Relationship to the Other
For any given truth, a perceiver must realize it. In any given relationship, that truth can be shared with another perceiver (the other). In the traditional sense of objective reality, a transcendental truth known by one perceiver would be equally valid for the other, because it transcends each of their unique perceptions. This relationship is unequal in that the transcendental truth is right and the other is wrong. Knowers of a transcendental truth are then provided with unique authority over the other which does not know the same truth.
In Perspectivism, the absence of any transcendental truth leaves the perceiver with truth that is only valid from the perceiver's own perspective. Truth becomes arbitrary and the other becomes a pawn in the formulations of the perceiver's self-perceived truths. This led Nietzsche to ponder the justification of things like authoritarianism that conflict with the moral positions of many philosophers.
Transcendental perspectivism argues that each truth is the product of the perceiver; however, if two perceivers share a truth, then that truth transcends each individual perceiver. This is achieved not by one perceiver convincing the other about the validity of a held truth, but rather by the union of two truths held by each perceiver. The other's perception plays an equal role in the development of a transcendental truth. A key artifact of transcendental perspectivism is that the transcendence of a truth can not be achieved through force. That is, if a truth held by a perceiver is forced on the other, then that truth has not transcended both perceptions. Domination of the other has only produced subjugation, and can not produce acceptance of a shared truth because the perspective of the other was not involved in the development of the truth and thus the truth is not true for the other. In order to avoid domination and to truly develop a transcendental truth, the perceiver must experience empathy and compassion for the perception of the other.
A logic formula developed by Krieglstein's son for this process reads as such:
In that, 
is a given phenomenon, 
is the perceiver's perspective of that phenomenon, 
is one or more other people's perception of that phenomenon, and 
is an error term. The result is 
which is a truth about the given phenomenon that is shared by the perceiver and the other, but transcends the limited perception of either to become a transcendental truth. It is important to note that is not necessarily just the sum total of two perspectives, but rather a new and unique truth that is only achieved through sharing.
Current relevance
Transcendental perspectivism's call for compassion of the other has gained it widespread acceptance in the partnership field founded by Riane Eisler. The philosophy's unique perspective on the role consciousness plays in the development of physical truths has gained it some recognition in the field of consciousness research. To help focus the practical acceptance of transcendental perspectivism, Krieglstein wrote a manifesto containing 11 key facets of the philosophy.
1. Transcendental perspectivism recognizes truth as experiential and personal, but not as objective and universal. Therefore, all religious beliefs including agnosticism and atheism are respected equally, as long as they do not impose their values on others.
2. Transcendental perspectivism prefers diversity and difference over singularity. These are assumed to be more natural and beneficial in evolutionary terms.
3. Transcendental perspectivism rejects domination in all its forms. It especially rejects domination of men over women. For this reason Transcendental Perspectivism embraces a reevaluation of the philosophical canon from a feminist perspective.
4. Transcendental perspectivism aims for cooperation and connectedness over competition and survival of the fittest. This, too, is seen to be more natural and adaptive.
5. Transcendental perspectivism assumes that there is a unique perspective, an inside-out view for everything that exists, including Nothingness. This puts consciousness at the center.
6. Central to transcendental perspectivism is the search for the Other. Since all is consciousness we can communicate with all. This makes transcendental perspectivism a shamanistic philosophy.
7. Transcendental perspectivism assumes a holistic view of the human body. Mind and body are one. Healing the body can never be seen in isolation and vice versa, a sickness of the mind affects the body.
8. As a shamanistic philosophy transcendental perspectivism provides the basis for a reanimation of the natural (material or inanimate) world. This will not result in a new superstition, but will be complemented by mathematical structure and empirical verification.
9. Transcendental perspectivism bridges the gap between the sciences and the humanities. It reunites the various fields of the cognitive enterprise of humanity by providing a new and in depth understanding of the physical world on which all human knowledge is based.
10. By providing a full and in-depth understanding of the physical nature of the human being transcendental perspectivism initiates a renaissance of the body. It invites a physical celebration of the human being within a physical world. This reevaluation of the human body will lead to a third enlightenment, the Enlightenment of the Body.
11. By reconnecting humanity with the rest of the physical world transcendental perspectivism will initiate a new spirituality. This has been called a cosmic spiritually. It is cosmic consciousness because these new individuals will be fully aware of being members of a larger whole, as they themselves are the composite symphony of numerous smaller wholes.
In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ideas. Idealist perspectives are in two categories: subjective idealism, which proposes that a material object exists only to the extent that a human being perceives the object; and objective idealism, which proposes the existence of an objective consciousness that exists prior to and independently of human consciousness, thus the existence of the object is independent of human perception.
Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest and he wrote on perception, art, politics, religion, biology, psychology, psychoanalysis, language, nature, and history. He was the lead editor of Les Temps modernes, the leftist magazine he established with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in 1945.
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions of material things. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes, without which they cannot exist. This concept directly contrasts with idealism, where mind and consciousness are first-order realities to which matter is dependent while material interactions are secondary.
The philosophy of perception is concerned with the nature of perceptual experience and the status of perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world. Any explicit account of perception requires a commitment to one of a variety of ontological or metaphysical views. Philosophers distinguish internalist accounts, which assume that perceptions of objects, and knowledge or beliefs about them, are aspects of an individual's mind, and externalist accounts, which state that they constitute real aspects of the world external to the individual. The position of naïve realism—the 'everyday' impression of physical objects constituting what is perceived—is to some extent contradicted by the occurrence of perceptual illusions and hallucinations and the relativity of perceptual experience as well as certain insights in science. Realist conceptions include phenomenalism and direct and indirect realism. Anti-realist conceptions include idealism and skepticism. Recent philosophical work have expanded on the philosophical features of perception by going beyond the single paradigm of vision.
Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory positing that objects are constituted each by a substance and properties borne by the substance but distinct from it. In this role, a substance can be referred to as a substratum or a thing-in-itself. Substances are particulars that are ontologically independent: they are able to exist all by themselves. Another defining feature often attributed to substances is their ability to undergo changes. Changes involve something existing before, during and after the change. They can be described in terms of a persisting substance gaining or losing properties. Attributes or properties, on the other hand, are entities that can be exemplified by substances. Properties characterize their bearers; they express what their bearer is like.
Phenomenology is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Edmund Husserl and was later expanded upon by a circle of his followers at the universities of Göttingen and Munich in Germany. It then spread to France, the United States, and elsewhere, often in contexts far removed from Husserl's early work.
Solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.
In philosophy, a noumenon is knowledge posited as an object that exists independently of human sense. The term noumenon is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term phenomenon, which refers to any object of the senses. Immanuel Kant first developed the notion of the noumenon as part of his transcendental idealism, suggesting that while we know the noumenal world to exist because human sensibility is merely receptive, it is not itself sensible and must therefore remain otherwise unknowable to us. In Kantian philosophy, the noumenon is often associated with the unknowable "thing-in-itself". However, the nature of the relationship between the two is not made explicit in Kant's work, and remains a subject of debate among Kant scholars as a result.
In metaphysics, phenomenalism is the view that physical objects cannot justifiably be said to exist in themselves, but only as perceptual phenomena or sensory stimuli situated in time and in space. In particular, some forms of phenomenalism reduce all talk about physical objects in the external world to talk about bundles of sense data.
Transcendental idealism is a philosophical system founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's epistemological program is found throughout his Critique of Pure Reason (1781). By transcendental Kant means that his philosophical approach to knowledge transcends mere consideration of sensory evidence and requires an understanding of the mind's innate modes of processing that sensory evidence.
Subjectivity in a philosophical context is a concept of truth that depends upon an individual's conscious experience. Generally speaking, a philosophical proposition is considered to have subjective truth when its truth conditions are met only when considering the claim from the viewpoint of a sentient being. Subjectivity has been given various and ambiguous definitions by differing sources as it is not often the focal point of philosophical discourse. However, it is related to ideas of consciousness, agency, personhood, philosophy of mind, reality, and truth. Three common definitions include that subjectivity is the quality or condition of:
Perspectivism is the epistemological principle that perception of and knowledge of something are always bound to the interpretive perspectives of those observing it. While perspectivism does not regard all perspectives and interpretations as being of equal truth or value, it holds that no one has access to an absolute view of the world cut off from perspective. Instead, all such viewing occurs from some point of view which in turn affects how things are perceived. Rather than attempt to determine truth by correspondence to things outside any perspective, perspectivism thus generally seeks to determine truth by comparing and evaluating perspectives among themselves. Perspectivism may be regarded as an early form of epistemological pluralism, though in some accounts includes treatment of value theory, moral psychology, and realist metaphysics.
In philosophy and epistemology, epistemic theories of truth are attempts to analyze the notion of truth in terms of epistemic notions such as knowledge, belief, acceptance, verification, justification, and perspective.
In philosophy, transcendence is the basic ground concept from the word's literal meaning, of climbing or going beyond, albeit with varying connotations in its different historical and cultural stages. It includes philosophies, systems, and approaches that describe the fundamental structures of being, not as an ontology, but as the framework of emergence and validation of knowledge of being. These definitions are generally grounded in reason and empirical observation, and seek to provide a framework for understanding the world that is not reliant on religious beliefs or supernatural forces. "Transcendental" is a word derived from the scholastic, designating the extra-categorical attributes of beings.
This glossary of philosophy is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to philosophy and related disciplines, including logic, ethics, and theology.
On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason is an elaboration on the classical Principle of Sufficient Reason, written by German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer as his doctoral dissertation in 1813. The principle of sufficient reason is a powerful and controversial philosophical principle stipulating that everything must have a reason or cause. Schopenhauer revised and re-published it in 1847. The work articulated the centerpiece of many of Schopenhauer's arguments, and throughout his later works he consistently refers his readers to it as the necessary beginning point for a full understanding of his further writings.
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world. Someone who studies metaphysics can be called either a "metaphysician" or a "metaphysicist".
Werner Josef Krieglstein is an American scholar, director and actor. Krieglstein is the founder of a neo-Nietzschean philosophical school called Transcendental Perspectivism. Krieglstein's "philosophy of compassion" has been the subject of symposium lectures at many prominent conferences including the UNESCO section of the World Congress of Philosophy conference in Seoul Korea, the ISAIL "Fields of Conflict-Fields of Wisdom": 4th International Congress in Wuerzburg, Germany, the meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Washington D.C., and the ISUD Fourth World Conference of the International Society for Universal Dialogue, among many others.
Jainism made its own unique contribution to this mainstream development of philosophy by occupying itself with the basic epistemological issues. According to Jains, knowledge is the essence of the soul. This knowledge is masked by the karmic particles. As the soul obtains knowledge through various means, it does not generate anything new. It only shreds off the knowledge-obscuring karmic particles. According to Jainism, consciousness is a primary attribute of Jīva (soul) and this consciousness manifests itself as darsana (perception) and jnana (knowledge).
Buddhist thought and Western philosophy include several parallels.
