So I'm reading Deirdre McCloskey's The Bourgeois Virtues. Not because I agree necessarily, but because it's interesting. And well written. But there is a section on love, the virtue--as opposed to what I ask myself as I make that clarification--and there is the idea that transcendence is necessary, that love cannot come from humans, it must somehow be participated in even though it is transcendent. [[I'll have to clarify this.]]
Anyway, I'm thinking: transcendence is a drive, not a goal. Once transcendence has been achieved, then it is no longer transcendent, as it now belongs to the sphere of the subtranscendental- or the 'merely' human. Sorry. I'm too much of a humanist to use merely without reservations because unless you are talking cosmology, people and human activity is pretty much it. The mind precedes its objects, as the Dhammapadda says, and the collective mind precedes the realm of human experience.
ANyway, transcendence is not achieved; it is performed. The drive to extend the realm/sphere of human experience necessarily changes (expands?) that realm which then must expand towards the new transcendence. It's a never ending (possibly eternally (for certain values of eternally) recurring) process.
Thus the transcendent doesn't come from anywhere but from us
Q: is this true, or at least a useful definition of, transcendence then?
Related musing on teleology: what if certain processes are teleological, but continue on aimlessly once the telos has been reached?
Friday, July 13, 2007
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1 comment:
that's the thing about teleology though, isn't it? Teleology is always translated into past experience in the future state of a person, and past experience is just as strong of a drive as a particular teleological goal. It's cyclical.
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