adjective or noun, an end-state or product.
Transcendence is value-laden. I simply cannot think of a case in which transcendence is immoral. Can I transcend goodness? It would seem that, if I did, I would transcend the entire sphere of morality and would not, therefore, assert evil. (Nietzsche does this when he calls for an end to morality but not ethics.)
Transcendence is the route to Zen. When I think of transcend I imagine an ascending curve that tapers off. The slope of the curve is greater at the onset. But why?
What is the opposite of transcendence? …Immanence? I am not sure.
It appears that transcendence, then, involves temporality. There must be a sequence of before, during, and after. The prefix trans assures us of this dimension of the word.
Or, is transcendence non-temporal? Is transcendence an attitude with which the agent perceives the world? Hence, I would continuously transcend. (I strongly doubt this. It seems impossible to me to transcend conditions that one has not yet encountered. Must one be familiar with or experience a condition in order to transcend it. Is transcendence retroactive?)
Transcendence is a way the agent relates to internal or external conditions. Transcendence is relational.
He transcends and is transcendent. As a verb transcend marks a process, as an adjective or noun, an end-state or product.
Transcendence is value-laden. I simply cannot think of a case in which transcendence is immoral. Can I transcend goodness? It would seem that, if I did, I would transcend the entire sphere of morality and would not, therefore, assert evil. (Nietzsche does this when he calls for an end to morality but not ethics.)
Transcendence is the route to Zen. When I think of transcend I imagine an ascending curve that tapers off. The slope of the curve is greater at the onset. But why?
What is the opposite of transcendence? …Immanence? I am not sure.
posted by AJV at 8:50 AM
1 Comments:
AJ, I'll start at the end: I think the opposite of transcendent is living-in. What does that mean? Well it goes to the Nietzsche thing.
He advocates transcending the moral sphere, which really means moving outside of the system (network) of values and meanings that are placed on things and actions. For Nietzsche, things and actions have no inherent meaning or value which means that good and evil are values assigned to them. Nothing is good or evil in and of itself, there is no value in the essence or material of anything. Values are the result of interpretation, they are added onto the thing itself because of the way we think or feel about that thing. Values and meaning are the result of interpretation and make up the network or world in which we live.
In this context, transcendence is stripping away the interpretations that are attached to things and action, stripping away the values and meaning. Transcending anything means simply to move out of the common or given network and into another. So to transcend something means to move out of a network or world of meanings. When you do this you move to another network of interpretations, often one that claims to be more neutral. However, it is merely another way of arranging, valuing and giving meaning it is never a higher plane. Transcendence is always relative and persectival.
Then, for me, the opposite of transcendence is living-in. This means that you don’t move out of the network of interpretation but live in that network.
This may move a bit away from what Nietzsche himself would say, but it is based on his idea of transcending good and evil.
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