The issue of transcendent reality was an eighteenth century response to
empircism. The world as will and power described by Schopenhauer was
elaborated on through the "principium de individuationi [principle of
individuation]" in attempt to reconstruct a philosophical view of the self
[ego] as a transcending center of being, as though it needed explanation of
a phenomenal sort but not entirely. The empiricists claimed that "man was a
ratio of the five senses", as well, the consequences of a purely
deterministic belief in life that results in a world view subject to "mind
forged manacles" [Blake]. Kantian thought was able to reduce the empirical
beliefs in an ultimate reality [set of notions explained by proofs] as being
subject to analogy, ontology and [i kant remember the third proof]. The idea
of a transcendent reality is the supposition of the self as persisting over
time and being verifiable [more or less] as it was an appeal to common sense
within the philosophy of German idealism. The idea was that if someone has
thoughts then the thoughts must be owned by someone, thoughts that exist as
memory, written words etc, or are self attested to in thought.
William James perhaps provides the most coherent explanation of the
transcendent ego: in regards to the historicity of the self, consciousness
of the self:
"Who owns the last self owns the self before the last, for what owns the
possessor possesses the possessed." In Principles of Psychology, The
consciousness of the self.
This sentence may seem funny, but struggle as we may there is no reason to
believe that the self, from a strictly empirical basis, is real. Since it is
only an aggregation of facts or experiences, sensations of the retina,
smell, etc. with no other basis for appropriation, other than
representations of the external world.
James goes on: "it is impossible to discover any verifiable features in
personal identity...impossible to imagine how any transcendent
non-phenomenal sort of an Arch-Ego, were he there, could shape matters to
any other result, or be known in time by other fruit, than just this
production of a stream of consciousness each 'section' of which should know,
and knowing, hug to itself and adopt the objects already adopted by any
portion of this spiritual stream....The only point that is obscure is the
*act of appropriation itself*.
"A thing cannot appropriate itself; it is itself; and still less can it
disown itself"
James states that there are three contemporaneous theories of the unity of
the pure self [outside of experience] which are the
* spiritualist;
* associationist; &
* transcendentalist
The transcendentalist theory was postulated by Kant [as we know] is similar
to what James says but the language Kant uses is difficult. The sine qua
none of experience itself is called "original transcendental synthetic Unity
of Apperception"& this is the assertion behind the existence of each
thought and is briefer than the time it takes to read the phrase.
James calls this "self consciousness of this 'transcendental' sort [and]
tells us, ' not how we appear, not how we inwardly are, but only that we
are'. At the basis of our knowledge of ourselves there lies only 'the simple
and utterly empty idea: I; of which we cannot even say we have a notion, but
only a consciousness which accompanies all notions. In this I, or she or it
[the thing which thinks], nothing more is represented than the bare
*transcendental Subject* of the knowledge =X, which is only recognized by
the thoughts which are its predicates, and which, taken by itself, we cannot
form the least conception' [paralogisms, Kant]"
in this way the self can be seen as agent in overcoming an ignorance that
existed prior to the self in relation to knowing definite qualitities of an
object [body].
"The self exists as one self only as it opposes itself, as object, to itself
as subject, and immediately denies and *transcends* that opposition." Hegel,
1883.
John
At 07:50 PM 11/9/1998 America/Fort, you wrote:
>Or, to follow up on Steve's question, are you talking about a Kantian notion
>of transcendental idealism? I guess the question is really what you mean by
>"transcendence".
>
>Alan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>[log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Bryan Hyden <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Sunday, November 08, 1998 8:51 PM
>Subject: Re: gentlemen?
>
>
>>>Bryan, please define "higher nature."
>>
>>Sure Corey. We are of a higher nature because we are self-aware. Now, the
>>language gets a little slippery here because someone could argue that
>>there's no way of knowing whether or not animals (for instance) are
>>self-aware. So I'll use different language. Human's are the only earthly
>>possesors of 'free-will'. I mean we have free-will in the sense that we
>can
>>trancend the physical world. We are not of this earth. We are not our
>>bodies.
>
>If we are "not of this earth," what are we of? "Transcend the physical
>world"? How? Sorry, but you've really lost me here. Are you talking
>trascendentalism as in eastern religions or what?
>
>Steven J. Bissell
>http://www.du.edu/~sbissell
>http://www.responsivemanagement.com
>Our human ecology is that of a rare species of mammal
>in a social, omnivorous niche. Our demography is one of
>a slow-breeding, large, intelligent primate.
>To shatter our population structure, to become abundant
>in the way of rodents, not only destroys our ecological
>relations with the rest of nature, it sets the stage
>for our mass insanity.
> Paul Shepard
>
>
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