The Death Defying Act Of Transcendental Suspension

	This paper investigates the wider ramifications implicit in the Husserlian concepts of the transcendental suspension and transcendental reduction. To integrate this paper I shall adopt the device of using our reflections upon a circus performance involving, firstly, a high wire tight-rope act and, secondly, one that makes use of the trapeze. From these images various metaphors or analogies will be noted and discussed in the light of a philosophy that tries to make sense of, and expand upon, this phenomenological method that uses these two concepts as introduced and defined by Husserl. In a later paper the use of this phenomenological method of the transcendental suspension and reduction will be applied to a number of practical situations involving the creation, recognition, evaluation and transformation of value. 
	My motivation for this task is twofold, namely, to make sense of such concepts and to construct an understanding of such structures that allow theirs adoption along more practical lines. Both directions effectively investigate the nature of the relationship between, on one hand, value and, on the other, the transcendental suspension and reduction by proposing that an understanding of the nature of relational consciousness, or i.e. judgmental consciousness, forms an adequate link between them and allows us through this common ground to interrelate, with regards to the field of value, a theoretical dimension with a more practical dimension.
	It may seem paradoxical on a first reading that one of the theses put forward in this paper is that to create value, etc. in practice involves our suspension of value judgment, a suspension of all forms of value creation, recognition, evaluation and transformation. It will be argued that an appreciation of the process of judgment mirrors the practice of suspension and that in this act of suspension an involvement in the relationship under investigation is capable of determining these considerations of value for us in the terms of that relational commitment itself. This paper is the fifth in a series devoted to a phenomenological appreciation of the nature of value.

	From past experience I have found little in the usual series of circus routines that catches my interest. Most animal acts seem pointless and it saddens me to see a menagerie of specimens who having lost their freedom now have to pass themselves of as humans performing a few monotonous tricks in order to earn their supper. After the smell and the clouds of dust that follow each animal act even the humans, in their turn, come to appear as freaks who with the confidence of tricksters valiantly set out to amaze our jaded palates with stunts even more spectacular than the previous routines. However, the tragic clown who can skillfully manipulate not only our laughter but also our pity brings life back to the panorama of the ring. Moreover, I have always admired those acts under the ceiling of the high tent that involve the tight-rope and the trapeze. Such verve, such a superb sense of balance and timing effortlessly capture our imagination. The audience is stunned into silence, the immanent smell of disaster alerts our senses as we all seem to secretly identify with these aristocrats of artistes. Let us for a few minutes mediate upon these paragons of aerial virtue, qualities denied to us mere mortals who must work or perform laboriously for our daily bread upon the thin shrinking surface of this over populated and over polluted planet. Indeed, as actors and actresses in this theatre of the absurd we don't remember making our entrances, barely remember our lines, often forget that we must all make our exits, find no meaning or value in our mere being here and barely recognize that we must struggle in equal measure to the magnitude of our desires in order to realize our ambitions or lack of them.
	The drum roll sounds, the ring-master announces the tight-rope act as next. One tall thin artist in a flashing colourful livery of simulated silk slowly climbs up the narrow ladder attached to one of the pillars that supports the tent. Then at the top, after bowing to their audience, starts our across the void with their long white pole, supple to the extreme, sensitive to their every shift in position within a precision of balance that keeps them perfectly upright and in equilibrium and yet able to manoeuvre from one side to the other. Small step by step this human fly crosses this thin cable, sagging ever so slightly beneath their weight. In the center a crisis is simulated for the half expected enjoyment of the audience. Again on the slight ascent before reaching the other side the same type of feint is thrown in for extra measure, the people below holding their breath until they see their hero, or heroine, safely standing on the landing and bowing again to their relieved audience.
	Once more the drum roll sounds, the ring-master announces the next act - the flying trapeze. A number of performers and apprentices rise up the narrow ladders to the landings beneath the secured bars of the trapeze. A round of applause and out into the emptiness of the space under the high tent swing these stars of the show. Split second timing, perfect capture by their partners of each other, an intensity of purpose realized through hours of practice not detected in the performance itself. What can we learn from such a dazzling display of skill? Just what comparisons can we possibly draw between this physical artform of aerial ballet and transcendental suspension and reduction?

1.	Dynamic Balance

	As a first point that I would like to draw your attention to in this comparison is the profound need for balance. Without some form of balanced self-composure the artiste cannot continue and if this composure is not quickly regained or put in place the act cannot commence or for that matter recommence. For the tight rope walker the perception of balance is rather static. They must remain essentially upright and it would appear that they must be in a state of balance first before they move on across the rope. On the other hand for the trapeze artiste the presence of balance appears to be in a state of dynamic equilibrium, a state of affairs reinforced by the regular pendulum-like swinging action itself. Correctly, equilibrium must involve some form of movement in order to obtain a state of equilibrium or maintain the same. For the philosopher or, more specifically, the phenomenologist to entertain a transcendental suspension and reduction they must also entertain a profound form of psychological equilibrium. Suspension must apply to the judgment of all forms of value. Moreover, a state of a balance would seem to be in evidence between emotions and mood, between affect and cognitivity, between perception and conception, between field focalization and field contextualization, between retrospective reflection and prospective action, between a sense of one's own self and the self of others, between a sense of world and a sense of self, etc., etc.
	Why must there be a state of dynamic equilibrium between these many facets of the personality just listed? An answer to this question could be descriptive, prescriptive or explanatory. Essentially my answer to this question involves all three types of reply. 
	From a phenomenological perspective a series of descriptive accounts of various acts of reflection would seem to depict a state of affairs that effectively involved, I believe, an inter-balance of conceptually and perceptually entertained cognitive data pre-conditional to the act of judgment. From a more theoretical perspective we could strongly suggest, almost demand, that in order to realize the value of a situation, e.g. the aesthetic merit of that under investigation, a state of ongoing cognitive balance was necessary in order to entertain that particular state of affairs in the light of the particular modality it was engineered to be reviewed under but that this neutrality was also necessary to be able to be in a position to neutrally evaluate the same in accordance with the manner it was  to be viewed. By its very analytical definition a mental state of affairs that is directly dealing with perceptual data, or otherwise, etc. is doing just that, namely, dealing with the perceptual, or otherwise, etc. Because an investigation of value can be neither conducted directly on a cognitive level nor entertained in affective terms of reference its inferred transcendental trans-cognitive status demands that any cognitive or affective components involved must be neutralized in order to realize this distinctive non-cognitive, non-affective state of conscious experience. In our reception of an artwork, a painting e.g., too much emphasis on the material dwelling or being of that artwork itself must remove us in direct proportion from the experience of this artwork as an artwork by placing it under the influence of some other light or perspective. E.g. aesthetic appreciation demands that we see it in an aesthetic context and that any act of perception, e.g. must be non-emphasized and effectively neutralized. By neutralization is implied a model of conscious formation that recognizes consciousness to be fundamentally structured along the lines of a hierarchy of polarizations, each higher and more sophisticated level of gestalt appreciation being built up from the neutralization of lowers levels of psychic organization like the layers or levels of growth in the sequential development of an onion, e.g. Such a process recognizing the entry of a particular level, its thematization and appreciation, and its neutralization in order to enter the next level of epistemological organization. 
	Stick a pin into someone and the pain is experienced by that person as pain, but seen as painful and judged as painful if and only if the phenomenon of pain is in an appropriate sense transcended. Its perception and evaluation both necessitate a transcendence of the painful stimuli as painful stimuli. The sensations of pain are also rightly not completely abandoned for a level of psychic organization that re-orients itself with respect to a level that deals with perception, conception or judgment. Higher levels of psychic organization are in a certain defined sense parasitic upon the adequate formation of these lower levels of mental functioning. The evaluation of a painful experience necessitates the being present, or re-presentation in some form, of the original experience of a painful stimulus or a series of painful stimuli. In a certain sense suspension involves not only a state of psychic balance within and between various levels of gestalt organization and functioning but also a certain uncoupling of the phenomenon itself from its overall psychological context. Paradoxically such appreciation involves our disinterested interest and our interested disinterest. To experience pain as pain the semblance of pain must be present, on the other hand, the experience of pain as pain does not allow us to perceptually and judgmentally appreciate that particular phenomenon if we cannot also distance ourselves to some degree from its phenomenal presentation.
	To bring this last point vividly home to each one of us allow me, and hopefully you will forgive me in doing this, to place each one of you people here individually on your own tight-rope similar to the one previously described. Let me give you a gentle push on your way and now a few metres out from the platform where you started from let us meditate upon some of the thought processes that might be entertained under what would be the current stressful circumstances, albeit the current hypothetical circumstances. 
	In some degree of disbelief you would most likely and quickly realize the ramifications and possible consequences of your current situation. Going backwards, you soon find out, is not easy. Moreover, you quickly realize that one's balance and the maintenance of this balance is our prime consideration. Such an activity is very basic to the person's repertoire of physical actions and responses. Hopefully we quickly learn that to concentrate too intensely upon this desire for balance is effectively counter-productive. If our sole interest is on maintaining our balance then our concentration upon this desire for balance is to that extent one degree removed from the putting into practice of this activity. In catching a fish we must not concentrate our mental energies solely upon the thought of the catching of this fish for it must surely get away while we merely think about catching it. To some extent our activity must be what is desired and not be the desire to be that which is to be desired. So the complex feedback mechanisms that allow us to sense our current state of balance and allow us to respond to its demands and functions must not be too interfered with. Essentially a certain type of experience is focused upon and at the same time allowed to present itself along more global lines of reference, or i.e. allowed to be put into an appropriate perspective. In focus we experience the phenomenon focused upon whilst at the same time the context of our interest must not, indeed, cannot be completely lost sight of. An unhealthy interest on either one or the other of these polarized tendencies uncouples this fine balance and interplay of psychological forces. Moreover, our scrutiny itself demands a similar fine tuning. On one hand we are interested in the particular self-phenomenon under investigation and at the same relative time our interest must also be uncoupled from the same, suspended, bracketed, etc. Our involvement in the seriousness of the situation allows our commitment to remain in a state of such balance. Without this mental balance we will not be able to maintain our physical balance.
	In effect to remain suspended upon this tight-rope we must have our desire for balance itself subjected to a state of suspension. Moreover this suspension must apply to all desired physical actions and responses consciously put in place or brought to our attention. The very gestalt mechanics of focusing our attention must recognize this tension between the non-suspended and the mental suspension of the same in order to be able to focus upon the former. Our appreciation of this first order process of suspension itself being subject to a state of suspension in order to appreciate that subjected to such appreciation.
	Let us now analyse our most likely emotional reactions to this novel state for someone like us, the amateur tight-rope walker, to find ourselves in. Now we all know that anyone of us, or most of us whilst sober, could walk along the thinnest line without leaving it or stroll along a low brick fence without falling off. Such a situation would present little problem to most people. However, add the risk of falling off and potentially killing ourselves and such a simple task now becomes awesome in its contemplation. Suspended as we are out there if we let our emotions get the better of us we will for sure loose our balance. So in the performance of such a task the tight-rope walker must also be able to disengage their emotional reactions to such a situation. This disengagement or suspension, this bracketing or putting temporally out of action doesn't destroy our emotional sensitivity but allows us to put aside such considerations in order to more properly attend to what is relatively most pressing to hand. In this state of balance our natural fears are recognized but at the same time they are put to the side in order to continue to do what we feel we must do under present circumstances, i.e. maintain our balance and eventually extricate ourselves from this seemingly dangerous situation.
	There you are out there, wobbling gently from side to side, awkwardly managing to keep your balance, half-shaking from head to foot determined to extricate yourself from this predicament that I have unkindly put you all under. In continuing our meditation upon this unpleasant predicament we will now move on to reflect upon our being able to see or perceive our current state of affairs, those processes of consciousness dealing with perception being now the object of our attention.
	Let us imagine that in order to keep our balance we focus our eyes on a point of light, a small tear in the fabric of the tent, directly above the end of this tight-rope. Can we focus purely upon that point of light? No, for in order to recognize a point as a point it needs the contrast of a background. Moreover, a point in itself has no dimension and therefore could not in itself be seen. Furthermore, the perceptual meaningfulness of the point of light resides in its contrast with the rest of the perceptual environment. A point is not seen but a perceptual relationship is registered implying that perceptual appreciation arises from a perspective that takes focal perception and background perception into account. Needless to say some degree of balance between these two perceptual polarities must be in place for both aspects to cooperate and then, more importantly, for this cooperation to be appreciated.
	Without doubt, it is to be noted, each person doesn't wish to merely see the predicament they have been pushed into. Mere perception is not going to get them across and return them to the relative safety of the platform on the other side of the tent. Likewise merely thinking about the situation to hand is of itself also not going to resolve this stressful situation. Then in a similar manner the mere evaluation and judgment of the nature of either some part or the totality of this predicament will not resolve this present situation of crisis. Even an act of evaluation, and likewise an act of perception or conception, cannot be conducted purely in their own terms of reference. All forms of appreciation necessitate some form of distance and proximity in a dialectical relationship to each other. Appreciation means the appreciation of something from somewhere else. Hence even the acts of perception, conception, judgmental evaluation have their own associated forms of suspension; a complex interaction involving a conjunction of association and dis-association in a state of balanced suspension or dynamic equilibrium.
	Now that our research is more or less completed, i.e. an insight into the mechanics and dynamics of our overall appreciation have been developed, how are we going to enact a course of action that will extricate us from this seemingly perilous situation? It would appear that to exercise a degree of active will in this matter would in turn involve some form of engaged suspension? The mere decision to move forward would be that and only that, namely, the mere decision to move forward. It would appear therefore that an interaction between the exercise of an area of concern and the simultaneous subjecting of that `prior' area of concern to some form of suspensional treatment is necessary in dealing effectively with that area under the focus of our concern and that the same type of process on miscellaneous levels is repeated before the individual as a gestalt totality can be effective in their overall course of activity.
	What does this meditation of ourselves upon a high tight-rope have to tell us so far? It would appear that an engagement in what ever task before our conscious attention involves miscellaneous forms of involvement and dis-involvement and that only when a balance in perspective is achieved on a number of levels in epistemological-psychological organization can our current task to hand see out a possible and satisfactory form of completion. Then it was implied that to enact a certain process of activity all lower levels of gestalt organization had to be both exercised and in a state of balance. That the relevant level of organization associated ostensively with our desired level of engagement was itself involved in some form of active ongoing balance between the appropriate form of engagement and its related dis-engagement. However, be that as it may, a state of balance is only going to leave us suspended there. How is activity itself going to be exercised if a state of balance is actually in place. How are we going to move out across the rope and find the relative safety of the other side?

2.	The Active Resolution of Dialectical Balance

	Balance is necessary for appreciation and the contrasting of forces but of itself cannot effect activity that contradicts the very being of a state of balance which is to be in a state of balance?
	The problem could be posed like this - as meaning involves the conjunction of that which contrasts that area under focus it implies that each mental process x is conjoined with -x in an informative contrast but that being the case how can x operated by itself when it is conjoined with -x? Translated into a field of a action how could we move a particular muscle m with a force f if -m or -f i.e. the opposing muscle -m or the opposite force -f is also being applied to the situation involving the muscle m at the same time? Put quite plainly how could we exercise our free will when the relevant mental process is conducted in a state of balanced suspension? 
	Closely allied to such a dilemma is the associated problem, that involves an infinite regress, of how a mental process p is to be initiated if p needs a prior mental process p' and p' needs a prior mental process p''  etc., etc.
	An immediate solution to this type of philosophical problem might be found in the observation that suspension is in a state of dynamic equilibrium or dynamic balance, i.e. equilibrium is being moved towards. It stands to reason that if the personality of the individual is structured through a number of levels each under going its own state of dynamic equilibrium that the sum total of those structures would be realized in a state of gestalt integration that is itself undergoing or going through a state of overall dynamic equilibrium. Not being in a state of static equilibrium it follows that the nett resultant of forces is off balance but heading towards a state of final balance if it were left to its own devices in a closed system. However, to enter into a state of interaction no state can be treated as an absolutely closed system. If it were truly closed it could not be there-for-us to enter into a state of interaction with.
	An additional solution could be proposed along the following lines, namely, by giving to each particular possibility a fixed or variable value as to its apparent degree of interactive forcefulness. By this means possibilities could interact in the current field of interaction with all the internal and external historic distortions, inequalities, irregularities, etc. being present forcing situations to take a distinctive non-paralyzed course of action or involvement. Such a situation would help differentiate a distinctive pathway either mental and/or non-mental to form and continuously develop in its ongoing manifestation. A state of dynamic balance in a sense assisting an inequality in value between opposing contrasts.
	Given the above particular outcomes could either be regular and predictable in their unravelment or subject to catastrophic, chaotic or crisis perturbations depending on the nature of the associated terrain.
	Another possibility for behavioural irregularity or the apparent exercise of free will could arise through the momentary treatment of a temporal sequence with an ostensive break down of causality within the confines of the moment but which as an accumulative consequence comes to effect the trans-momentary nature of the continuum.
	By what ever mechanism effectively at stake is the ongoing resolution of tension, dissonance, difference, competition, etc. with a resultant course of action realized in a distinctive manner in tune with the uniqueness and interdependence of the associated relational situation. Because, in a non-closed or open system equilibrium is never absolutely realized it follows as a consequence that thought, physical action and behaviour can change, maintain periods of stability and also enter periods of non-predictable chaos or crisis. It is also by such means that the agent in self-reflection can transcend a contemporary sense of time to retrospectively examine the past and plan the prospect of possible future action or reaction subject to the restrictions of their immediate environment.
	It could well be by such mechanisms as just outlined that the person on a tight-rope can plan to move forwards or backwards along the same. A state of suspension is not necessarily a state of paralysis but more likely a state where history is able to effectively discharge, to some degree or other in the efficiency of that discharge, the forces and other factors that enter into its unique existential manifestation in this world in this-world-for-us.
	Thankfully, our hypothetical walking of this tight-rope is not fraught with any real difficulties and dangers. Let me, therefore, see put in place the safe passage for each one of you in your meditations upon a tight-rope. Through balance a state of suspension is maintained and through a state of dynamic equilibrium our safe passage is now put into effect. 
	As practical phenomenologists let us now ask what role the transcendental reduction might have for us in our research?

3.	Transcendental Reduction As a Ground for Transformation

	It is fashionable these days, often in a flurry of illuminating polemic, to dismiss our perception of the world as a mere representation, or worse as a copy of a copy, without any non-relative foundations or structures. Phenomenology must and should attack such a presupposition. Even the desert mirage has substance, certain conditions and preconditions that ensure its manifestation, namely, a flat surface, heat, water vapour, a source of light, a perceiver, etc. Such recognition of these essential factors does not imply that we must affirm, or deny, the apparent existential status of our interpretation of this phenomenon. A recognition of the phenomenon as a phenomenon would or should recognize the phenomenon to be structured in a certain distinctive fashion regardless of how we currently interpret that phenomenon. Of course an adequate appreciation of the essential construction of the phenomenon would then tell us that a mirage that was merely simulating water was currently to hand and that we shouldn't  seek to realize the false promise of water therein seemingly revealed. On the other hand we should still keep open that our interpretation itself was defective and that real water was being correctly represented for us. Either way there are elements in both the presentation, the illusory simulation and also the misinterpretation of a simulation that remain invariant and cannot be dismissed as a mere superficial phenomenon. A respectable phenomenology would recognize a vertical structuring of phenomena that cannot be dismissed as a mere presentation in horizontal-like terms of reference. The point of this observation is to note that events are structured on a number of levels and that essential features structure the unfolding and revelation of that patterned manifestation. However this does not imply that the essentials that structure a particular type of phenomenon are themselves structured with the same degree of essentiality. The question what is the essence of essence can be answered with the reply no-essence. When essences cease to be phenomena they cease to be structured as phenomena and in a sense have then no structure. Generated in the context of a certain type of phenomenal occurrence the appropriate essentials constitute and reconstitute that type of phenomenon with a degree of distinctive intersubjectivity and resulting apparent objectivity. One role for the transcendental reduction is to formulate an essential environment that allows the individual person or a group of people to experience, correspond about and realize the interdependency and transformation of a certain phenomenal context that existentially or non-existentially is allowed to interact in the open manner that such involvement has permitted and permits us to be so involved in.
	In the state of transcendental suspension the transcendental reduction allows us to formulate or reformulate a certain situational context and therein define the limitations that would be imposed upon a behavioural space that allows us to enter into and therein define the manner of our involvement in that situation of existential engagement. By writing the rules so to speak we take on a degree of control over the situation that as a relationship we have entered into as that current relationship to hand. In this existential terrain a richness of possible and actual formation is revealed to us with varying degrees of predictability and unpredictability. However a degree of control is given or opened up to us if and only if the individual allows them self, and is allowed, to enter into the existential being of that relationship that finds them as the concerned person or persons to hand. By restructuring the terrain found therein the individual therein is allowed to exercise a certain degree of self-control. By these means they can find themselves entering into the course of history not as mere spectators in a simulation but as participants in the unfolding of a drama that constitutes the living revelation of the life-world, a world of meaning and meaningfulness constituted by the relationship in a relationship between the ideal polarities of a world of life and a world that is lived in. By entering into the spirit of the relationship that recognizes the nature of the relationship between the nature of the tight-rope walker as a tight-rope walker and the nature of the tight-rope as a medium to walk upon an individual can learn to walk across such a device that allows us to cross by these means to the other side. To do so necessitates our being able to develop our transcendental discrimination and to concentrate therein on what is exactly relevant to the nature of that relationship that would allow us to be successful in bringing to that relationship its fruition, permitting us to discover what is in it that is there to hand for us in that relational act of participation.
	Participation is realized in a relationship through an ongoing resolutional discharge of tension between the relevant essential elements that constitute our cognitive understanding of the parties that directly participate in that relationship. Too much tension without resolution and the embryonic relationship would tear itself apart (and in its destruction possibly explode beyond those cognitive terms of reference). Too little tension, difference, conflict, distance between the parties brought to the relationship reveals the general lack of a relationship, realizes the general lack of a process of interaction between the `concerned' parties. Moreover, if the potential difference between the dominant forms of reciprocity are equalized or ceased then the relationship must also do likewise. Too much conflict in a relationship sees its being metaphorically torn apart, little difference realizes the boring relationship that goes nowhere whilst an equalization of our debt or obligations sees the end of our involvement just as when we pay our bills with the plumber, e.g. sees the end of our relationship with them and vice versa.
	In a state of ongoing balance, the dynamic equilibrium of suspension, there is seen out an interaction of competing forces that neither disrupts the relationship, takes it nowhere or brings it to a state of cessation. Through a resolution of our motor-sensory imputs and outputs a state of physical balance is put in place. Through a neutralization of our emotional reactions we can overcome the paralysis of fear. Through the appropriate forms of suspension in our perceptual, conceptual and evaluational thinking we can come to a dynamic understanding as to the nature of our present being in the world. From a state of dynamic suspension it was also suggested behavioural responses could respond sensibly to the reality of our current involvement in this world of life as it presents itself to hand. Without a resolution of the relevant forces tight-rope walking becomes an impossible art and the very same preconditions and conditions enter into all forms of engagement in this-world-of-involvement-for-us. Hence the importance of a transcendental reduction resides in the necessity to become acquainted with the actual essential structures of our involvement and that by our skillful intuitive rearrangement of the same factors a transformation of that relationship to hand can be effected by us although more correctly such existential interaction is effected by the relationship itself on our behalf. As the relationship is effectively a totality greater than the mere sum of its participant parties it follows that that relationship will express itself as a unique force beyond the mere summation of those parties. By the term transcendental is here meant primarily that level of consciousness that deals directly with relational matters as in their evaluation and relational judgment, being transcendental to cognitive levels of perceptual and conceptual cognitivity, being transcendental to emotional considerations, aspects of affect and physiological forms of stimulus and response.

4.	The Commitment of Faith Through Self-Suspension

	Having successfully traversed this high tight-rope let me now ask one of you to volunteer to take part in a trapeze act wherein this volunteer, whilst blindfolded, will allow themselves to be caught by a professional trapeze artiste. It so happens that a commercial tv station, in a desperate effort to boost its approval ratings, has offered to pay a substantial prize to someone, as an amateur, to attempt this relatively difficult and seemingly dangerous stunt. The prize money is very attractive and a large number of people here decide to enter. The tv station decides a number of healthy people will be accepted and then by ballot one lucky individual will be chosen for the grand performance, using the act as the high point of that evening's entertainment at the circus. As it happens most peple here have been accepted for this ballot.
	All the hopeful volunteers take a ringside seat. The drumroll sounds for the grand finale. The ballot is to be chosen by one of the clowns who manages to draw out of this occasion its fullest degree of suspense. Fortunately, or unfortunately, your number has been chosen and so you are now asked to stand up and enter the ring. 
	Before the public gaze you take your track suit off to reveal your shorts and singlet. The winter air is cold and nervously you force yourself to climb the narrow and shaky ladder to the waiting trapeze artistes high above the audience. You arrive at the small platform. Take a final bow and find yourself being tightly blindfolded. Whilst hanging onto a fixed bar you find the trapeze being placed at ankle length. You are told to tightly spread your legs and grip this swinging instrument of fate that soon will dangle you as you fall outwards into the void. A few words of encouragement and advice are given to your numb and nameless body waiting helplessly for its release. The swing, via a connecting rope, will be worked from the platform and a caller will tell you when to bring your legs together and release yourself from the trapeze sending you out in an arc to the waiting professional on another trapeze ready to catch you. You will then be swung across to the other platform opposite and released by your catcher to be captured there by three waiting apprentices on the other side.
	A distant drum roll rattles the start of your aerial oscillation followed by a fanfare of trumpets in a minor key. Downwards and upwards across the space between the two main supports of the tent you swing backwards and forwards perhaps for ten times. As you near your initial point of departure you are told to `get ready' and then a few seconds later you are told loudly to `go'. All prayers now behind you you do as told in the good faith that you will be caught by the unseen professional waiting to catch you. A few seconds later you feel the strong grip of two hands suddenly clamped upon your outstretched wrists. One ordeal done, another to go. Soon after a couple of swings you will be released a second time to be caught by the three helpers on the other platform opposite to the one you started out from. Now you are completely helpless. The decision to give assent to your letting go is now no longer yours to exercise. Soon you feel that lonely experience again of being without any form of earthly support and then a few seconds later the warm experience of human support as you are safely caught and land on the other platform. The blind fold comes off. You force yourself to bow to your audience, for the few seconds they belong to you, you mumble a few word of thanks to your catchers and with the greatest of difficulty do the even more trying task of coming down the shaky ladder without falling off, more nervous than the feel of the ladder as it sways in and out of step with your tremulous state. One more bow is insisted upon when you reach mother earth and you now dread the questions that soon will be asked your still speechless person although a little happier in the thought of receiving a cheque for their part in this devil's contract. 
	The moral of this metaphor, or rather the point of this meditation, is the question that once in a state of suspension is the successfulness of that state of affairs arrived at through one's own efforts or through the release and capture of the relationship itself? There is a sense in which the person gives their assent to enter a particular state of evaluation and therein discover the judgment they wish to find. This is a bit like climbing the ladder and placing oneself in the swing. A series of prior transcendental reductions allow you to set up the situation in the manner in which you wish to investigate and take action upon if so desired. In swinging out and letting go when told we have a comparison to the situation wherein the person listening to the evaluation of the judgment allows their assent to follow, either in the form of an approval or an acceptance of the activity and consequences that most probably will follow from that just decided and acted upon course of events. But there is another aspect to this phenomenon of acting upon a judgment and that is the existential feeling that the power of the relationship itself has the power to effect its own course of events. That in a sense the relationship as a whole or as a psychic totality is greater than the sum of its participants, agents included, and that this is experienced in the relational experience of the relationship when it is allowed, or rather allows us, to act from the metaphorical center of its being.
	The point of this meditation of ourselves blindfolded upon a trapeze is that in good faith, indeed from the very location of the manifestation of good faith, i.e. in and on the transcendental level of consciousness in this psychological sense, a relatively non-distorted form of judgment results when we even suspend this transcendental-psychological sense of self and allow the relevant research and the conditions of the act of judgment to come together and follow their own course of action. Such a response is without egoistical distortion through the very fact that the egoistical sense of self must also be in a state of suspension. Without direct egoistical intervention such activity could be seen to spontaneously emerge and manifest itself in a state of non-action. A phenomenological examination of this selfless phenomenon would reveal, I believe, the paradoxical state for logical-cognitive thinking of active-reflection, almost a contradiction in terms, a type of consciousness that not only profoundly appreciates a certain state of affairs but also effortlessly arranges and realizes the appropriate manner of the realization of that associated re-sponse.
	These three types of assent, approximately, pre-conditional entering into or the setting up of an understanding of the question or situation, conditional letting go, and the being let go of post-conditional non-assent. These three forms of permission being analogued in this meditation. In the being let go by the relationship there is also conjoined the being captured by that relationship, as represented by our three catchers who assist our blind-folded volunteer to land at the end of this particular act. In order to appreciate the ramifications of this possible existential insight into participation from the phenomenological point of view let me briefly set out the following points.
	Firstly, there is an important sense where the individual must set out to help themselves to realize and formulate their own ambitions and the means they have at their disposal to define and realize the same. This is essentially pre-conditional research although the nuclear aspects of this phase are themselves conducted in the auspices of a judgmental conditional phase, i.e. in the process or conditional act of some form of judgment itself. The series of preparatory transcendental reductions being exercised in the light of the nature of the judgmental response desired being pre-conditionally developed prior to the crucial primary act of the judgment itself where, in its readiness or pre-development, it is so ready to be profitably performed, the relevancy of our essential homework already being decided in the light of or in the spirit of the relationship itself.
	Secondly, once our homework is essentially completed then we can give our assent to the fact that the relationship, in our metaphorical listening to it, is telling us to let it go ahead, in a state of transcendental suspension, and enter its central and primary act of evaluation. This is arrived at through the condition of the relational process itself realizing its own judgmental evaluation of the-situation-to-hand-for-it that is that-which-is-indirectly-there-for-us.
	Thirdly, perceive in the response arrived at in the conditional process of the evaluation that a judgment has been generated that is essentially intersubjective and apparently objective in form, i.e. critically objective in its responsiveness and appropriateness. That to all appearances such a response is prepared to let us go in the non-egoistical direction it has us headed in in its existential harmonization of our interaction in the world.
	Fourthly, that in retrospective examination, given the relevant details and conducted in a state of suspended discrimination without direct egoistical intervention in our value judgments the same type of objectivity can be experienced and recognized, re-evaluated and allowed to subject itself to the necessary transformations that maintain the appropriateness of that situational response. That in our preparedness to let ourselves go in good faith the relationship will also capture us in its metaphorical embrace.
	Fifthly, lets us realize through transcendental insight, in a certain sense, the manner in which the human individual can transcend the limitations of their cognitive-material being in this world, in this world of life or life-world. That in a special sense the individual can existentially transcend life and death as enacted out by the appearance or simulation of an ego in this drama of the world.

5. 	Defying Death Through Transcendental Suspension

	The transcendence of the cognitive-material form of the world in experience realizes a sense of transcending the world and its array of egos and objects. Without the stabilizing presence and influence of a transcendental state of suspension, as a dynamic balance within and between competing forms of value, the human individual would be subjected to an apparent loss of humanity through an inability to at least be seen to be exercising an existential free-will. Through a metaphorical loss of psychic balance the individual would loose their gestalt balance and fall from this tight-rope of transcendental being. Moreover, without an informed act of blind faith central to the evaluational process of judgment we could never be caught by or released into the existential flow of the relationship as it essentially experiences itself, realizes its transcendental effectiveness of that transcendental self to be as an agent in the midst of a world there for it rather than the other way round, namely, as just an object in the world there for the use of that world.
	The cognitive experience of the world is characterized by a material sense of space, time, causality and an egoistical sense of self. Space is three dimensional, geographical and limited, time is historical and continuously changeable in its present presentedness, causality is deterministic and/or probalistic in its material confinement and the associated sense of self is experienced as both an object to be exploited and as an object that just as happily exploits others and the things of this world. Although time cannot be escaped its material or cognitive limitations can be transcended through the state of the transcendental suspension, the transcendental form of time, space, causality and ego. From the transcendental perspective time is experienced through the continuum of its spontaneity, then certain limitations of geographical space in our relationships are overcome, that causality becomes non-deterministic in its manifestation and that the sense of self is realized to be transcendental, existential, self-critical, subject both to dialectical resolution and the powers of freedom to reflect, to act and be in the manner which arises as directed though this process of harmonization. The gestalt integration concomitant with a transcendental orientation is also able to impart to the individual a powerfulness of presence that can help overcome the problematic nature of our being as a person in this world. In our good faith we can enter into a relationship with the world, letting this relationship intuitively tell us when to let go, allow ourselves to be released and captured by that relationship. In this manner the vissitudes and serendipity of the world can be experienced with the necessary degree of transcendental detachment that can release us from both the distaste for and the allure of an object-ive world that exploits us and is to be exploited by us. In its place we trade a world of material value for a world that values us and is to be valued by us. In this latter state death is effectively transcended as we are now no longer a mere material object in the world but a transcendental force in a world of value, a dimension that is to be recognized as the true home of the person as a person.

6.	Personal Valour Through Transcendental Suspension

	Action from the transcendental perspective is in a special sense already self-enacted. Metaphorically described it analogues a sense of being let go that transcends a sense of our letting go. The latter would appear to be cognitively engineered whilst the former has the hallmarks of a transcendent overcoming of the limitations of the situation currently to hand. Therein is experienced a sense of personal power, faith and valour that is born through the spontaneity of the relationship itself. In our meditation upon the act of tight-rope walking we can see it as a going forth to the other side with a resolute determination to successfully cross to this other side. In our meditation on the blindfolded amateur on the trapeze it is symbolized in both our preparedness to let go and be let go. In effect the resolutional power of transcendental-psychological consciousness gives our daily life in the world the powerfulness of being that is characterized by a sense of valour, convictions equal to the depths of our concern exercised in the good faith that knows the authenticity of such existential being. From such a perspective the person in the world as a person has, as a consequence, the full freedom of their powers of an apparent free-will, such being now opened up to them through this ongoing over-coming of a cognitive sense of self.

7.	Conclusion - Coming Back To Earth

	Bringing these two metaphors of the tight-rope walker and the trapeze artiste back down to ground level, so to speak, we may realize that one of the points of this paper was to reveal the profound, ever-present and practical nature of the transcendental suspension and the transcendental reduction in our daily lives. It was argued in metaphorical terms of reference through these two meditations that our psyche can only operate through a series of suspensions (and reductions) throughout the totality of its being. That only through a transcendental level of suspension, through preparatory and presented forms of transcendental reduction, could the individual act in good faith, act with a sense of freedom and possess a profound sense of balance, proportion, appropriateness, timeliness, conviction, concern and valour... Such characteristics as these would seem to indicate the heroic nature of transcendental being, mark out the person, or that part of the person, as a super-person. 
	Before I conclude this paper let me ask three questions that might be raised by this exposition and briefly answer them.
	Firstly, what is the subject matter of transcendental suspension and reduction? My answer to this deceptively simple question is value, our experience of value.
	Secondly, who is the subject of transcendental suspension and reduction? My first, and non-metaphysical, answer to this philosophical nightmare would be the transcendental self, or more correctly, the transcendental-psychological sense of self, a self that must walk the fine line that divides and integrates the life-world, that world of life where phenomena can be neither purely in a material camp nor in an egoistical domain of self. A self that if it looses this fine sense of balance looses its free-will, looses its existential freedom to make itself through the good faith of letting itself go and finding itself being let go (and thereafter captured or encaptured). A state of balance that the individual person as a person must continuously realize in order to live harmoniously in this world and experience, through good faith and in valour, the meaning and meaningfulness of a world of transcendental value.
	Lastly as a practical question let me ask how is value to be enacted, i.e. created and there after recognized, evaluated and transformed? My answer to this important question is that value itself must be given up, placed in a state of transcendental suspension and reduction. All forms of value must be bracketed, made inoperative, and in the process the person must ensure that the necessary degree of transcendental distance or detachment is in place so that the fruits of their research can realize an existential end in the ongoing teleology of the relationship as it unfolds in the all-embracing relationship of the World, that life-world of value that is there for us to discover, realize and be encaptured by...?
	Although the language of this type of discourse may strike us vague, metaphysical, mystical or outright deserving of our suspicion I would hope that a reasonable number of people would recognize in it some degree of empathy that they might find in their reflections upon the nature of their natural existence in this world? Am I alone in pursuing this perspective as presented in this paper? If such an important aspect to our existence in this world can be recognized as an essential stratum in our phenomenal being then it would allow us to phenomenologically investigate the same. Indeed, if that could be proven to be the case then, perhaps, our meditations on ourselves as a tight-rope walker and as a trapeze artiste might not have been in vain? I take some solace from the fact that although theoretically, in a philosophical sense, the world is problematic for us to comprehend, if that were at all possible, in a practical sense living in the world is more often than not not something problematic for us. As a philosopher our understanding how this feat is performed may well help let us live more successfully and harmoniously on this planet lest we and this planet become two more endangered species. In this pursuit it is my belief that a practical application of the Husserlian transcendental suspension and reduction has much to offer us!

				Noël Tointon, Leura and Sydney, 18/5/90.