{"id":301083,"date":"2025-08-18T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=301083"},"modified":"2025-08-14T07:54:34","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T06:54:34","slug":"the-transcendental-self-and-its-implications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/08\/the-transcendental-self-and-its-implications\/","title":{"rendered":"The Transcendental Self and Its Implications"},"content":{"rendered":"

What makes us human and gives us hope?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

11 Aug 2025\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0What is it that makes us human and distinguishes us from the animals?\u00a0 It is certainly not anything physiological, for we are made of the same flesh and bones as the other creatures. We share the same chemical and biological properties, although there is greater complexity in the human physiology than we find elsewhere on our planet. \u00a0It is our transcendental ego that indicates a major rupture with the animal kingdom in ways that link human beings with the very structure and meaning of the universe itself and give us tremendous hope for the future.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s holistic and evolutionary sciences that resulted from the paradigm-shift pioneered by Albert Einstein and Max Planck at the beginning of the 20th<\/sup> century are united in seeing the entire cosmos since the \u201cbig bang\u201d as an evolving whole <\/em>that is progressing,<\/em> according to a principle or \u201cnisus\u201d embodied within that whole, toward ever greater complexity, organic unity, and holistic awareness. The evolutionary process on planet Earth over the past 3.8 billion years has steadily resulted in ever greater diversity of living beings and physiological complexity resulting in a \u201cdominant species\u201d (human beings) who no longer compete in the struggle for survival with the other species but, because of their self-consciousness, can dominate and even domesticate the other species for their own purposes.<\/p>\n

Today, through the development of science and technology, human beings have colonized the entire planet to the point where we have exceeded the carrying capacity of our planetary ecosystem and are in the process of destroying that ecosystem and its ability to support \u00a0higher forms of life, including our own. And we have developed weapons of such destructive power that they can wipe out humanity if they are ever used in a major war. Nevertheless, this very self-consciousness and intrinsic rationality that make us the dominant species (and that have allowed us to overshoot our planetary carrying capacity or to develop such weapons) also serve as our hope and a pointer toward a transformed future.<\/p>\n

The historical turning point in identifying the \u201ctranscendental ego\u201d that is the key to our dominance on this planet and to our hope for the future appeared in Immanuel Kant\u2019s monumental publication, Critique of Pure Reason <\/em>(1781). If \u201cphilosophy\u201d characterizes our capacity for self-aware reflection in the attempt to comprehend the world and human life, then Kant\u2019s publication of this book was a major step forward in that process.\u00a0 The very fact that writing this article is necessary testifies to the fact that we have not yet fully understood the revolutionary insights of his book.<\/p>\n

Kant showed that the categories by which we comprehend the world are not the structures that we believe we observe in the world around us and use as the basis for our investigations of the world.\u00a0 Rather, there are a priori categories supplied by human understanding that help constitute the observed world, its principles and forms. But there is yet another, perhaps even more fundamental, understanding that Kant pointed out. The unity of human consciousness through time (the fact that the truths about the world that I investigated yesterday remain the same truths that I continue to investigate today) is the key principle that gifts us with self-awareness and continuity of selfhood.<\/p>\n

Literally, the fact that we see all the disparate elements of our experience as aspects of one world <\/em>(always presupposed in our cognitions) and the fact that over time the \u201cI\u201d of the transcendental ego remains the same \u201cI\u201d (even though everything changes physiologically and empirically from day to day), means that systematic knowledge is possible for human beings, as it is not possible for the animals.<\/p>\n

There is a unity of consciousness that persists from day to day that makes possible both awareness of our living in one, enduring world<\/em>, and our living from year to year as one, persistent selfhood. Without these twin features of the unity of consciousness (our transcendental self), no knowledge would be possible.\u00a0 We would be living in a perpetual, experiential present like we believe the animals do, without knowledge, philosophy, science, or any of the other manifestations of enduring self-awareness.<\/p>\n

Some subsequent philosophers recognized the significance of Kant\u2019s monumental insight. Ludwig Wittgenstein, for example, in his 1922 book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, <\/em>recognized not only the key role of this unity of consciousness but also its necessarily presuppositional status and hence its unknowability. <\/em>The status of this \u201cphilosophical self\u201d (as Wittgenstein called it), is exactly like the relation of the eye to the field of vision. The eye makes possible the field of vision but itself nowhere appears in that field.\u00a0 The eye is presupposed by the field of vision but for that very reason cannot appear within that field.<\/p>\n

So it is with the transcendental self and the entire field of human experience. This unity of consciousness or transcendental self, Wittgenstein says, appears as a \u201ccontentless point\u201d at the limit of the field of experience but not as part of it.\u00a0 This is what Kant revealed.\u00a0 For there to be a world at all (that we can investigate and learn about), and for there to be an enduring self that from day to day can learn more about the world (precisely because it is the same self from day to day), we must presuppose this contentless point, this transcendental unity of consciousness, that makes knowledge possible but itself is not a possible object of knowledge. (To explore the larger role of mind here would take us beyond the scope of this article. Kant\u2019s technical term for this self is the \u201ctranscendental unity of apperception, TUA\u201d.)<\/p>\n

In our everyday lives, of course, we simply take this unity for granted and generally confuse it with the \u201cempirical ego\u201d as well as the mind-body unity characterizing our existence.\u00a0 The empirical self has content: it has likes and dislikes, certain \u201cpersonality\u201d traits, and ever-changing qualities and experiences from day to day. It may be that this ever-changing ephemeral selfhood is what Buddhists often referred to when they made the claim that there is \u201cno-self\u201d (anatt\u0101<\/em>).<\/p>\n

However, the transcendental self appears not to have content or qualities but is rather a structural principle, a simple principle of unity, without qualities. Kant points out that the very possibility that we can experience time means that we can, through memory and anticipation, envision a week, a month, a year, or all human history\u2014only through this unity of consciousness that itself does not appear within the temporal sequence. If it were an item within that sequence, it would not be able to comprehend the whole of the sequence. It necessarily transcends time just as it transcends the empirical ego.<\/p>\n

In the course of evolution, a new level of existence has emerged from the process as the unity of consciousness. From this emergent feature, knowledge, morality, freedom, and our inviolable human dignity flow into the cosmos. A creature emerges capable of self-transcendence. <\/em>It can recognize its own finitude and limitations and, in this very process, transcend its finitude and encounter infinity. We recall Pascal\u2019s famous passage from the Pensees<\/em> (1670) in which the fragility and apparent nothingness of human existence in the face of the vastness of the universe is negated by a simple statement: \u201cKnow then proud man, what a paradox you are to yourself. Humble yourself, weak reason; be silent foolish nature; learn that man infinitely transcends man.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The TUA is an aspect of the immense mystery and depth of human existence. What is this principle and where does it come from? Twentieth and twenty-first century scientific cosmology has revealed a universe that is utterly holistic\u2014everything is interrelated with everything else in which the oneness of the cosmos is inseparable from its vast diversity. The whole is intrinsic to each part and each part holographically embodies the whole (as Jude Currivan puts it in The Cosmic Hologram, <\/em>2017).<\/p>\n

There is a consensus among scientists that the cosmos has evolved<\/em> from its initial \u201cflaring forth\u201d some 13.7 billion years ago according to a cosmic principle that might be called \u201ccomplexity-consciousness.\u201d That is, there is an innate \u201cnisus\u201d or \u201cradiant energy\u201d at the heart of the cosmos that leads to ever greater unities and organizational wholes. This principle is everywhere and nowhere, so to speak, but it is immanent with the entire process and all its phenomena. Like the transcendental self in human beings, this principle pervades the unity in diversity of the cosmos and impels the cosmos toward ever greater manifestations of its holism. Much of this process is described in The Universe Story, <\/em>(1994) by Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry.<\/p>\n

I maintain that there are three world-changing foundations arising from the new scientific paradigm that has arisen during the past century and a quarter. First, the universe is an indissectable whole and all phenomena within it are directly related to that whole. Second, the universe is an evolutionary<\/em> whole. The entire cosmos and all its local phenomena are part and parcel of this evolutionary process which is organizing the natural world into ever greater constellations of complexity and consciousness. Third, mind and matter, subject and object, knowledge and world are indissolubly joined and reality cannot be understood apart from this union. The conclusions below directly derive from this powerful new paradigm.<\/p>\n

Philosopher Errol E. Harris in The Reality of Time <\/em>(1988) concludes that the transcendental self in human beings is this evolutionary organizational principle of the cosmos come to consciousness of itself in us. Human self-awareness, made possible by the transcendental unity of consciousness, involves the emergence of this cosmic holistic organizational principle in us as the emergent self-awareness of the universe.<\/em> For this cosmic principle, making possible the unity of science and all knowledge, cannot and does not appear as an observable feature of either the empirical self or the ever-changing world of experience. Harris is far from being alone in these conclusions.<\/p>\n

German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel had already prefigured these ideas with his so-called \u201cobjective idealism\u201d in which the universe was developing ever greater awareness and freedom through the developmental processes of human history. Indian sage and evolutionary thinker, Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, declared that, in humanity the universe created \u201ca self-conscious concentration of the All through which it can aspire.\u201d Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin affirms that, at a certain evolutionary stage, \u201cMan discovers that he is nothing else than evolution become conscious of itself.\u201d Harris writes, \u201cthere is an important sense in which the universe brings itself to consciousness\u2014becomes aware of itself\u2014in our knowledge of it.\u201d In another place he declares, \u201cIn human awareness the nisus to the whole has become conscious of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such conclusions stand to reason in that we certainly did not create ourselves and we now understand that the evolutionary process is a cosmic process<\/em> bringing complexity and consciousness out of the matter\/energy flux of existence. Philosopher Ken Wilber, and many others who have applied the evolutionary and developmental model to the history of human consciousness, sees the development of consciousness as moving from egoistic to ethnocentric to worldcentric to cosmocentric levels. The cosmocentric level of awareness no longer confuses the transcendental ego with the empirical ego. My petty egoistic preferences are nothing in the face of the vast cosmic principle of the transcendental self that constitutes my self-awareness and makes both my ethical life and knowledge possible.<\/p>\n

One of the pioneers of this developmental insight was Richard Maurice Bucke whose book Cosmic Consciousness <\/em>(1900) concludes that this consciousness informed the great luminaries of human history such as Gautama the Buddha, Socrates, Jesus Christ, St. Paul, Plotinus, Mohammed, and many others. Bucke saw humanity as evolving toward cosmic consciousness as its true destiny, called by Jesus, \u201cthe kingdom of God on Earth,\u201d or by Kant, the future \u201cKingdom of Ends\u201d (in which every person as treated as an inviolable end in himself or herself), or by Teilhard de Chardin as the actualization of \u201cOmega,\u201d the loving unity of all of existence.<\/p>\n

The cosmic principle of holism, therefore, is immanent within each of us in the form of our transcendental ego. It makes possible all of knowledge with its understanding that the entire universe is one coherent, intelligible whole. It serves as a structural and energetic principle urging us toward the holism of unity in diversity in all dimensions of human civilization: economic, political, cultural, and civilizational.\u00a0 Today, the Constitution for the Federation of Earth<\/a> develops a pattern for the actualization of unity in diversity within all these dimensions.<\/p>\n

This Earth Constitution, written by hundreds of world citizens over a period of 23 years from 1968 to 1991, reveals what an actualized world of unity would look like.\u00a0 Ratification of this Earth Constitution would bring us rapidly beyond climate collapse and the threat of nuclear war into a world premised on human dignity and genuine community rather than on wealth, power, and fragmentation. It is, of course, not a philosophical treatise about cosmic consciousness but a concrete way humanity could organize itself in the spirit of unity in diversity. It is a practical document that shows how we could govern ourselves in peace, freedom, prosperity, and sustainability.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it should be clear from this article that the actualization of an Earth Federation is not an arbitrary or contingent proposition. It is essential to our common human destiny to live in peace and dignity on our precious planetary home. Here we discover an endless source for great hope. The very structure of human self-awareness, making possible both morality and scientific knowledge, can now be understood as a nisus toward wholeness and actualized unity in diversity.\u00a0 The Transcendental self imparts exactly that. It constitutes an absolute transcendental unity for all selfhood and human relationships as well as an absolute affirmation of diversity, since there are no wholes without parts and no parts without wholes.<\/p>\n

The transcendental self, the very structure of human consciousness, advocates for ratification of an Earth Constitution and the realization of a more fulfilled unity in diversity for the people and nations of Earth.\u00a0 It helps make clear the traditional ideas that humans are \u201cmade in the image of God,\u201d or that all have \u201cBuddha-nature, or live as an \u201catman\u201d that is identical with Brahman. The transcendent-immanent principle of the entire Cosmos has come to awareness in us. It cannot itself be an object of knowledge because it is the very principle of the possibility of knowledge (like the eye presupposed by the field of vision that cannot in principle appear within that field).<\/p>\n

Hence, the quest for the \u201ckingdom of God on Earth\u201d is built into the very structure of human consciousness and poses for us a utopian ideal that derives from the nature of cosmic consciousness. (In my recent book Human Dignity and World <\/em>Order, I elaborated these ideas under the rubric \u201cutopian horizon value theory\u201d.) And cosmic conscious is simply the progressive dawning on us that the fundamental principle of the Cosmos has become aware of itself in us. The Upanishads of ancient India declare \u201cThat thou art\u201d (Tat Tvam Asi<\/em>). Or as they say in the Zen tradition, the very thing we have been looking for all this time has been right in front of our faces.<\/p>\n

Samsara is indeed nirvana\u2014if the implications of the transcendental self can be existentially realized in our living awareness. The Earth Constitution simply draws the consequences presupposed by our innate selfhood. The cosmos has become aware of itself in us and inspires us to unite our civilization under its principle of unity in diversity. It is happening as we speak. Under the authority of the Earth Constitution, the 16th<\/sup> session of the Provisional World Parliament<\/a> will meet in Pondicherry, India (and online), December 7-10, 2025.\u00a0 People from around the world will be acting together to realize the unity in diversity immanent within the transcendental selfhood in each and every one of us.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Dr. Glen T. Martin:
\n– Member, <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/em><\/a>
\n– Professor of Philosophy Emeritus
\n– Founder\/Chairperson Emeritus, Program in Peace Studies, Radford University
\n– President, World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA);
\n– President, Earth Constitution Institute (ECI)
\n– Author of twelve books and hundreds of articles concerning global issues, human spirituality, and democratic world government; a recipient of many peace awards.
\n<\/em>www.earthconstitution.world<\/em><\/a> \u2013 Email: <\/em>gmartin@radford.edu<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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