-
A Philosophical Look At The Egocentric Interpretation Of Self-transcendence In Man In The Light Of Nietzsche
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 7]
Page 2 of 7
-
-
-
THE NOTION AND MEANING OF SELF-TRANSCENDENCE IN MAN
Self-transcendence
being a quality outstanding in all human actions has its etymological
meaning taken from the Latin word “Transcendere†which means to ascend
on, elevate oneself above, cross, displace, scale, or simply going
beyond. Going with this etymological meaning, the concept transcendence
is attained by experience and at this level of experience, it denotes a
spatial relation: the relation of surpassing, unboundedness, passing
beyond, displacement in the sense of being above, being beyond, outside
of etc. Consequently, we have such expressions like “to transcend one’s
own confinesâ€, ambient or environment, “to transcend every limit†to
transcend the cloud and so on. Following this, the concept of
self-transcendence is transferred now from the realm of material or
sensible to that of the abstract and spiritual concept. From this angle,
it therefore becomes possible to say that the substance transcends the
accidents, intellective knowledge transcends sensitive knowledge. The
soul transcends the world of matter or body etc.
In our own time in
philosophy, the term has taken up a technical meaning. It indicates
today the divine reality, namely, it can refer to the Divine (the
transcendence is God) As Mondin points out, we use the term
transcendence today even more often when speaking not only of God but
also of man. All along, we have been talking on the transcendence of
sensible objects. But we can apply the term to the subject. In this case
therefore, we can talk of auto- transcendence. The term therefore
indicates the property of man by which he constantly goes beyond himself
in all that he thinks, wills and all that he realizes or achieves. We
can say therefore that man transcend himself. He transcends himself in
thought, in liberty, in language, in association and in many other
things. In fact “he is never satisfied with his achievementsâ€.
1.1 THE PRINCIPAL PARTS OF SELF-TRANSCENDENCE
The
term transcendence is divided into two principal parts namely
horizontal or historical transcendence and vertical or metaphysical
auto-transcendence, While horizontal transcendence consists of a simple
going towards the future, but remaining within the horizon of space and
time and therefore of history. On the other hand “Vertical transcendence
refers to the one that pushes higher, and tends to exceed the limits
(bounds) of space and time, towards infinite".
In the horizontal
transcendence, man tries to overcome his cosmic limitations, and project
himself to a better future like in the various technological products
such as car, air-conditions, houses, medicine, airplanes etc. The
vertical auto-transcendence is seen as a movement from the phenomenal to
noumenal level. Here, man tries to discover realities behind the
spiritual world.
1.1.1 THE EGOCENTRIC INTERPRETATION OF SELF- TRANSCENDENCE.
A
careful and critical examination of the philosophies of Plato,
Aristotle, Stoics, Descartes, Feurerbach, Hegel and Nietzsche reveals
that man is always seen as trying to extricate himself from life
shackles, alienation, entanglement or the state of oppression. The
purpose of this liberation is to reinstate man back to his true nature
and this of course should be done through discovering human
potentialities, which will enable him to realize and actualize himself.
This solution has the good of the subject as its primary objective.
According to the egocentric solution, “the movement of
self-transcendence has its one aim, the perfection, the fulfillment, of
man’s being in its individual personâ€[3]. This was retaken and developed
by F. Nietzsche, as we shall see later.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 7]
Page 2 of 7
-
