Wan-I Yang Interview | Alexandre Gilbert #342.1
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
INTRODUCTION
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
Reason and the human
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 of that relationship. In the tradition initiated by Socrates, the definition of transcendence emerges as a salvation achieved by freeing oneself from the body, meaning that the philosopher does not let himself be seduced by bodily desire. The spirit does not fear death; the truth and transcendence developed in this tradition are clarified in the transcendence of a soul that denies existence. Over the course of the soul’s evolution toward reason, we discover that the character of the subject in the history of philosophy is established a priori; this transcendental subject achieves its transcendental meaning independently, beyond experience. In this philosophical tradition, in which the subject sets itself against this world and opposes immanence through transcendence, the philosophical subject has already transcended the subject limited by existence — that is, the human being; it concerns a spirit and a reason, not a human being.
According to Plato, the root of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness does not exist within the reality of existence; because of human immanence, the relationship between reason and the human appears as opposition. Thus, in this tradition of intellectualism beginning with Socrates, we observe the absence of the human being.
The meaning of “Plato’s illness” according to Levinas’s interpretation
In the history of philosophy, we often notice that Plato considers truth as an eternity opposed to the change of the phenomenal universe; according to the general interpretation, it appears that Plato inherits from Socrates the view of truth as eternity beyond the phenomenal universe,[^2] and consequently Plato brings into contact the thought that pursues eternal truth with transcendence, thereby confirming the transcendence of thought. But in reading Levinas’s philosophy, we discover another possible interpretation. Levinas reminds us that at the beginning of the Phaedo, a small detail is mentioned: “In the Phaedo, one figure is missing: Plato. He takes no side; he has absented himself. This adds a further ambiguity.”[^3] At the beginning of the Phaedo, Echecrates asks Phaedo: “Who were the people present when Socrates was executed?” Phaedo then names, one by one, those who were present, and at the end he says, “Plato, I believe, was ill,”[^4] thereby indicating Plato’s absence. Faced with Echecrates’s question, Phaedo could simply have answered by listing those present — why, at the end, does he insist so deliberately on Plato’s absence? Moreover, he answers “Plato, I believe, was ill,” while remaining entirely unclear about the cause of that absence. Just as we read in the history of philosophy, Plato is regarded as Socrates’s heir — why, then, could so important a figure be absent from the final scene before Socrates’s death? In reading the dialogues written by Plato, we cannot help but suppose that Plato wished to suggest, through Phaedo’s words — words that are evidently uncertain about the details — that he was perhaps ill. If Socrates’s illness bears a relevance to life that cannot be ignored,[^5] does the symbol of Plato’s “illness” not signify his own affirmation of life? Is it because of this affirmation of life that he absents himself from this scene concerning the transcendence of death? Does Plato, regarded as Socrates’s heir, in a certain sense retain interpretive attitudes toward life and transcendence that differ from those of Socrates? These questions serve as keys that lead us into Plato’s text from a variety of perspectives.
The clues marked out by Levinas lead us to rethink the relationship between transcendence and immanence. The symbol of Plato’s “illness” perhaps implies Plato’s suspicion of Socrates’s intention to bear witness to transcendental truth through the rational soul. Neo-Platonism — unlike the oppositional relationship between transcendence and immanence formed by rationalism — considers immanence as the foundation of transcendence, thereby offering another possibility for realizing transcendence.
Brief conclusion
Unlike the transcendental form established by Socrates through the opposition of reason and sensation, we attempt to clarify the meaning of transcendence and immanence on the basis of the human being and of existence. The human being exists within the conflict between sensation and reason; human existence is thus the problem itself. If one wishes to resolve this problem without abandoning the reality of existence, it would be impossible to base a transcendental path solely on pure spirit, nor would there any longer be an opposition between reason and sensation that could be radically divided in two. If we think that the truth of existence cannot be exhausted by the distinction between reason and sensation, existence becomes an embarrassing affair that cannot be powerfully analyzed through dualism. How, then, are we to “describe”[^6] the problem we are undergoing? This would be the first question to resolve.
II. IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE UNFOLDED AT THE CORE OF THE HUMAN — STARTING FROM ABRAHAM IN SØREN KIERKEGAARD
Solitude and suffering — Abraham’s difficulty
Abraham’s love
From the description of Abraham given in Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, we find that Abraham is not, in essence, a rational subject of understanding and knowledge,[^7] but a “human being” steeped in love.[^8] Abraham’s existence is itself a problem, because his existence is the concrete realization of a being composed of the conflict between transcendence and immanence (divinity and humanity). When the revelation of transcendence overtakes immanence, Abraham is transformed from a loving father of his son Isaac into a dark, brutal man with a fierce look. He seizes Isaac by the chest, throws him to the ground, and says: “Fool! Do you then believe that I am your father? I am an idolater. Do you think I obey the commands of God? No! This is nothing but a whim!”[^9] In contrast with the silence during their three-day journey, Abraham now manipulates his words not to reveal his inner truth to Isaac but, on the contrary, to mystify him with words in order to push Isaac to fabricate a mistaken “understanding” that meets Abraham’s expectation. This “understanding” is not meant to reveal the truth hidden behind events, but to serve Isaac’s “belief.” Abraham would rather have Isaac take him for a wicked man than have him lose his belief in God.[^10] This leads us to reflect: can logos truly reveal our inner self? Perhaps the function of logos is to lead the human being to detach from himself (his interiority), for the sake of desire — a transcendental form — the transcendental meaning unfolded through language is thus a departure toward a truth beyond myself.
After Abraham speaks these words to Isaac, Isaac trembles and cries out in anguish: “God of Heaven, have mercy on me! God of Abraham, have mercy on me; be my father, for I have no other on earth!”[^11] Abraham’s words succeed in steering Isaac toward transcendental truth — God; through speech he conceals his intimate kinship with Isaac while bringing about Isaac’s belief, which places them side by side in heaven under God.
Aside from concealing his own interiority and the blood tie and kinship binding him to Isaac in order to bring about Isaac’s transcendence, the relationship between speech and Abraham seems to serve no other explanatory function. Kierkegaard said: “He could not understand that it was a sin to have wanted to sacrifice to God his most precious possession, for which he would have given his life more than once.”[^12] Abraham cannot “understand” that consecrating his son to God is a crime; he lacks moral rules to invoke inwardly for rational distinction — he has only love. He deeply loves Isaac and God; he consecrates the one he loves to the one he loves. On the other hand, if he were aware that killing his son to consecrate him to God is criminal, yet did it anyway, or if he consecrated Isaac to God because he did not love him very much, Kierkegaard says this would be an intolerable crime.^13 Love — irrational love for God, and also love awaiting transcendence for his son — is entirely the content of Abraham’s interiority. This immanence is an incomprehensible “absence” within rational debate. Compared with the transcendence achieved through speech, which is a “visible” understanding, actions born of love appear difficult to understand. The love within Abraham that brings about this transcendence thus appears as an incomprehensible solitude.
Notes:
[^1]: Taking the neo-Platonist point of view, we hold that the relationship between immanence and transcendence is not oppositional; on the contrary, immanence is the foundation for advancing toward truth — meaning that transcendence perhaps does not oppose immanence, but is instead grounded in it.
[^2]: Life is regarded by Socrates as the limit and the pollution of the soul; because of this view, truth is situated in the transcendental world, as an idea.
[^3]: E. Lévinas, Dieu, la mort et le temps, Paris, Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle, 1993, p. 23.
[^4]: Plato, Complete Works. Phaedo, translated and annotated by Léon Robin and M.-J. Moreau, Paris, Gallimard, 1950, p. 767.
[^5]: After drinking the poison, before his death, when Socrates was paralyzed from the waist down, he uncovered his face and said: “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius! Pay this debt for me, do not forget!” Plato, Complete Works. Phaedo, translated and annotated by Léon Robin and M.-J. Moreau, Paris, Gallimard, 1950, p. 855. Why is Socrates’s last word before his death a request that his disciples offer a cock to the god of medicine? For an ancient Greek in convalescence, the offering of a cock to Asclepius symbolized recovery from illness. But what illness afflicts Socrates? From what illness does he wish to be cured, that he asks his disciples to offer a cock to the god of medicine? Facing death, Socrates remains rational, without sorrow, because for him death is a healing of the soul. If the transcendence of death, which frees the soul from the body, is a healing for the soul, is the state of the soul imprisoned in the body not itself an “illness”?
[^6]: We use the word “describe” in place of other terms that would evidently carry connotations of sovereignty, in an attempt to invoke an understanding of non-understanding — “capable of grasping certain meanings within, but unable to fully comprehend them.”
[^7]: “He could not understand that it was a sin to have wanted to sacrifice to God his most precious possession, for which he would have given his life more than once.” Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, translated from the Danish and introduced by Charles Le Blanc, Paris, Éditions Payot & Rivages, 2000, p. 49. In the citation above, we find that, faced with the fact of sacrificing his son to God, Abraham is not acting reasonably.
[^8]: Abraham’s love is for God and for his son; Kierkegaard’s description makes us feel the conflict and paradox between these two loves — this is precisely Abraham’s problem.
[^9]: Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, translated from the Danish and introduced by Charles Le Blanc, Paris, Éditions Payot & Rivages, 2000, p. 47.
[^10]: Ibid., p. 48.
[^11]: Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, translated from the Danish and introduced by Charles Le Blanc, Paris, Éditions Payot & Rivages, 2000, p. 47–48.
[^12]: Ibid., p. 49.