The Act of Transcendence
This may be a slightly bizarre or uninformed topic (on my part), but it's been on my mind nonetheless. In my readings, it would appear that transcendence is generally thought of as a singular state - a noun that denotes a kind of inaction and permanence. Yet, especially as I sift through medieval Christian mysticism, there's a great emphasis on movement and action. Now, perhaps I'm just being silly here, but does that which is transcendent (whatever "that" may be) also transcend, in verb form? It would seem to me that whatever is transcending, or, say, getting from A to B is not yet transcendent (is not B). If this is true, what exactly is "it" that lies between A and B? The world?
Comments (10)
adjective
beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience: the search for a transcendent level of knowledge.
• surpassing the ordinary; exceptional: the conductor was described as a “transcendent genius.”
• (of God) existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe. Often contrasted with immanent.
• (in scholastic philosophy) higher than or not included in any of Aristotle's ten categories.
• (in Kantian philosophy) not realizable in experience.
The root of 'transcend' means "to climb across". It doesn't seem like mortals could reach the other side without climbing across. God, presumably, can transcend time and place without climbing across anything.
So, for us it would seem necessary that we perform--transcend. We transcend the limitations of our understanding of God by engaging in fervent prayer, fasting, and meditation--all actions. For us, we can't be here, then there, without actually moving from here to there.
Some people are "transcendentalists--a movement of spiritually keyed up Unitarians influenced by the Romantic Movement. Emerson, Fuller, and Thoreau come to mind as avatars of Transcendentalism.
Jesus TRANSCENDED death. Generally, people don't actually transcend much very often. Democrats had better TRANSCEND their current thinking, ways, and means. Trump TRANSCENDED the usual customs of the Republic Party. A yogi can TRANSCEND pain when walking on burning coals (supposedly).
Kant thought it was outside experience--which for us, I guess means we don't transcend and tell about it.
Transcendence is Still Pure Make-Believe
Since it is pure make-believe, you can say anything you want about it, and any 'argument' is rendered futile, or, at best, is reduced to agreements on the definitions of terms (words), where you then create an agreed-upon fantasy world.
Why did Medieval Christians Propose 'Transcendence'?
Because they lacked VERIFIED KNOWLEDGE, so they had to make guesses using their imagination, which was primitive owing to a lack of verified knowledge, which has long exposed (many times over) the notion of 'transcendence' as pure make-believe (that is, as good as any wild notion that your imagination can conjure-up, such as a Carrot God). In light of the vast amount of verified knowledge that we now have (but which is still largely ignored), it can be stated that 'transcendence' is the preposterous notion of primitive minds.
Transcendence in Technical Terms
As a technical proposal, however, it cannot be completely ruled-out (given infinity, which prevents us from 'knowing everything', hence leaving room for any possibility, however preposterous). The question then becomes whether it is worth further investigation. As it stands, given the 100% negative results of all investigations to date, it is not worth spending another second or penny on, but it is worth keeping the possibility in the back of your mind (as a 'tool of perspective', or what I like to call a 'Potentially-Useful Perspective') when peering into the unknown and considering possibilities to further investigate.
I think transcendence is an incoherent notion in metaphysics. If X is transcendent to Y, then there can be no relationship between X and Y (certainly no road from X to Y), because any sort of relationship (act of relating) would imply breaching the gap that we have just postulated through transcendence. If X and Y are transcendent, then in what kind of relationship can they be with the road that connects them? Clearly they can't be in any relationship - the road can't even exist - because if the road exists, then they aren't transcendent. With regards to existence - Being - nothing can be transcendent - that which is transcendent doesn't exist.
Thus immanentism is more fundamental than transcendence. The mystics emphasise movement and action because movement and action are fundamental. Being is Becoming - in fact the two are so inter-linked that they cannot even be thought except together. A thing is a product of an activity - things are constituted by activities. Indeed it is activity - movement - which generates or constitutes things, and thus ultimately things have no Being - are ephemeral - only the activity which generates them has Being and thus exists. That is why God cannot be thought of except by also thinking the Creation. The Creator and the Creation are interrelated intimately - one cannot exist without the other. It makes sense that there is no creation without Creator. But it also makes sense that there is no Creator without creation. Thus God needs the world as much as the world needs God, and therefore only God is necessary and has Being - but this God entails Creation as His shadow.
God can be understood to have both an immanent and a transcendent aspect. The same applies to being; it has both a phenomenal and a noumenal aspect; it is both knowable and unknowable.
The ghost of Kant has entered into this thread to tell us we have overstepped the boundaries of Pure Reason X-)
So let's see John... is knowledge of the noumenon phenomenal or noumenal? If it is phenomenal, then there is actually no noumenon - it is mere phenomenon - a dream, an illusion. If it is noumenal, then we have access to the noumenon.
Knowledge, in any determinate sense of the term, can only be phenomenal or logical. If we think there are no conditions that do not appear as phenomena, such that there can be a phenomenal world, then there we will think there is no noumenon. If we think there are such conditions, then obviously we will think there is are conditions that are not themselves experienceable that make experience possible. If those posited conditions are not experienceable then they are not phenomenal; if they are not phenomenal, then they cannot be known in any determinate sense.
Hmm, but who's to say all these are ways toward transcendence? Is praying and fasting and the like acts of transcending? And how would you know until you're actually transcendent? At that point, it would seem that you wouldn't even have knowledge of having gone from A to B.
Quoting Bitter Crank
This makes the most sense to me.
Quoting Agustino
I don't see how this follows. If X is your starting place, X is not transcendent, only Y is. However, my thinking here concerns, as you worded it, the road that bridges the two, X and Y. I'm trying to figure out whether what is transcendent ( Y ) is of the same purity as the act of transcending, moving from itself toward Y, and whether there is no bridge and X is always transcending. If that's the case, then X's act of transcending cannot be the same as Y, otherwise there's no difference between it and Y.
Quoting Agustino
How loving...
If X is the starting place, then Y can only be transcendent with reference to X - and symmetrically X will be transcendent with reference to Y. This is alike saying there is an infinite chasm between Y and X. If X and Y are in a relationship which is characterised by transcendence, then there can be no path between the two.
I agree with Kant, too. I don't know that prayer and fasting are effective for anything at all, but some people think they are and the do these things for some end.