Transcendentals

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The transcendentals (Latin: transcendentalia, from transcendere "to exceed") are "properties of being", nowadays commonly considered to be truth, unity (oneness), beauty, and goodness.^{[citation needed]} The conceptual idea arose from medieval scholasticism, namely Aquinas but originated with Plato, Augustine, and Aristotle in the West.

From the time of Albertus Magnus in the High Middle Ages, the transcendentals have been the subject of metaphysics. Although there was disagreement about their number, there was consensus that, in addition to the basic concept of being itself (ens), unity (unum), truth (verum) and goodness (bonum) were part of the transcendental family.^[1] Since then, essence (res), otherness (aliquid) and, more recently, beauty (pulchrum) have been added.^{[citation needed]} Today, they are found in theology, particularly in Catholic thought, as unity, truth, goodness and beauty.^{[citation needed]}

Parmenides first inquired of the properties co-extensive with being.^[2] Socrates, spoken through Plato, then followed (see Form of the Good).

Aristotle's substance theory (being a substance belongs to being qua being) has been interpreted as a theory of transcendentals.^[3] Aristotle discusses only unity ("One") explicitly because it is the only transcendental intrinsically related to being, whereas truth and goodness relate to rational creatures.^[4]

In the Middle Ages, Catholic philosophers elaborated the thought that there exist transcendentals (transcendentalia) and that they transcended each of the ten Aristotelian categories.^[5] A doctrine of the transcendentality of the good was formulated by Albert the Great.^[6] His pupil, Saint Thomas Aquinas, posited six transcendentals: ens, res, unum, aliquid, bonum, verum; or “being,” "thing", "one", "something", "good", and "true".^[7] Saint Thomas derives the six explicitly as transcendentals,^[8] though in some cases he follows the typical list of the transcendentals consisting of the One, the Good, and the True. The transcendentals are ontologically one and thus they are convertible: e.g., where there is truth, there is being and goodness also.

In Christian theology the transcendentals are treated in relation to theology proper, the doctrine of God. The transcendentals, according to Christian doctrine, can be described as the ultimate desires of man. Man ultimately strives for perfection, which takes form through the desire for perfect attainment of the transcendentals. The Catholic Church teaches that God is Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, as indicated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.^[9] Each transcends the limitations of place and time, and is rooted in being. The transcendentals are not contingent upon cultural diversity, religious doctrine, or personal ideologies, but are the objective properties of all that exists.^{[citation needed]}

Modern “integral” or holistic philosophy within the Wilberian lineage, as well as Steve Mctintosh, author of Evolution’s Purpose seek to integrate Beauty,Truth, and Goodness as necessary requisites of all evolution in the Kosmos (body, mind, soul, spirit) within the individual at the microcosmic developmental level, as well as sociologically.

• Transcendence (philosophy)

• Jan A. Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals: the Case of Thomas Aquinas, Leiden: Brill, 1996.
• Jan A. Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy as Transcendental Thought. From Philip the Chancellor (ca. 1225) to Francisco Suárez, Leiden: Brill, 2012.
• John P. Doyle, On the Borders of Being and Knowing. Late Scholastic Theory of Supertranscendental Being, Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2012.
• Graziella Federici Vescovini (éd.), Le problème des Transcendantaux du XIVe au XVIIe siècle, Paris: Vrin, « Bibliothèque d’Histoire de la Philosophie », 2001.
• Bruno Pinchard (éd.), Fine folie ou la catastrophe humaniste, études sur les transcendantaux à la Renaissance, Paris, Champion, 1995.
• Piero di Vona, Spinoza e i trascendentali, Napoli: Morano, 1977.

• Wouter, Goris; Aertsen, Jan. "Medieval Theories of Transcendentals". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Jan Aertsen on the History of Transcendentals. An Annotated Bibliography