Wan-I Yang is a Taiwanese professor at the Institute of Philosophy, National Sun Yat-sen University.

TRANSCENDENCE AND IMMANENCE

A Reflection Starting from Abraham in Kierkegaard

In traditional Western philosophy, truth is set in opposition to the phenomenal world. Although this notion of truth offered an eternal guarantee by giving value a kind of permanence, this mode of truth is effective only on the condition that reason simultaneously denies human sensibility and the reality of existence. Such a modality of truth, which cannot affirm existence, can neither bring to light the authenticity of the human being nor concretely realize beauty and goodness in life. Reflection on the transcendental mode of truth is therefore an unavoidable problem for philosophers concerned with human beauty and human goodness.

If we still believe that the meaning of thought is for the human being — that the affirmation of human existence and the aspiration toward the various values unfolding from the center of the human being — are not precisely among the first missions of philosophy, then, on this basis, a reflection on the opposition between reason and sensation, transcendence and immanence, unfolds. Beyond examining the meaning of transcendence as found in the Western tradition, we attempt to find further clues in the thought of Levinas and Kierkegaard to support the claim that immanence is the foundation of transcendence,[^1] hoping thereby to defuse the opposition between immanence and transcendence and to show immanence as the origin of thought.

I. REFLECTION ON THE OPPOSITION BETWEEN REASON AND SENSATION, TRANSCENDENCE AND IMMANENCE, IN TRADITIONAL WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

Plato distinguished the changeable, imperfect world of perception from the intellectual world; this intellectuality, longing for perfection, is found as the soul of the philosopher who, following Socrates, aspires to pursue truth. The philosopher’s mission is to seek truth and achieve transcendence; compared with the perfection realized through transcendence, the imperfection of life in the place where immanence resides is precisely what Socrates wishes to escape. Consequently, for Socrates, the meaning of truth and transcendence is not realized in life — it concerns a soul withdrawing from the disturbance of existence, a soul that has found eternal peace.

Unlike Plato, who treats transcendence as the foundation of immanence, the neo-Platonists believe that light (which Plato considered a good superior to truth, since it makes truth possible) must be illuminated by darkness — it is the world of immanence that leads us onto the path toward truth, and it is the image of God (that is, the human being) that allows us to envisage God. These two differing views on the relationship between transcendence and immanence lead to two interpretations........

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