beyond? horizon, immanence, and transcendenceperfect thereby pointing back to this world as not being what it should
be. Taken in this way, so-called transcendence does not give genuine
transcendence. This is a critical point in Hegel’s way of reformulating
metaphysics. Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysics as duplicating this
world and placing the truth elsewhere, in another world, opens up for
the attempt of re-appropriating this world, thereby calling for
transcendence in order to affirm this world as immanence.
The point, however, can be put in a more critical manner. If im-
manence and transcendence were (as it were) two worlds, then the
question would be: where are we in choosing between immanence and
transcendence? If the answer is: in this world, of course, the very
possibility of having immanence and transcendence before us belongs
to our being in this world. Immanence then is where the question of
transcendence can show up. But this does not turn immanence into
transcendence. On the contrary, it points to a critical feature of our
being in this world: as the condition on which we can talk about
transcendence.
In order to see this more clearly let us go back to the opening
sentence: “seeing beyond what we see”. As noted from the beginning
this is paradoxical. We are the ones to see beyond what we see. This is
impossible because we cannot see beyond what we see. Why not?
Precisely because we are the ones seeing: in seeing we carry ourselves
with us. This is captured by the notion that our ways of seeing are
bound by our horizon. We are finite beings.
Could we then specify immanence in terms of horizon so that
immanence is what is within our horizon? The implication seems to
be that immanence is the sphere of what we know or understand or
think. We are “in” immanence in being within our horizon, which is
the limit of what we know or can know. Transcendence then is what
is beyond our horizon. Would that not be to qualify “beyond” in terms
of our seeing? What does it mean to see and to understand within a
horizon?
Horizon: Finitude
If we are standing on a beach, looking out at the open sea, it is as if
our vision reaches out indefinitely. We know that this is not so.