Abstract

While our search for transcendence may be directed toward cosmic metaphysical significance (e.g., God), as discussed in the earlier chapters, this chapter focuses on the “depth dimension” within the human being, that is, our concern with what may be called the “soul”. Taking its departure from Wittgenstein’s famous remark on what it is to have “an attitude towards a soul”, the chapter reflects on the ethical significance of this depth dimension in relation to the concept of truth (whose depth dimension deflated accounts of truth, such as Rorty’s, seek to eliminate). The chapter thereby also examines, with supplementary references to Wagnerian opera and other arts, what “losing one’s soul” can be taken to mean.