Human betweenness: An East-Asian re/interpretation of human being and its comparative applications for Heidegger, Corrington, Whitehead, Neville and Keller

Human betweenness means that the humans live between transcendence and ordinariness. Betweenness refers to ordinary human life transformed into the sacred. Transcendence lures ordinariness toward the sacred. Betweenness discloses the Way, a way to be human. This idea of human betweenness derives from the East Asian (Confucian-Daoist) interpretation of human being, in which the humans are one with Heaven and Earth. Here, the betweenness, that is, the 'being-between' Heaven and Earth, refers to everything in the world. It means that the purpose of human life is to integrate them into the wholeness of life, which is the sacred.;This East Asian idea of human betweenness, the dissertation argues, resonates with the Western thoughts of Being, God, and/or Nature. This resonance will be examined in the modern and contemporary Western notions of human being in Heidegger, Corrington, Whitehead, Neville and Keller. In so doing, the dissertation discerns three forms of integration of the betweenness of transcendence and ordinariness. The East Asian idea of betweenness in Confucianism and Daoism stresses a human initiative, both Heidegger and Corrington emphasize the transcendent initiative, and process thinkers such as Whitehead, Neville and Keller appreciate the ordinary initiative.;After all, human betweenness is the idea of the transformation of the ordinariness into the sacred by the luring force of transcendence. Both transcendence and ordinariness are betweenized because it is the way for human beings to live in a way of being human and to perceive the world. Ordinariness is transcended whenever human being experiences a certain sense of ecstatic union with things in the world. This sense of ecstasy, of a feeling of going beyond the ordinariness, is transcendental in the sense that it is extra/ordinary which means it is beyond ordinariness. In this way, human being is connected to the whole world, that is, the universe. Human life is all about this integration of transcendence and ordinariness into the sacred union. It asks human responsibility for it because it is human being that feels the luring and beckoning touches of transcendence over the ordinariness.