TRANSCENDENTALS. — In traditional philosophy, these are the notions that, by virtue of their maximal universality, apply to all things and are formally predicated of all. The term derives from the verb "to transcend," philosophically understood as something that in some way surpasses another because it belongs to a higher order: in this sense, God transcends nature and the world as their principle and efficient cause, spirit transcends matter, life transcends physical-chemical activities, and genus transcends species. In traditional philosophy, the terms "transcendent" and "transcendental" are used promiscuously, although it is preferable to call a reality that surpasses another reality "transcendent" (God with respect to creatures), and a notion that surpasses another in its extension "transcendental" (genus with respect to species).
In ancient thought, the concept of transcendence is developed especially in relation to being (v.) and its most general properties or attributes. In particular, Aristotle emphasizes the transcendental character of the notion of being, which is the formal object of metaphysics (first philosophy) and a concept not merely generic but transcending all categories, genera, species, and differences (Met., IV). Aristotle also notes the transcendence of other notions such as unity (v.), truth (v.), and goodness (v. GOOD).
The Neoplatonists (Plotinus, Enneads, V), along with truth and beauty, consider unity and, under the influence of Plato, goodness as especially transcendental notions. This doctrine, taken up by the Fathers (notably St. Augustine, De mor. Manich., II; Solil., II), was systematically developed by medieval Scholasticism, also under the influence of Arabic philosophy. St. Thomas Aquinas (De Ver., q. 1, a. 1 and passim) enumerates five transcendental notions alongside being, from which they differ only by a logical distinction: *res*, which expresses the essence or quiddity of being; *unum*, which indicates its indivision; *aliquid*, which signifies the distinction of each individual being from every other reality; *verum*, which expresses the conformity of being with thought (*omne ens est intelligibile*); and *bonum*, which indicates the suitability of being to the appetitive tendencies of the rational or irrational subject (*omne ens est appetibile*). A similar doctrine is found in Scotus (Oxon., I, dist. 8, q. 3) and Suárez (Disp. Met., dist. 3, s. 1), who extensively develops the transcendental properties of being.
Suárez’s thought exerted considerable influence on modern philosophy, as seen in Wolff (Ontologia, § 169). Kant was familiar with Scholastic doctrine but argued that the transcendental notions do not express predicates of things but rather the logical conditions of all cognition of things (Krit. d. rein. Vern., I, 1). According to his theory of knowledge (v.), he gave new meaning to the terms "transcendent" and "transcendental": "transcendent" refers to anything that in any way lies beyond all possible experience (the noumenon [v.]), in opposition to "immanent"; "transcendental" refers to the a priori condition, or necessary and universal form of experience, in opposition to the empirical data of experience itself. With Kant, the term "transcendental" thus shifted from an ontological to a logical-epistemological meaning concerning the subject. Of Kant’s transcendental forms, only empirical use is legitimate, since they necessarily connect with the phenomenal data of experience to which they alone refer; any metaphysical use of them, according to Kant, is devoid of value.
In modern philosophy, the terms "transcendent" and "transcendental" are mostly used in the Kantian sense or an analogous one, excluding reference to being, as seen even in certain forms of value philosophy (v.), where transcendental attributes are considered as "supreme values" distinct from things.
TRANSCENDENCE, PRINCIPLE OF: V. IMMANENCE.