Talking Transcendence: Scott Barry Kaufman in Dialogue with Alfonso Montuori (original) (raw)
Related papers
Transcendence as a Human and Political Problem: The Case of David Walsh
global moral and political language of rights," (xii), Walsh proposes to establish a third, "as momentous as the other two," and in fact an antidote to the drift of the other two into dehumanizing instrumentalization or incoherence and chaos. This antidote is an "eschatological openness that is the indefinable mystery of the personal," an insight "present at the very inception of philosophy and Christianity," but made "fully transparent" only in this modern philosophical revolution. An appreciation of this insight implies a radical revaluation of modernity. Whereas Walsh began twenty years ago with the view that modern philosophy was complicit in "ideological madness" and nihilism, his intensive studies of the moderns has convinced him that "the death of metaphysics in thought has meant the return of metaphysics in life." (xiii) "There is no crisis," after all. (10) The "search for meaning" is "inexhaustible," fortunately. (11) Modern philosophy progressively articulates, not a denial of authoritative moral standards, but an awareness of "the unsurpassable exigency of goodness … that is all the more powerful for our inability to contain … [it] within discursive limits." (xiii) Moreover, at the deepest level this insight represents not a rupture with the classical and Christian thought but "a convergence with rational and revelatory tradition." (xiv) Thus the modern turn from "entities and concepts to an existential meditation on the horizon within which [philosophy] finds itself," and thus to an appreciation of "the profoundly mysterious mode" in which alone "the transcendent can surface" (xv) fulfills the deepest meaning of both Socrates and of Christonce the meaning of the Western tradition is emancipated from "the fixity of the categories we have inherited from the ancient thinkers," or from the claim that "nature [can] furnish guidance." (12) The modern philosophical revolution can teach us that the fact that "reason remains unknown to itself" (16) is good news, indeed a saving existential truth. Kant inaugurates this existential revolution. Thus, although he does not complete it, we can uncover the insight that gives rise to this revolution in his work, or through a meditation on it. It is Kant whose "removal of the false faith of dogmatism" effects "the liberation of the true faith of reason itself," (31), that is, who opens reason to an awareness of the unspeakable transcendence from which it issues. He was limited only by his "fretting" over "the connection between the purposiveness within him and the purposiveness outside of him," somehow resisting the insight he approached so closely that "the finality of his own exercise of freedom is already an instantiation of finality within nature." (34) This finality is not known theoretically but practically or rather, morally and existentially in the form of the priority of right "over all else." (41) Kantian "autonomy" should not then be regarded as "a departure from any subordination to an authority beyond the human," or as intending "the kind of unfettered individual freedom now associated with autonomy." (46) On the contrary, human transcendence finds no purer expression than in our capacity to disregard "all but what is right." (47) "Our deepest access to being thus lies through the moral life," (49) and "the Kantian ideals of autonomy, equality, and community can be grasped and pursued only as a unity." (47, f.n. 15, quoting Allen Wood.) That is, the liberation of practice from theory, of human freedom from metaphysics, issues not in individualism but in a seamless synthesis of equal autonomy and moral community. The freedom of each is the condition of the moral community of all, and vice versa.
Review of General Psychology, 2006
The conventional description of Abraham Maslow’s (1943, 1954) hierarchy of needs is inaccurate as a description of Maslow’s later thought. Maslow (1969a) amended his model, placing self-transcendence as a motivational step beyond self-actualization. Objections to this reinterpretation are considered. Possible reasons for the persistence of the conventional account are described. Recognizing self-transcendence as part of Maslow’s hierarchy has important consequences for theory and research: (a)a more comprehensive understanding of worldviews regarding the meaning of life; (b) broader understanding of the motivational roots of altruism, social progress, and wisdom; (c) a deeper understanding of religious violence; (d) integration of the psychology of religion and spirituality into the mainstream of psychology; and (e) a more multiculturally integrated approach to psychological theory.
Note: this is an expanded edition of my previous e-book: “Resonance with the Self”. A new chapter has been added on seven key principles for an integral kind of science, as well as a new appendix on the symbolism of the seven Sacraments. Chapter four has been expanded with some new items. Analysis of the seven aspects of thinking, exercises, observation of the stream of thought and much more. A bonus chapter on polarities and a summary of the first two chapters has been added. Goals of this book: Understanding the crisis of civilization: lack of vision, materialistic values, the long descent downwards Regaining purpose of life: the position of the human being in the world Finding meaning in a fragmented world Developing a solid understanding of life Forming a sound vision of one's role in society Developing a philosophy of life Working together to make a transition to a wholesome world: from ego-centric to ecocentric
Transcendentalism in Contemporary Literature
Transcendentalism is not Archaic: The Legacy of American Transcendentalism in Contemporary Literature, 2019
American Transcendentalism (1836-1860), despite having an amorphous and transient lifespan, holds strong importance in American history: religious, philosophical, and literary. Not only did this movement approach societal and spiritual life with new and radical perceptions concerning a variety of matters, but the tenets it preached still strike a certain chord within all who study them. Leaders of this compelling movement, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller, who are all prominent names in American literary history, called for a “transcendence” from a mediocre existence. Transcendentalism rooted from and sprouted diverse explanations of religion and philosophy including Unitarianism, Puritanism, and Idealism. However, in spite of the pivotal role politics, religion and philosophy played in the formation of the American Transcendentalist thought, this paper will not be discussing them. The following chapters have been orchestrated to exemplify, in breadth and depth, how 19th century American Transcendentalist doctrines yet seep from contemporary literature, contrary to a widespread belief that American Transcendentalist texts were extinguished when their explicitly transcendental authors passed away, and the movement itself subsided. In doing so, I will be analyzing two modern novels (fiction and nonfiction) in light of a quintessential transcendentalist text.
Modern Psychology and the Loss of Transcendence
Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics
Modern Western psychology is largely defined by its dissociation from philosophy and religion. Yet, prior to the post-medieval world, psychology, philosophy, and religion were unified—and while there was no separate name for what we now know as the formal discipline of psychology, it nonetheless existed since the earliest times. The formation of the modern world and its secularizing outlook led to the gradual divorce of metaphysics and ontology from psychology. Having discarded transcendence and the intermediary realm of the psyche, the discipline has, by and large, forfeited its ability to truly heal the mind. Given its fragmented condition today, psychology is incapable of discerning the mind-body unity and its relationship to the tripartite structure of Spirit, soul, and body—something that was always recognized as central to any spiritually informed therapeutic approach. Ensuring the well-being of the human psyche requires access to a transpersonal order of reality. Only in this way can the metaphysical dimension to psychology be restored, so that it can become, once again, a true “science of the soul.”
In defence of the transcendent
R ep ro d uced w ith perm is s i o n o f t he ed ito rs © Les Lancas ter and B ritis h Ps ycho l o gi cal S o ci ety, 2 0 0 1 In a fascinating book, Eugene Taylor (1999) has recently traced the lineage of Transpersonal Psychology in America. He writes of the 'new awakening' that is radically changing US culture in general and psychology in particular, and, convincingly to my mind, demonstrates the continuities between this awakening and what he terms the shadow culture. The shadow culture is identified with American folk psychology and includes major movements such as the transcendentalism of Emerson and Whitman, and William James' pragmatism.
"At the point where we have been stripped to the simple human essence, we discover participation in an order of reality beyond the self." "We must return to the inarticulate or experiential order that has been there all along." "(W)hat is at stake in our acceptance or refusal of participation in that order is nothing less than our humanity itself." "Our problem is the loss of contact with the ordering spiritual traditions of Western civilization, and the resulting necessity of reestablishing the connection or discovering new spiritual sources of order." (David Walsh, After Ideology, 1990, pp. 257-264) David Walsh's reference to "self-transcendence", in the passage which inspired the topic of this project, occurs within the context of a work which aims to show that modernity must be diagnosed as a period of prolonged and profound spiritual disintegration. According to Walsh, the widespread destructiveness
Perspective on contemporary transcendence
1971
In the jargon of our day, transcendence is a "heavy" subject, dense not only with meaning, but with complexity and confusion. In short, the term's older meanings, largely associated with a metaphysical reality or religious experience, are being revived by persons from unexpected corners of the modern secular world. As one eminent sociologist has surmised,there is scattered evidence that secularization may not be as all embracing as some thought, that the supernatural, banished from cognitive respectability by the intellectual culture, may survive hidden in nooks and crannies… For whatever reasons, sizable numbers of specimen "modern man" have not lost a propensity for awe, for the uncanny, for all those possibilities that are legislated against by the canon of secularized rationality.Some of the interested see the traditional religious import behind the term in thoroughly naturalistic terms: either as a figment necessary for man's survival at one time or ...
Stanton Lecture 4 : Transcendence without Participation
2011
So far, in these lectures, I have been giving a misleading impression. This is that modern thought tends exclusively to favour immanence over transcendence. However, while on balance it may favour immanence, there is a crucial ‘minority report’ which favours transcendence, and which keeps recurring, because it is linked to the underlying set of assumptions of modern philosophy itself. But the transcendence that is favoured is a ‘transcendence without participation’, in contrast to the transcendence spoken of by the philosophia perennis from Plato to Aquinas and sporadically beyond.