Abstract

How is it possible to think about the paradox of the relationship that is established between non-related terms? Transcendence means difference, exclusion from any relationship. Of course, saying that transcendence is not relative is a way to relate to it, and this, again, reconstructs a totality. To give this explanation without reducing transcendence to the totality, the possibility of a relationship in which one of the two terms remains outside of the relationship must be conceived, as is particularly clear in Pareyson’s thought. This can show interesting similarities with that of other thinkers. For Lévinas, transcendence is revealed in the face of the other, but the face paradoxically maintains the distance of transcendence. Only a trace remains of transcendence, but the trace of an absence; this, however, is precisely its evidence. The infinite is revealed only if it disappears in the image, because if it is shown as infinite, it would no longer be otherness, but would be only identity with itself. For Barth, there is an absolute separation between God and man, but God prevails infinitely and therefore denies man. Even here, there is no relationship between man and God as between two opposites, but one of the two terms, that is God, is within the relationship but outside of the relationship: it is absolute. All this explains that thinking of transcendence as a movement means thinking of it not as an object, but as an opening of a distance, empty space, as this opening itself, which produces a distance that cannot be filled. But this movement starts from the finite, from man. This means that the infinite is the condition of the finite, but the finite is also important for the infinite, which requires the limit, because the infinite produces itself from the finished term. As in the conception of Pareyson, for whom the truth is offered in the interpretation as a fundamental human experience, constituting its existence, but, paradoxically, not relative.