Self-transcendence

It is suggested that the theories of man, which are circumscribed by the individual himself (whether upon the reduction of his tension, as in homeostasis theory; or in the fulfilment of the greatest number of immanent possibilities, as in self-actualization), are inadequate. An adequate view of man can however be formulated when it goes beyond homeostasis and beyond self-actualization to that transcendent sphere of human existence in which man chooses what he will do and what he will be in the midst of an objective world of meanings and values. In this sense, self-transcendence can be considered the fulfilment of self-actualization.

To speak of the world as merely a design produced by the cognitive subject is to do injustice to the full phenomenon of the cognitive act which is the self-transcendence of existence toward the world as an objective reality. The more cognition actually becomes mere self-expression and a projection of the knowing subject's own structure, the more it becomes involved in error. Cognition is true cognition only to the extent in which it is contrary of mere self-expression and to which it involves self-transcendence.