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 > > >____________________________________________________________________ >More than just email--Get your FREE Netscape WebMail account today at http://home.netscape.com/netcenter/mail > > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%