Self-transcendence denotes the self-surpassing of the person toward the other. It belongs to the third dimension of personhood and is the expression of the highest unfolding of personal life (Bexten 2017, pp. 276 ff.).
Self-Transcendence and Interpersonality
The human person is not to be understood as an isolated individual but is essentially related to other persons. In self-transcendence the person surpasses the boundaries of its own self and enters into genuine relationship. This distinguishes the human person fundamentally from mere things: it can give itself away without losing itself.
Its Opposite: curvatio in se ipsum
The opposite of self-transcendence is the curvatio in se ipsum — the curving-in upon oneself. Where the person revolves only around itself, it fails to attain its proper destiny. Robert Spaemann shows that the oblivion of the person characteristic of modernity represents such a curving-in at the level of society.
Self-Transcendence, Love, and Affirmation
Love is the perfect form of self-transcendence: the affirmation of the other for the other’s own sake. Karol Wojtyła and Max Scheler emphasize that in love the person does not surrender itself but rather first comes to be fully realized. Hans Eduard Hengstenberg sees the human being as the being called to love.
Preconditions
Self-transcendence presupposes:
- interiority — one must possess a self in order to be able to surpass it
- freedom — the self-gift must be voluntary
- reason — the person must recognize the other as a person
- intentionality — the being-directed toward the other
Self-Transcendence and Forgiveness
Forgiveness is an especially radical form of self-transcendence: the person overcomes the justified injury and nevertheless affirms the other. It shows that person-behavior transcends the mere lawfulness of nature.
Ontological classification: Genus: interpersonal relation
Ontological relations:
- presupposes: capacity for truth
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Spaemann, Robert: Persons. The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’ (1996), transl. Oliver O’Donovan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. (Oblivion of the person as curvatio in se ipsum)
- Wojtyła, Karol: Osoba i czyn (1969), Kraków (German: Person und Tat, Freiburg: Herder, 1981). (Self-realization of the person in love)
- Scheler, Max: Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (1913/1916). Halle: Niemeyer. (German) (Self-transcendence in love)
- Hengstenberg, Hans Eduard: Philosophische Anthropologie (1957). Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. (German) (The human being as the being called to love)