While I was listening to Daily Rosary Meditations, who is sponsoring this email (highly recommend that you subscribe, please click the button below), Dr. Mike spoke about the transcendentals, especially about beauty and our need for it. He said good and true things (pun intended) about the transcendentals so much so that what he said inspired me to write this post, dear reader, so that you will have more familiarity with transcendentals next time you hear about them, next time you come across the word “good” or “true” in your own reading, or the next time you pray about God’s infinite transcendence.

The meaning of Transcends

(1) Transcends is a term that can mean what transcends the divide between God and creatures. Temporally, it is the first meaning of transcends, found in the Platonic tradition, such as in Augustine (e.g. mind reaching God).

Due to a “nobility of being”, God transcends every being by the nobility of actuality. Hence, God is what transcends is what goes beyond every being.

Transcends taken in this way gives rise to a “Philosophy of the transcendent”.

(2) Transcends, in its later meaning, can also mean what transcends all the categories.

It is part of the Aristotelian tradition.

It is transcendent according to commonness of predication, that is, what is formally predicated of every being because it is what is across all the categories.

Transcends, in this sense, gives rise to “Transcendental philosophy”.

Criteria for Comparing Thinkers

To compare any two thinkers on the transcendentals, one can compare their thoughts on five main points, what Jan Aertsen calls the five elements of the standard analysis.

The five elements of the standard analysis of transcendentals are the following:

1. Transcendental systematics

2. Transcendentality and metaphysics

3. Transcendentals and the divine

4. Transcendentals and the problem of conceptual unity

5. Transcendentals as the firsts. 

1. Transcendental systematics

First, Transcendental systematics concerns the order among the transcendentals. Although “being” is usually first, there is a question about what arguments make it first. Different authors give different accounts.

Another part of the systematics is the identity and difference of the transcendentals. That there is an addition to the meaning of “being” is necessary but how and in what way additions can be made without adding a distinct nature to being raises questions.

Side note, what follows immediately from the identity and difference of the transcendentals is the scientific status of the "science of transcendentals" as a subject of study.

To have a science, a subject-genus, principles, and properties are needed.

Properties are demonstrated as belonging to the subject-genus through the principles which are definitions, common axioms, and proper axioms.

However, a question remains about the status of the transcendentals as a science since, to be a science, one subject genus is needed but, in theological transcendentality, God and creatures do not form one subject genus.

Another problem is the fact that it is unclear what the properties of being are.

If the transcendia are only conceptually distinct from being, then they are not properties and cannot be demonstrated as belonging to any subject such as in the case of humanity and risibility.

Properties, strictly speaking, are not in the essence of the subject. 

2. Transcendentality and metaphysics

Second, Transcendentality and metaphysics form another standard of analysis. The transcendentals bear upon the subject matter of metaphysics. 

For example, Boethius thought that God was the subject matter of metaphysics whereas Aquinas thought that being qua being was the subject and God was a principle of it.

Others suggest it is the science of unity, or the science of the good or of res (thing).

The answer, in part, depends on how being is predicated of God and creatures.

In any case, there is a search for unity in the subject of the science.

3. Transcendentals and the divine 

Third, Transcendentals can be studied from the standpoint of how they relate to God, the divine.

The transcendentals are divine names.

For example, Albert treats the status of certain transcendentals like "one" and "good" as divine names.

One can contrast the transcendental names said of God with the names said according to commonness (across the categories). 

4. Transcendentals and the problem of conceptual unity

Fourth, Transcendentals can be studied according to their conceptual unity.

If they are commonly predicated of all beings, then does it follow that all of the notions are conceptually unified?

However, being is an equivocal term. It is equivocal in one way according to different analogies.

The first is a transcendental analogy across the categories. The second is a theological analogy between God and creatures.

There are differences when it comes to the conceptual unity and equivocity of the transcendentals.

5. Transcendentals as the firsts. 

Fifth, there is a question about the transcendentals as first concepts of the mind (or prima).

Being, one, true, good can be our first conceptions in our minds.

Being can mean the most general concept or it can mean the first being in an ontological way, St. Bonaventure seems to confuse the two, although there are many others.

Furthermore, one could ask whether they are the same or different.

The tradition and St. Thomas’s account

Treatment of the transcendentals is part of a long tradition with many prominent thinkers leading up to and including St. Thomas. Notable predecessors include Boethius, Avicenna, Philip, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Albert the Great.

Aquinas's own account of the transcendentals builds upon and departs from their accounts in a variety of ways.

Why and to what extent Aquinas departs is the topic of another post (perhaps a whole course) but for the purposes of an introduction to the transcendentals, it is important to know that Aquinas is building his account on a long standing tradition.

St. Thomas’s account in De Veritate Q.1 a.1 (cf. also De veritate q. 21, a. 1)

When Aquinas's gives his own account of the transcendentals in De Veritate q.1 a.1, he emphasized the various mode of being that are not expressed by the name "being" and this he does in two ways.

First, Aquinas divides the modes of being into special modes.

By special modes, Aquinas means the variety of being (modi essendi) as they are accepted in different genera, for example, substance—what is per se ens—and the accidents in other genera, what is per aliud ens.

Second, Aquinas divides being into general modes by which he means modes of expression that follow upon every being.

That can be divided again into what follows from being in se and what follows from being in ordine.

If the name expresses being in se, it can either be an affirmation or negation.

If it is an affirmation, then the name "res" is given which expresses the quiddity or essence of a being since an absolute affirmation of every being is only said of essence.

If it is an negation, then its is "unum" since it expresses undividedness, the meaning of "unum" is simply undivided being.

What follows from being in ordine can be divided into what is divided from another "ab altero" and what is in correspondence with another (convenientiam unius entis ad aliud).

The first kind of distinctness receives the name "aliquid" since, in being divided from others, it is a being is called "some other thing".

If it is the second kind of distinctness, then it is either "truth" or "goodness" since the names express a correspondence of being to either a knowing power or to an appetitive power respectively.

Let that suffice for an introduction to the transcendentals. The transcendentals belongs to a long and rich tradition (both Platonic and Aristotelian, Eastern and Western) that should deeply interest us. When we talk about “beauty” “good” “true” and so on—now equipped with background on them, we can have more interesting and engaging conversations about them. Not to mention the fact that they come in handy in our prayer lives, when we attribute them to God.

Thanks for reading,

The Daily Thomist

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