transcendental

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌtɹænsɛnˈdɛntəl/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌtɹænsɛnˈdɛntəl/, /ˌtɹænzɛnˈdɛntəl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

transcendental (plural transcendentals)

1. (obsolete) A transcendentalist.
2. (philosophy, metaphysics, Platonism, Christian theology, usually in the plural) Any one of the three transcendental properties of being: truth, beauty or goodness, which respectively are the ideals of science, art and religion and the principal subjects of the study of logic, aesthetics and ethics.
   • 2002, Robert C. Neville, Religion in Late Modernity, State University of New York Press, page 72:

     In deference to Christian usage we can say that the transcendentals constitute the Logos within which everything has its being and according to which everything is made.

   • 2012, Jean Grondin, translated by Lukas Soderstrom, Introduction to Metaphysics: From Parmenides to Levinas, Columbia University Press, page 105:

     These predicates of Being are what the Medievals called, using a term that will have a fertile future, "transcendentals" (often called the "universals") because they transcend all particular genera, following the example of Being.⁹⁶ A quarrel over these transcendentals even shook the later Middle Ages. The quarrel stemmed from the question of whether the existence of these transcendentals was real or intellectual (also called nominal).

   • 2012, Jan Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy as Transcendental Thought: From Philip the Chancellor (ca. 1225) to Francisco Suárez, BRILL, page 515:

     The medieval doctrine of the transcendentals is closely connected with a metaphysical conception of reality, but is there a science of being in William of Ockham (ca. 1285-1347)?

   • 2015, Anthony Howard, Humanise: Why Human-Centred Leadership is the Key to the 21st Century, Wiley, page 70:

     Another fascinating thing about the transcendentals is that each is fully contained in the others. When you appreciate beauty, for example, you recognise the presence of goodness and truth. When you grasp the truth about something you experience a moment of beauty in, perhaps, the simplicity or power of the insight. When you observe goodness in the actions of another person you are seeing truth and beauty in operation.

Adjective

transcendental (comparative more transcendental, superlative most transcendental)

1. (philosophy) Concerned with the a priori or intuitive basis of knowledge, independent of experience.
   • 1985, J. N. Mohanty, The Possibility of Transcendental Philosophy‎, Kluwer Academic (Martinus Nijhoff), page xiii:

     The best way to demonstrate the possibility of something is to show its actuality, for actuality implies possibility. At least since Kant, transcendental philosophies have been on the scene. However, such simple demonstration of the possibility of transcendental philosophy has not been effective and is not likely to be so — so strong is the presumption that transcendental philosophy just could not be possible, or, if it was possible earlier, it is not possible now.

   • 1999, Robert Stern, 4: On Kant's Response to Hume: The Second Analogy as Transcendental Argument, Robert Stern (editor), Transcendental Arguments: Problems and Prospects, 2003, Oxford University Press (Clarendon Press), Paperback, page 47,

     Whilst it was once held that transcendental arguments could provide a direct and straightforward refutation of scepticism, this view now seems over-optimistic.

   • 2007, Steven Crowell, Jeff Malpas, Chapter 1: Introduction Steven Crowell, Jeff Malpas, (editors), Transcendental Heidegger, Stanford University Press, page 1,

     Not only does Heidegger's early work stand within the framework of transcendental phenomenology as established by Husserl—even though it also contests and revises that framework—but that thinking also stands in a close relationship to the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and specifically to the transcendental project, and modes of argument, of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

2. Superior; surpassing all others; extraordinary; transcendent.
3. Mystical or supernatural.
4. (algebra, number theory, field theory, of a number or an element of an extension field) Not algebraic (i.e., not the root of any polynomial that has positive degree and rational coefficients).
   • 1975, Alan Baker, Transcendental Number Theory, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, published 1990, page 1:

     The theory of transcendental numbers was originated by Liouville in his famous memoir^† of 1844 in which he obtained, for the first time, a class, très-étendue, as it was described in the title of the paper, of numbers that satisfy no algebraic equation with integer coefficients.

   • 2005, Juan G. Roederer, Information and Its Role in Nature, Springer, page 28:

     If the distribution of decimal digits of ${\displaystyle \pi }$ (or any other transcendental number) is truly random (suspected but not yet mathematically proven!), given any arbitrary finite sequence of whole numbers, that sequence would be included an infinite number of times in the decimal expansion of ${\displaystyle \pi }$.

5. (algebra, field theory, of an extension field) That contains elements that are not algebraic.
   • 2006, Steven Roman, Field Theory, Springer, 2nd Edition, Graduate Texts in Mathematics 158, page 108,

     Suppose that ${\displaystyle F<E}$ is purely transcendental. Show that any simple extension of ${\displaystyle F}$ contained in ${\displaystyle E}$ (but not equal to ${\displaystyle F}$) is transcendental over ${\displaystyle F}$.

Further reading

• Transcendence on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• (philosophy):
  • Transcendentals on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Epistemology on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Metaphysics on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Critique of Pure Reason on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• (algebra, number theory, field theory):
  • Transcendental number on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Liouville number on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Field (mathematics) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Field extension on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Transcendental extension on Encyclopedia of Mathematics
  • Transcendental Extension on Wolfram MathWorld

Adjective

transcendental (strong nominative masculine singular transcendentaler, comparative transcendentaler, superlative am transcendentalsten)

1. Obsolete spelling of transzendental.

Etymology

Borrowed from French transcendantal, from Latin transcendentalis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌtrans.t͡ʃe.denˈtal/

Adjective

transcendental m or n (feminine singular transcendentală, masculine plural transcendentali, feminine and neuter plural transcendentale)

1. transcendental

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Spain) /tɾansθendenˈtal/ [t̪ɾãns.θẽn̪.d̪ẽn̪ˈt̪al]
• IPA^(key): (Latin America, Philippines) /tɾansendenˈtal/ [t̪ɾãn.sẽn̪.d̪ẽn̪ˈt̪al]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: trans‧cen‧den‧tal

Adjective

transcendental m or f (masculine and feminine plural transcendentales)

1. transcendental

Further reading

• “transcendental”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10