Immanent Transcendence Research Articles

Transcending Transcendence in Jim Jarmusch's Paterson

Abstract Building on Paul Schrader's thesis in Transcendental Style in Film that immanence and transcendence clash, this article explores a departure from this binary in Jim Jarmusch's 2016 film, Paterson. Although Paterson follows the formula of transcendental cinema, it lacks Schrader's prerequisite “Decisive Moments” for transcendence. I contend that films can evoke transcendence without distinct release moments, as exemplified by Paterson. To support this, Paterson is contrasted with Yasujiro Ozu's 1953 masterpiece, Tokyo Story, identified by Schrader as quintessentially transcendental and a key influence on Jarmusch. Introducing the concept of “immanent transcendence” to describe Paterson's unique position, I argue that transcendence and immanence can coexist. I challenge traditional notions of transcendental cinema, shedding light on cinematic experiences that bridge immanence and transcendence.

Exodus into Ordinary Life

This essay focuses on Eric Santner’s psychoanalytic reinterpretation of the crucial symbol of Judaism – yetziat mitzrayim, the getting out of Egypt – as “the Exodus out of our own Egyptomania.” Formulated in his book on Rosenzweig and Freud, On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life, it appears in all Santner’s later works concerned with political theology, where “Egyptomania” stands for everything that overburdens human life with an excessive “signifying stress” or “ex-citation,” weighing it down with the impossible demands of the ultimate metaphysical self-justification and the interpellating call to sublimity. Contrary to Hegel’s definition of Judaism as “the religion of the sublime,” Santner consequently champions the opposite view, according to which the Abrahamic revelation forms the first religion of radical desublimation that blocks the vertical transport into the extraordinary “beyond” and focuses instead on the immanent transcendence as the radical otherness of the neighbour/stranger in the world. The Exodus, therefore, is to be understood not as an exit out of the world, following the call of the otherworldly God, but precisely the other way round: as an exit of the Egyptomaniac metaphysical paralysis, where “Egypt” represents an impasse of the self-negating life which cannot tolerate its finite condition and invents a sublime alibi in a false promise of immortality.

Abstract or Concrete Utopia? Concerning the Ideal Society in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

In seeking an appropriate approach to the ideal society in Chinese thought, the present study comprises two main parts. The first part deals with a debate in Chinese philosophy concerning the possibility of an inner or immanent transcendence as a way of defining Chinese culture. As this debate unfolded, it became clear that Chinese philosophers—especially on the mainland—do not regard the transcendent–immanent distinction as applicable to Chinese culture and philosophy. In short, this culture and its philosophy simply has no need for transcendence. Instead, other terms are needed, especially those drawn from a tradition that “secularised” them many millennia ago: moral cultivation, regeneration, home, and intimacy. In this light, the second part of the study deals with two approaches to the ideal society: the Confucian “Great Harmony [大同 datong]” and the short story “Peach Blossom Spring [桃花源 taohuayuan]”. These terms are mediated by a treatment of the “Three Worlds Theory [三世说 sanshishuo]”, developed most fully by He Xiu (129–82 CE). The outcome of this investigation is that the ideal society is very much part of this world. It can be known only through direct observation, empirical investigation, and it is achievable only by detailed planning. It is nothing less than home.

Christotopia: Spaces of Christ

In this article, driven by the hermeneutics of the phenomenon and specialties, I propose the structuring of a theoretical-theological framework capable of identifying the categories and elements inherent to the antagonism between good and evil present in the order of created things, substantially in the human ontology. In this epistemological path, by the methodological option, I will go through the syntagmatic itinerary of evil, in its nuances and territorial thanatopic demarcations to antagonistically demonstrate the elements and traits that constitute the good that orbits the entire divine cosmogenesis. These elements that involve the positive response of humanity seen from the ethical and moral evaluative praxis to the paradigm of human faith shown in the lives of individuals and societies, the framing of the spatial specter of opposition to chaos in the midst of it. These spaces of axiological opposition and cosmic redemption are generated from the (in)carnational ontological-territorial phenomenon of the manifestation of the (trans)forming presence of Christ and his Basileia, through which the Christophanic theophany in its immanent transcendence reveals to us the heterotopic molds what I call Christotopia, the spaces of Christ.They are theotopic spaces from outside, but substantially, biotopic spaces from inside. They are spaces of life and meaning in which christophany is established in a diametrically opposed way to spaces of death and non-meaning which are installed throughout time and society in all its spheres. In the light of Foucault’s heterotopic metaphor, the Christotopias focus on human existence and can be seen as boats launched into the infinite sea of the thanatopic cosmos. The Christotopias are places without a place; places of re-signification and survival; spaces of faith and decision, life and salvation, palpable spaces of overlapping deviation from death, closed, but at the same time open, spaces of art, poetry and melody amidst the noises of this world, real places where utopias become realizable, palpable, and dreams in Jesus Christ become possible.

"And You Just Happened to Find Me": The Turn to the Transcendent Relational in Tim Winton's The Shepherd's Hut

Abstract: This article explores the concept of the transcendent relational through the analysis of the encounter between the two main characters of Tim Winton's The Shepherd's Hut . The transcendent relational names a new understanding of transcendence characteristic of transmodernity, the sociocultural paradigm that has succeeded postmodernity. It draws on the synergies between caring individualism and immanent transcendence, both distinctive features of transmodern times (Rodríguez Magda). The study of Winton's novel proves that relationality of a higher order is needed for the experience of the dimension of reality that goes beyond the strictly human and the material. It is also symptomatic of a growing interest in transcendence that does not rule out institutionalized religion but, most characteristically, implies an intimate search outside creeds and dogmas.

The critical theory of society: From its Young-Hegelian core to its key concept of possibility

Responding to a call for systematic contributions on the theory of society, the principle aim of this article is to recover and reconstruct the Young-Hegelian core of critical theory’s theory of the dialectical development of society and, on that basis, to project its creative research-based continuation by analysing its largely neglected key concept of possibility. The acknowledgement of the critical theory lineage’s naturalist, realist and especially idealist features leads this reconstruction to ascribe a central role to certain pivotal concepts that deserve special attention – including nature, the construction of society, evolution, immanent–transcendence and the conceptual conditions or cognitive order of society. A side effect of this theoretical exposition is the exposure in the course of the argument of certain weaknesses often visible in the contemporary articulation of the theory of society in both critical theory and general social theory. Conceptual solutions to those deficiencies are simultaneously presented in a form appropriate to critical theory’s modal-based negative explanatory and positive disclosing critique.

Peter Winch and the idea of immanent transcendence

AbstractThe idea of immanent transcendence is constitutive for Winch's philosophy of religion and his ethics. Winch's philosophy of religion insists on the ‘immanent’ dimension of religion. His ethics insists on the ‘transcendent’ dimension of ethics. In this sense, both religion and ethics embody a perspective ‘beyond’ this world and yet must have practical consequences in this world. Transcendence without immanence is idle, and immanence without transcendence is empty—this is the kernel of Winch's philosophy of religion and of his ethics.

A Nomadic Spirituality in the Dream of the Red Chamber: Seeking the Goddess in an Immanent Process

The multicultural work, The Dream of the Red Chamber, posits a field for exploring the interconnection between Confucian interpretations and its intrinsic Goddess narrative. In this article, I examine the reconciliation of the former with the latter. The immanent transcendence in Neo-Confucianism is not enough for interpreting this novel, for covering the question of a natural connection between Vermilion Pearl and Shen Ying, for a dichotomy of tian and the earth, the transcendent and the immanent. The Goddess narrative of repairing tian can rectify this difficult position and a nomadic spirituality forged in a mutually cultivating process is proposed, both to rescue the Confucian interpretation of the novel and to find a way of reconciling the Confucian ‘ tian’ and the Goddess.

A ‘transversal’ dialogue with Wentzel van Huyssteen’s theological approach

In this essay, I compared notes with Wentzel van Huyssteen, one of the most prominent theologians in the science–religion discussion. I followed the topics dealt with in a casual interview with Frits Gaum, in which Van Huyssteen responded to set questions: on his academic journey, God, the Bible, creation and evolution, human uniqueness, original sin, eternal life, Jesus and the relation between faith and research. Whilst there was considerable consensus between us in most respects, I would change the focus from an ‘apologetic’ agenda (science and theology were describing the same world from equally valid vantage points using comparable rationalities) to a ‘missionary’ agenda (making the Christian faith more accessible to scientists by following the approach of ‘experiential realism’). Science confined its operations to different aspects of the reality that was accessible to human observation, explanation and manipulation, whilst theology concentrated on our relation to the transcendent Source and Destiny of all of reality. To make sense to a scientist, theology must shun unsupported postulates and speculations and confront the scientist with the basic alternative of claiming to be the ultimate authority over the immanent world (presuming to be the owner, master and beneficiary of reality) and being derived from, and responsible to, the ultimate Source and Destiny of reality. The confusion between immanent transcendence (aspects of immanent reality that were not accessible to our observation, explanation and manipulation) and transcendent immanence (immanent reality as a whole was open towards a higher Source and Destiny) bedeviled the interface between science and faith. Science challenged theology to provide experiential evidence; theology challenged science to be responsible to ultimate authority.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Both Wentzel van Huyssteen and I have worked consistently on an interdisciplinary basis. However, whilst Wentzel focused strongly on the natural sciences, I spent most of my time on the relation between the Christian faith and the human sciences (economics, ecology, cultural anthropology, politics, etc.) and concentrated on the natural sciences only after my retirement. In my essay, I highlighted the difference between trying to demonstrate the comparability and compatibility between theology and science on the one hand and highlighting the challenge that science posed to faith and faith posed to science on the other hand.

‘Immanent transcendence’: Toward a genealogical analysis of a key concept in the philosophy of Mou Zongsan (1909–1995)

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to offer a new interpretation of the controversial concept of ‘immanent transcendence’ (neizai chaoyue 内在超越) in the work of the Confucian philosopher Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995). After a series of introductory remarks on the semantic and conceptual range of the terms ‘immanence’ and ‘transcendence’ in comparative philosophy, I go on to provide a historically sensitive analysis of the origins of thenotion of ‘immanent transcendence’ in Mou’s work. In doing so, I argue that rather than merely reflecting a blanket ontological or epistemological claim serving todifferentiate Chinese from Western culture and thought, the paradoxical concept of ‘immanent transcendence’ has a profoundly socio-political dimension and testifies Mou’s efforts to maintain a form of continuity between the normative and the factual in the face of the unprecedented challenges faced by the Confucian tradition in the modern era.

God is a Female Plant: Femininity and Divinity in the Stories of Anne Richter, Kathe Koja, and Karen Russell

ABSTRACT This essay is concerned with the relationship between femininity and divinity in feminist speculative fiction. It equates becoming divine with becoming plant, and studies the transformations that attend women in this process in modernity, postmodernity and transmodernity. Taking as its point of departure Mark Taylor’s evolution of the concept of God through immanence, transcendence and immanent transcendence, and Rosa María Rodríguez Magda’s definition of transmodernity, it examines “The Sleep of Plants” (1967) by Anne Richter, “The Neglected Garden” (1991) by Kathe Koja, and “The Bad Graft” (2014) by Karen Russell. It argues that by becoming plants these women locate themselves in opposition to the norms of divinity created by men, and proposes to delineate the contours of a new feminist paradigm in the present transmodern age through the study of botany.

Democracy & Political Religion

This article focuses on the controversy between Reinhold Niebuhr and John Dewey about the function of religion and religious institutions in a democratic society. It shows how Dewey positions his concept of a “common faith” within his project of democratic experimentalism, before revisiting Niebuhr’s criticism of this concept and particularly its anthropological inclinations. Subsequently, the article highlights the affinity of Niebuhr’s interpretation of Dewey’s A Common Faith to Eric Voegelin’s concept of political religions and compares the different concepts of transcendence involved in Dewey’s and Niebuhr’s thinking (with special focus on Niebuhr’s The Nature and Destiny of Man). Niebuhr’s accusation of a shallow progressivism against Dewey is refuted with reference to Dewey’s concept of immanent transcendence. Finally, the potential of Dewey’s A Common Faith for the clarification of the concept of civil religion is discussed against the backdrop of Robert Bellah’s use of this concept.

Embracing Paradox: Maimonides and Kierkegaard on Divine Transcendence and Immanence

Negotiating the relation between divine transcendence and divine immanence lies at the heart of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed and of Kierkegaard's philosophical works. The purpose of the paper is to explore the manners in which they do so. I argue that despite various differences between them, both engage with the tension between divine transcendence and immanence by turning away from objectivity to subjectivity and, moreover, by placing paradox, riddle and secret at the heart of their philosophical works. In other words, I argue that they do not attempt to solve or dissolve the great paradox of God's immanent transcendence but to present it in its most acute forms as the paradox within which the religious life is lived.

THE INGARDENIAN DISTINCTION BETWEEN INSEPARABILITY AND DEPENDENCE: HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC CONSIDERATIONS

In this paper I present the Ingardenian distinction between inseparability and dependence. My considerations are both historical and systematic. The historical part of the paper accomplishes two goals. First, I show that in the Brentanian tradition the problem of existential (or broadly: ontological) conditioning was entangled into parts—whole theories. The best examples of such an approach are Kazimierz Twardowski’s theory of the object and Edmund Husserl’s theory of parts and wholes. Second, I exhibit the context within which Ingarden distinguished inseparability and dependence. Moreover, Ingarden’s motivations are presented: the problem of understanding the Husserlian concept of “immanent transcendence,” the issue of the existence of purely intentional objects, and finally the problem of the relationship between individual objects and ideas. The systematic part deals with the ambiguity of Ingarden’s definition of inseparability. I seek to improve this definition by reference to the distinction (made by Ingarden himself) between absolute and summative wholes. I also present some divisions of inseparability and dependence and investigate whether these types of existential conditioning are reflexive, symmetric, or transitive.

Никола Милошевић о Лаву Шестову

The paper shows Nikola Milosevic to be the pioneer of researching Lev Shestov’s thought in the Serbian-speaking world, as well as the initiator of systematic translation of his books into Serbian. It is pointed out that both thinkers share certain similarities in their psychological approach to interpreting the works of great philosophers, which indicates the possibility of Shestov’s actual influence on Milosevic. Inthe conclusion, the paper reflects upon the question of God’s omnipotence, which was something that the Russian thinker was dealing with in particular, and which was also of central importance for Milosevic, in the context of his interest in God understood as immanent transcendence.

On the Social Philosophy of Immanent Transcendence: In Case of Habermas and Honneth

On the Social Philosophy of Immanent Transcendence: In Case of Habermas and Honneth

What Do We Mean When We Talk about Transcendence? Plato and Virginia Woolf

Plato lends expression to an Axial Age understanding of transcendence: a philosopher, if virtuous, can be released from bodily and temporal existence. Virginia Woolf lends expression to a Romantic or Modernist understanding of transcendence: an artist, if gifted, can be released from the cramped condition of ordinary existence. In this essay, borrowing a concept from Charles Taylor, I argue that Plato and Woolf show us what an immanent transcendence involves: the reach of a soul transformed by an ideal or a vision it lives by. In Plato, in Woolf, what is at stake is poise, openness of mind, largeness of perspective.

On the origin of the left-Hegelian concept of immanent transcendence: Reflections on the background of classical sociology

This article pursues the question of the origin of the left-Hegelian concept of immanent transcendence that emerged in the nineteenth century. Whereas some contemporary critical theorists apparently understand the concept as deriving from a religious origin, evolutionary and historical considerations would seem to indicate that more might be involved. Evolutionarily, the origin of the concept can be traced to the civilisation-founding cognitive achievement that marks the emergence of the current version of the human species and the concomitant cultural explosion during the Palaeolithic period. In this context, the cultural consolidation of the newly acquired metarepresentational capacity by language and visual symbolisation or art preceded religion by a considerable elapse of time. As one among a number of sociocultural practices, it could only have made a partial contribution to the conditions for the emergence of the concept. Historically, the thought of the key nineteenth-century left-Hegelians Marx and Peirce was fundamentally shaped, not by religion, but rather by the core modern innovation of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – the new mathematical-scientific-philosophical understanding of infinity as real – which gained primacy by significantly impacting on relevant late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century intellectual developments, including laying down the parameters of classical social thought in general and left-Hegelianism in particular. Since the competing religious understanding of infinity, despite having left traces on modern validity concepts such as truth, justice and truthfulness, remained shrouded in indefinite incomprehensibility, it could at best continue to play only the role of an identity-securing, identity-cultivating and motivational source for some, not all. As such, it did not contribute to the nineteenth-century left-Hegelian concept.

Joyce and Heidegger: Appropriations of the Past Toward a New Philosophy of Transcendence

Joyce and Heidegger:Appropriations of the Past Toward a New Philosophy of Transcendence Donovan Irven (bio) 1. JOYCE, HEIDEGGER, AND THE WAY TO A NEW TRANSCENDENCE Critics have long argued, to various ends, that Stephen Dedalus the character carries autobiographical marks of James Joyce the man (Gorman 1924; Gilbert 1955; Budgen 1960; Kenner 1955; Ellman 1983; King 1999; Larrissy 2006). While such arguments may have gotten off to a bad start due to critics' early tendency to obsess over Joyce's explicit or incidental expressions of inspiration—as William M. Schutte (1957) argues—they do, nevertheless, provide the grounds from which we can explore the metafictional nature of Stephen Dedalus across several works as he attempts to construct his own unique artist-persona. Stephen's work of self-creation should be read as a process of transcendence, one with serious philosophical implications that are expressed throughout Joyce's literary project. It will be shown how Stephen appears as a character divided against himself, and the question for us as we face this struggle is how Stephen's particular fissure expresses an opportunity for transcendence, and especially the way in which Stephen himself is portrayed as performing a transvalued transcendent movement that is best understood as one carried out toward a horizon in time. These [End Page 487] philosophical transvaluations of the concept of transcendence bring Joyce's writing about Stephen into relation with another figure, that of Martin Heidegger. Stephen Dedalus, in his struggle, in his attempt to understand himself and his own being as a self-creator, is a singularly ontological character in Heidegger's sense of a being whose own being is an issue for it (Heidegger 2010). While there is recent criticism interpreting Joyce's depiction of Stephen through Shakespeare (King 1999; Dällenbach 1989), there has been very little concern for the way in which Joyce depicts Stephen's particularly historical struggle as fundamentally tied to his unique philosophy of history—a philosophy that this essay shows to be derived from a synthesis of Aristotle and William Blake and which radically transforms the concept of "transcendence" into a fundamentally immanent and horizonal phenomenon. This philosophical historicism, and the weight that it places on the creation of a new language as a sign of historical movement and self-overcoming, is another point of concurrence between the philosophical aspect of Stephen's character and the work of Heidegger, particularly his Dasein analysis. In many ways, the analysis of Stephen's struggle reveals a remarkable anticipation of Heidegger's Dasein analysis, and the philosophical value of literature in its own right, in its own language. To show that Joyce uses his depiction of Stephen as a foil by which a unique philosophy of history can be articulated, I will proceed in three steps. First, I will show the role of Blake in Joyce's depiction of Stephen's developing philosophy of history. Second, the same must be done for the importance of Aristotle to this budding philosophical view. The third step involves a synthesis of Blake and Aristotle, carried out by Stephen as he matures in a philosophy that recognizes the ontological significance of history in determining possibilities of transcendence, a concept thereby transvalued into a temporally immanent transcendence—just as we see in Heidegger's work. I will clarify Joyce's philosophical historicism through a close reading of Stephen's struggle to transcend the predetermined identifications offered within his own historical situation, and demonstrate throughout my analysis that Joyce the modernist actually prefigures the important philosophical insights usually associated with postmodern theory, and with Heidegger in particular; a name curiously absent from the landmark 1996 collection Joyce and the Subject of History. Finally, after Joyce's philosophy of history has been laid out according to the three steps above, and the nature of he and Heidegger's transvaluation of transcendence [End Page 488] has been elucidated, I will show how Joyce projects these philosophical insights onto the turmoil Stephen experiences as he tries to reconcile himself to his historical context, a struggle that is carried out between the poles of Stephen's understanding of Blake on the one hand and Aristotle on the other. By depicting Stephen as...

Is Confucianism a religion? Modern Confucian theories on the ethical nature of classical discourses

ABSTRACTWhen dealing with the study of diverse Confucian traditions in eastern Asia, we are often confronted by the issue of the religious dimension of Confucianism and how can it be compared to the Western (or ‘general’) connotations of the term. Proceeding from the basic question as to how Confucianism sees itself, the paper focuses on the approaches of two representatives of the Modern Confucian intellectual movement, namely Mou Zongsan and Xu Fuguan. In addition, we shall also take into consideration the various contemporary Confucian interpretations of the previously delineated problems, for instance Liu Shu-hsien’s or Chen Lai’s. Based on these discourses, the paper clarifies the reasons for Modern Confucian interpretations, according to which Confucianism is not a religion in the Western sense but a discourse that represents both a practical moral teaching and an abstract philosophy of immanent transcendence.