## 1. General Outline of the Doctrine of the Transcendentals




Some modern scholars define transcendentality in an extensional
sense. Take for instance:



> 
> Def: "A transcendental predicate runs through all the
> categories and extends beyond to their first cause." (Owens 1963,
> 111)
> 
> 
> 
> Def: "X is a transcendental iff the extension of the term that
> names X is greater than and includes the combined extensions of the
> terms that name each and every one of the categories into which being
> may be divided." (Gracia 1992, 115)
> 
> 
> 




Other scholars stress the necessity of an intensional account, which
leaves more room for the diversity of medieval views on the meaning of
the transcendental. A purely extensional definition of
transcendentality can perhaps account for Aquinas' understanding
of the transcendental as that which runs through the categories because
of its commonness, but it explains neither Scotus' understanding
of the transcendental as that which is not determined to a genus, nor
the early Scotists' conception of degrees of transcendentality.
Moreover, it fails to explain why Aristotle and Ibn
 Sina[1]
must not be considered to have
formulated a doctrine of transcendentals even though they indeed
acknowledged the co-extensionality of transgeneric notions like
'being' and 'one'. What characterized the
doctrine of the transcendentals as it was developed in the Latin
tradition from 1225 onwards was precisely the systematic account of the
differences between transgeneric notions as the inner explications of
the concept of 'being'.




Although the Latin term '*transcendens*' (i.e.
'that what surpasses [something]', pl.
'*transcendentia*') has older roots, indicating the
nobility of being which is free from matter, its interpretation as
'transcategorical' appears first in logical treatises of
the 12th century. In the 15th-16th century, the term
'*transcendentalis*' (pl.
'*transcendentalia*') was framed as a synonym of
'*transcendens*' in the
'transgeneric' sense, probably to distinguish it from the
earlier sense. If the word 'transcendental' was introduced
in the 15th-16th century, therefore, to extricate the meaning of the
word 'transcendent' from the confusion with a different and
older meaning of the word indicating the nobility of being, then the
use of the term 'transcendental' by modern scholars to
indicate a metaphysical doctrine formulated in the 13th century entails
an anachronism, innocent perhaps, but manifest.




Once the distinction of 'transcendens' in the sense of
predicative commonness and 'transcendens' in the sense of
the nobility of being is made, a further distinction arises,
articulating different aspects of the 'surpassing'
(*transcensus*) expressed by the term 'transcendens'
in the new meaning of 'transcendental': "Scholastic
transcendental philosophy intends a threefold
'*transcensus*': ontological, logical and
epistemological. The '*transcensus*' is
primarily ontological in nature, insofar as it is directed to the
*transcendentia*, which are so called, because these terms
transcend the categories of being. But the
'*transcensus*' also possesses a
logical-semantical aspect, insofar as it is directed to the
*communissima*, and an epistemological aspect, insofar as it is
directed to the *prima*, the first conceptions of the intellect.
Between these three aspects there exists an inner connection:
transcendentals are the 'firsts', since they are most
common; and because of their commonness they transcend the
categories." (Aertsen 2012, 657) In the following, these three
aspects of 'surpassing' will guide the historico-systematic
elaboration of the new meaning of '*transcendens*' as
'transcendental'.




Finally, it has to be noted that this new meaning of
'*transcendens*' as transcendental was itself
subject to evolution. The Latin term
'*transcendens*' is translated: 'that which
surpasses [something]'. The term clearly requires a complement,
i.e. an indication of what is surpassed in the
'*transcensus*'. The history of the
'transcendental' can be described in terms of the variety
of its complements: "The scholastic concept of
'transcendental', which since Albert the Great is the
proper subject of metaphysics, is opposed to the concept of the
categorical. The transcendental is therefore the
transcategorical. From the 15th century onwards the transcendental
determination appears frequently in opposition to the so-called
'super-transcendental', i.e. the most universal
determinations like '*opinabile*' or
'*intelligibile*' that are common to real beings
and beings of reason. With a view to this opposite concept of the
'super-transcendental', the transcendental is to be
conceived as a most common determination that applies to all real
beings, including God (...). This constellation of concepts
changes with Kant. The concept of transcendental as the common
predicate of a certain type of cognition is opposed to the concept of
the empirical." (See the entry 'Transzendental', in
*Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie*, Volume 10,
pp. 1358-9.) Since especially the Kantian understanding of the
transcendental has been influential for modern minds, it must be
emphasized at the outset that the medieval understanding of
transcendental is not opposed to the empirical, but to the
categorical; in fact, all medieval authors acknowledge an empirical
origin of the transcendental notions. They articulate this connection
between transcendental and empirical in a realist program of
metaphysics.


## 2. Sources of the Doctrine of the Transcendentals




The *Summa de bono* of Philip the Chancellor (ca. 1225) is
considered to be the first systematic formulation of a
*doctrine* of the transcendentals. (Aertsen 2012, 109-127) But
there are some main sources that provided essential elements for the
doctrine.




Aristotle, e.g., gives an exemplary treatment of the relation
between the concepts of 'being' and 'the one'
in the fourth book of his *Metaphysics*, where he explains that
just as being is said in many ways, so also the one; consequently,
these notions share the same nature (*phusis*), while differing
qua concept (*logos*). (Aristotle, Metaph. IV, c. 2, 1003 b
23-4) In the tenth book of the *Metaphysics*, he explains that
the proper meaning of 'one' is 'indivisible',
such that to be one is to be indivisible. (Arist., Metaph. X, c. 1,
1052 b 16.) This model of pairing co-extensionality to intensional
difference was to provide the basic framework for a doctrine of the
transcendentals. Aristotle's indications of a focal meaning of
being, which reduces the homonymy of the term in such a way as to
safeguard the unity of the subject of metaphysics and its possibility
as a science (Arist., Metaph. IV, c. 2, 1003 a 32 sqq.), were the
starting-point for the medieval reflection on analogy as a mode of
predication especially applying to transgeneric terms (cf. the entry on
 medieval theories of Analogy). Other important texts in
the *corpus aristotelicum* address the question of truth and the
question of goodness. Aristotle's different assertions on the
issue of truth confronted the Middle Ages with a tension. On the one
hand, Aristotle asserted that each thing is related to truth in the
same way as it is to being; on the other hand, Aristotle excluded
being-as-true from the consideration of metaphysics, since it is only a
kind of intra-mental being. (Arist., Metaph. II, c. 1, 9993 b 30;
Metaph. VI, c. 4, 1027 b 17 sqq.) In his critique of Plato's Idea
of the Good, finally, Aristotle asserts that the good is said in as
many ways as being, and hence falls short of the univocity proper to a
Platonic idea. (Arist., Eth. Nic. I, c. 4, 1096 a 12 sqq.)




Another main source is the Persian thinker Ibn Sina (Lat. Avicenna),
who discusses the concepts of 'being', 'thing',
and 'the one' as the primary conceptions of the intellect
in his *Metaphysics* I.5. He introduces the idea of primary
conceptions by drawing a seminal analogy between first principles in
the order of judgment and in the order of conception: just as there are
first principles in the order of judgment, at which the reduction or
analysis of propositional knowledge comes to an end (e.g. the principle
of non-contradiction), so there are also first principles in the order
of conception, which are primitive in the sense that they cannot be
defined by appealing to some more general notion. Getting knowledge of
them is not making an unknown thing known, but bringing something to
mind that was always already known, by means of logically derivative
'trigger'-notions. The relation between the two most
important primary conceptions 'being' and
'thing', which denote an existential resp. an essential
aspect of things, takes the form of a priority of 'thing'
or 'essence', to which 'being' is necessarily
concomitant. An important other innovation, directly related to the
foregoing, was Ibn Sina's rejection of the theological
interpretation of the subject of metaphysics. Since the existence of
the subject of a science must be demonstrated beforehand, and
God's existence is to be demonstrated in the science of
metaphysics, God cannot be the subject of this science. Moreover, since
metaphysics is the first science, nothing else can be its subject,
except for something that cannot be demonstrated, since it is
self-evident. Hence, Ibn Sina's declarations that (1) being is a
primary conception and that (2) being is the subject of metaphysics are
correlated.




Other sources of the doctrines of the transcendentals are Augustine,
Boethius, and Dionysius the Areopagite, representing the interpretation
of the Platonic ideas as divine names in the Christian tradition. In
diverse works, Augustine discusses unity, truth, goodness, and being as
predicates that are instantiated in a primary and privileged way in
God, and instantiated in a derivative way in God's creation. As a
consequence, knowledge of created unity, truth, goodness, and being has
to make explicit this relation to its divine origin, which, in
Augustine's work itself and in the Augustinian tradition,
frequently takes the form of an ascent to God as a demonstration of
God's existence. In his treatise *De divinis nominibus*,
pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita gives an extensive treatment of the Good,
Being, Truth, Beauty, and Unity as the names of God. Itself adherent to
Neoplatonic philosophy, in which the Good is proclaimed to be above
being, Dionysius' work was interpreted by 13th century
theoreticians of the doctrine of the transcendentals in the frame of a
synthesis of Aristotelianism and Platonism that harmonizes the
transcendent and the transcendental. Finally, Boethius explicitly
discusses the convertibility of 'being' and
'one', and his treatise *De hebdomadibus* addresses
the relation between being and the good, with a view to safeguard the
goodness of reality without infringing upon the substantial goodness of
its creator. One can say that *De hebdomadibus* was a true model
for the later elaboration of the doctrine of the transcendentals in the
first half of the 13th century, which, in its first phase, had a strong
focus on the notion of the good.


## 3. Transcendentals and Predication




The predication of transcendentals has a logical, ontological, and
epistemological sense that can be distinguished as follows. *In a
logical sense*, as predicative expressions, 'transcendental
terms' are outside the range of the five predicables or
universals listed by Porphyry in his *Isagoge* to
Aristotle's *Categories*, i.e. they are not a genus,
species, difference, property, or accident. Their signification is not
bound to the categorical horizon, and they resist
'*infinitatio*' (for this term, cf. infra). *In
an ontological sense*, as properties signified by the predicate of
a proposition that are asserted of the object signified by the subject
of the proposition, transcendentals are properties that are not
restricted to, but run through the classes of things expressed by the
highest genera, the categories. *In an epistemological sense*,
finally, as predicative concepts expressed by the predicate of a
proposition that are connected with the concept expressed by the
subject of the proposition into a thought expressed by the proposition
itself, transcendentals are concepts that cannot be analyzed by taking
recourse to a still higher genus and are, therefore, first known,
self-evident, and primitive.




The predicative context is commonly suggested to be the historical
origin of the term '*transcendens*' in the
meaning of 'transcendental'. (See Jacobi 2003; Valente
2007; Aertsen 2012, 42sqq.) Various 12th century logical texts
recognize the distinctive semantical nature of transcategorical terms,
which they refer to, among others, as 'transcendent names'
(*nomina transcendentia*). Three instances: (i.)
Whereas a Vienna Priscian-commentary partially edited by De Rijk (dated
ca. 1150) identifies a certain class of names "that are so
universal that they run through all categories", such as
'being', 'thing', 'one',
'something', the *Ars Meliduna* (between
1154/1180) distinguishes transgeneric terms from universals proper.
"No name that belongs to every thing, such as
'thing', 'something', 'being', and
'one', signifies a universal". Since universals are
bound up to genera, transgeneric terms do not signify a universal. The
categories, as the highest genera, determine *what* a thing is,
the transgeneric names signify *that* it is. (ii.) In the debate
on "infinite names" (*nomina infinita*),
which refers to the possibility of 'making a term infinite'
(*infinitatio*) by term-negation, a distinction is made in the
*Introductiones Montane minores* (ca. 1130) and the 
*Tractatus Anagnini* (ca. 1200), between finite terms
and terms that "contain all things", e.g.
'thing' and 'something'. Since these terms are
not finite, they cannot be made infinite: "Terms that contain all
things cannot be made infinite, hence this is senseless: 'a
non-something is', 'a non-thing is'." (iii.) In
the discussion on the equivocity of names in the *Dialectica*
*Monacensis* (between 1150-1200), a specific type of
equivocation is identified, in which something is signified primarily,
everything else secondarily, and this type of equivocation is connected
with the *nomina transcendentia*, i.e. names like
'thing', 'being', 'one',
'universal', 'possible',
'contingent', 'the same' and
'diverse' as such. (See Jacobi 2003.)




The logical 'surpassing' expressed by the
*nomina transcendentia* is the order of the predicables
or universals described by Porphyry. If the relation between subject
and predicate, Porphyry claims, is such that the predicate belongs to
the essence of the subject, then it is either a genus, or species, or
difference; if the predicate does not belong to the essence of the
subject, it is either convertible with it, and then it is a property
(*proprium*), or if not convertible, then it is an accident. Now
the most universal are Aristotle's ten categories, which Porphyry
defines as "that above which there will be no other superordinate
genus." (Porph., *Introduction* 2.5) In answer to the
question whether 'being', since it is said of everything,
is not a genus common to the highest genera, Porphyry states that the
ten categories are primarily diverse, and hence concludes to the
equivocity of 'being'.




The formation of the doctrine of the transcendentals in the 13th
century introduces a class of predicates that are not discussed by
Porphyry. In reaction to this absence, one can either define the
transcendentals in contradistinction to universals, as witnessed in the
*Ars Meliduna*, or extend the list of universals by
including a sixth universal predicable. An instance of the first
reaction we find in William of Ockham's *Commentary on
Porphyry's Isagoge*, who explicitly addresses the question
whether the classification of the predicables with regard to the
concept of being is exhaustive (i.e. the question of the
"sufficiency" of Porphyry's division of the
predicables), and distinguishes between terms that are predicates of
many, the universals, and terms predicated of all, the common terms.
(Ockham, *Expositio in librum Porphyrii de
Praedicabilibus*, prooem. 2) An instance of the second reaction we
find in Duns Scotus; as a consequence of his defense of the univocity
of being, Scotus is prepared in his *Commentary on the
Metaphysics* to extend the list of predicables with a sixth one, a
'transcendental universal' (*universale*
*transcendens*), as examples of which he names
'being' and 'one'. (Duns Scotus,
*Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum*, IV, q.
1)




Porphyry's list of predicables not only occasioned the
question of its relation to transcendental predicates, but also
supplied a model to express the relation of 'being' to the
other transcendentals as the relation between a subject and its
properties (*propria*). Although the transcendentals are
co-extensive, they differ conceptually. The privileged model to express
this relationship was the predication of a property (*proprium*)
of a subject, which is defined by Porphyry with two characteristics: on
the one hand, properties are convertible with the subject, on the other
hand, they are outside the essence of the subject. The first
characteristic was of great convenience, since it offers the
possibility to combine the convertibility of the transcendentals with
the basic task of science: to demonstrate the existence of properties
that belong per se to its subject and are hence convertible with it. By
explaining the relation between 'being' and the other
transcendental predicates as the relation between a subject and its
properties, the doctrine of the transcendentals gives flesh to the
science of 'being' called metaphysics, the core of which is
the demonstration that 'being' has convertible properties,
like 'one', 'true', and 'good'. The
second characteristic of a property was more problematic at the
transcendental level, for it implies the recognition that the
transcendentals, as really distinct from being, are nothing. Most
theoreticians of the transcendentals, therefore, denied the application
of this second characteristic to the transcendental level and held that
a transcendental property differs from being only conceptually
(*secundum rationem*). Duns Scotus and the tradition he
established, however, accepted a real distinction in the sense of a
formal distinction (for this term, cf. infra) in the relation between
'being' and its transcendental properties.


## 4. Three Models of the Transcendentals: Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent and Eckhart, and John Duns Scotus




From 1225 onwards, a series of medieval doctrines of the
transcendentals was formulated by such diverse authors as Philip the
Chancellor, the authors of the *Summa Halensis*, Bonaventure,
and Albert the Great that are centered, for historical
 reasons,[2]
on the transcendentality of the good.
Between 1250 and 1330, the doctrine reached its maturity in the works
of Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, the early
Scotists, and William of Ockham. The whole tradition of reflection on
the transcendental properties of being was synthesized in the
*Disputationes metaphysicae* of Francisco Suarez
(published 1597), which built the most elaborate account of the
transcendentals known in the high and later Middle Ages.




Insight into the variety of medieval doctrines of the
transcendentals, however, is better served by the contrast of typical
models of a doctrine of the transcendentals than by an overview of the
history of the transcendentals tout
 court.[3]
Apart from the differences in the internal
connection of the transcendental concepts, one of the most important
aspects on which these different models of a doctrine of the
transcendentals vary is the relation between the transcendental and the
transcendent. According to Thomas Aquinas, transcendental being extends
only to created being, whereas Henry of Ghent and Meister Eckhart
formulate a doctrine of the transcendentals in which God is the first
known; Duns Scotus, finally, makes transcendental being indifferent to
finite and infinite being; it is univocally common to God and creature.
(See Aertsen 2012, 666.)


### 4.1 The first model: God as the cause of transcendental being (Thomas Aquinas)




The doctrine of the transcendentals of Thomas Aquinas (1224/5-1274)
answers to the question of how an addition to being as 'first
known' is possible. Aquinas' solution is that such an
addition is possible as the explication of a mode of being that is not
yet said by 'being' itself: either through a special mode
of being, i.e. one of the categories, which contract
'being' in their own way, or through a general mode of
being, i.e., one of the transcendentals, the addition of which does not
yield such a contraction. The basic text *De ver.* 1.1 explains
that the expressed mode of being pertains to every being in itself or
in relation to something else. If it pertains to every being in itself,
it can either be said positively, i.e. the essence indicated by
'thing' (*res*), or negatively, and that is the
'indivision' expressed by 'one'. If it pertains
to every being in relation to something else, it can express either the
difference between beings, which is indicated by
'something' (*aliquid*), or their conformity. Since
the soul is "in a sense all things", it is suited to
conform to every being. A being either conforms to the soul's
cognitive faculty, which is expressed by 'true', or to the
appetitive faculty, which is expressed by 'good'. Aquinas
declares 'being in general' (*ens commune*)
to be the subject of metaphysics and God to be the principle of this
subject (*In Metaph*., *prooem*.). Parallel to this
restriction of the subject of metaphysics to created being, there is a
restriction of the first object of the intellect to the 'quiddity
of material things' or to 'being and the true as found in
material things'. Reflection on the relation between God and
'being in general', which leads Aquinas to present the
transcendentals as divine names, and thus to integrate the Platonic and
Aristotelian traditions of reflection on 'being',
'one', 'true', and 'good', gives
rise to the influential doctrine of the analogical predication of the
transcendental terms. As stated in the treatise on natural law, the
transcendentals 'being' (*ens*) and
'good' serve as the foundation of the principles of
theoretical and practical reason (S.th. I-II. 94.2).


### 4.2 The second model: The theological transformation of the first concepts (Henry of Ghent & Eckhart)




Typical of the doctrine of the transcendentals of Henry of Ghent
(+ 1293) is his defense of the doctrine of God as first known,
which had been elaborated in the Franciscan tradition by Bonaventure
and had been rejected by Aquinas. On account of his different
understanding of analogy, not treated as a mode of predication as in
Aquinas, but as the property of a concept, Henry achieves an
integration of the divine names in his doctrine of the transcendentals
as the most general aspects of being that recognizes a priority of the
divine over the creaturely within the transcendental concepts as such.
What has been called Henry's "new way to God" starts
with the acknowledgement that something finite is good and goes on to
purify this content of 'good' along different degrees of
abstraction, in order to reach the infinite realization of this content
in God. The claim is that it can only be understood that something
finite is good, if the infinite realization of the good is always
already implicitly understood (and the same holds for being and the
other transcendentals). Naturally, there is a major difference in the
epistemic status of the evidence, on the one hand, that being and the
other transcendentals are first known objects in the analysis of
cognition, and of the evidence, on the other hand, that God is first
known, exerting a natural priority within these transcendental concepts
as such. Whereas God is absolutely yet indistinctly the first known,
'being' is distinctly known first. Another important shift
in comparison to Thomas Aquinas lies in Henry's identification of
the concepts of 'being' and 'thing', i.e. the
essentialist interpretation of being. Henry construes his doctrine of
the transcendentals, quoting Aquinas, as a series of conceptual
additions to being as first known, but disagrees with Aquinas as
regards the meaning of the concept of being: it does not signify the
actuality of being, but the aspect of essence, for which Aquinas had
reserved the term 'thing' (*res*). Although Henry
follows Aquinas in his affirmation that only negations and conceptual
relations can add something to being without contracting it - he
strongly emphasizes the origin of these conceptual additions in the
intellect -, he asserts that the 'negation of
negation' expressed by 'the one' as adding the aspect
of indivision is something positive.




Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260-1328) presents the same model of the
transcendental as Henry of Ghent. The doctrine of the transcendentals
has an unprecedented importance in Eckhart's project of the
*Opus tripartitum*, where the transcendental metaphysics of the
*Opus propositionum* is foundational both for the systematic
theology in the *Opus quaestionum* and for the exegesis of the
Bible in the *Opus expositionum et sermonum*. The identification
of the transcendentals with God, which is Eckhart's version of
the doctrine of God as first known, the doctrine of analogy, and the
inclusion of spiritual perfections, such as justice and wisdom, among
the transcendentals, all betray the influence of Henry of Ghent.


### 4.3 The third model: being as univocally common to God and creature (Duns Scotus)




Duns Scotus (ca. 1266-1308) identifies the subject of metaphysics
with the first object of the intellect; since "all things
naturally knowable of God are transcendental," metaphysics
includes a consideration of the divine. Scotus formulates a new
conception of transcendentality, according to which a transcendental
has no predicate above it except being. The consequence is that a
transcendental is not necessarily common: "Therefore, it belongs
to the meaning of 'transcendental' to have no predicate
above it but 'being'; however, that it be common to many
inferiors, is
 inessential."[4]
Thus, the range of the transcendental is extended.
Apart from the common notions, therefore, that are simply convertible
with the concept of 'being', like 'the one',
'the true', and 'the good', Duns Scotus admits
disjunctive transcendentals, i.e. transcendentals that are
disjunctively convertible with the concept of 'being', like
'infinite'-'finite',
'act'-'potency', etc. Finally, he also includes
'pure perfections', like 'wisdom', in the class
of transcendentals and even claims that all transcendentals are called
'pure perfections' (*perfectiones*
*simpliciter*). The concept of being is a quidditative notion
that indicates the aptitude to exist and that is univocally predicated
of God and creature, without - and this is the major innovation
here - positing a reality common to them. Between
'being' and the convertible transcendentals, like
'the one', there is a so-called *formal
distinction*: without being different things from being, 'the
one', 'the true', and 'the good' are
distinct from being and from each other by a different formality.
Between 'being' and the disjunctive transcendental
 properties, there is a *modal distinction*.[5]
Scotus applies the theory of the
'intension and remission of forms' to the transcendentals
(which introduces degrees of perfection in the transcendentals); hence,
the common concept of 'being' and the proper concept of
'infinite being' are distinguished as a reality and its
proper and intrinsic mode. (See Wolter 1946 & Dumont 1992.)




The Scotist school in the early fourteenth century discusses and
extends Scotus' major innovations: the new conception of
transcendentality, which separates transcendentality from commonness
and leads to the introduction of 'degrees of
transcendentality', the univocity of being, and the explanation
of the non-identity of the transcendentals by a distinction that is not
merely conceptual.


## 5. Transcendentals as First Objects of the Intellect




An important aspect of the transcendentals is that they are the
first in a cognitive respect. Medieval authors frequently indicate the
whole group of transcendental concepts as first conceptions, although
in a strict sense only the concept of 'being' is the first
known, to which the other transcendental determinations add their
proper characteristics. As already Ibn Sina remarked - to whom
the theoreticians of the doctrine of the transcendentals owed the very
idea of first conceptions - these notions cannot be defined by
some higher genus and must, therefore, be self-evident. They are made
known by a conceptual analysis (*resolutio*) that leads to the
most common as first known, which the synthetical construction of
knowledge takes as its starting point. What is uncovered in this way is
something implicitly present in all cognition, as the formal condition
of all knowledge.




This aspect was brought to the fore by Thomas Aquinas in what has
come to be known as 'the objective turn'. In his commentary
on Boethius' *De trinitate*, Aquinas advances the thesis
that "to each [cognitive] power, its proper object is first
known" (*Super Boethium De trinitate*, q. 1, art.
3). Since what specifies a cognitive power is its proper object -
i.e. the formal aspect under which something is represented by that
power -, the identification of the first known with the proper
object of the intellect presents a significant claim. What is first in
the order of conceptual cognition is most common and self-evident not
by accident, for it indicates the formal aspect of intelligibility,
which is included in all knowledge and about which the intellect cannot
be uncertain. As such, it indicates the horizon of cognition. This
promotion of a most common element of knowledge to the very horizon of
knowledge, which was broadly acknowledged in the medieval debate on the
first known, turned the medieval debate into a critique of
knowledge.




In reaction to the early Franciscan doctrine of God as first known
(Guibert of Tournai, Bonaventure), Aquinas distinguished between a
resolution that leads to what is first and better known in itself (God
as the first cause) and a resolution that leads to what is first and
better known for us, being in general. In the *Summa
theologiae*, Aquinas even more radically calls the 'essence
of things material' (*quiditas rei materialis*)
the proper object of the human mind; the point is that man in this life
has no knowledge of the essence of immaterial things, which make it
impossible that God be known first. Henry of Ghent reinstates the
doctrine of God as first known. His theological transformation of the
first concepts, i.e. the priority he accords to the divine over the
creaturely within the transcendental concepts as such, makes God's
quiddity the first known in natural cognition, only unconsciously and
indeterminately conceived. Against both Thomas Aquinas and Henry of
Ghent, John Duns Scotus formulated his distribution of the first object
of the intellect. He distinguishes three orders of intelligibility,
each of which has its own first object: the order of *origin*,
the order of *perfection* and the order of *adequation*.
The first *adequate* object of the intellect is commensurate to
the intellective power and indicates the scope of human reason. Neither
finite (Aquinas: the essence of material things) nor infinite being
(Henry of Ghent: God) are *the first adequate object* of human
understanding, but the concept 'being' that is indifferent
to finite and infinite being and is univocally common to God
and
 creature.[6]




Apart from the thesis that God is first known, the medieval debate
presented also other positions that challenged the cognitive primacy of
being. On the one hand, the conceptualists: thinkers like Peter of
Auriol and William of Ockham denied that what is first by commonness,
"being", would be the adequate "moving object"
of the intellect, for something common cannot move the intellect nor
cause an intellectual cognition. The adequate moving object is the
"proper entity" of a thing (Peter Auriol) or the singular
as singular (Ockham). This thesis of the singular as first known was
erected upon the important distinction between intuitive and
abstractive cognition. On the other hand, some authors claimed that
something more common than "being" is first known. Here,
all early medieval forerunners of the super-transcendental play a role,
like the early Scotists (Nicolas Bonetus, Francis of Marchia) and other
thinkers like Walter Burley and John Baconthorpe. They object to the
primacy of being that the notion is not commensurate to the scope of
intelligibility; something else that transcends the realm of real being
and that is common to real being and being of reason, e.g. the concept
of 'thing' or 'something', is truly the first
adequate object of the
 intellect.[7]


## 6. Transcendentals and Metaphysics




We have noticed that, as medieval doctrines of the transcendentals
explain the relation between 'being' and the other
transcendental predicates in the predicative model of subject and
property, they obeyed the basic structure of a science and hence gave a
concrete elaboration to metaphysics as the science of being as being.
We have also noticed that the medieval doctrines of the transcendentals
followed Ibn Sina's rejection of the theological interpretation
of the subject of metaphysics and grounded their ontological
interpretation of the subject of this science on the identification of
being as the subject of metaphysics and being as first known. As a
consequence, the medieval conception of metaphysics was transformed.
Metaphysics became the 'common science', the
'transcendental science', and 'first
philosophy' in a new sense. (See Aertsen 2012, 672-3.) (i.) The
science of being as being that is common to all things was founded by
Ibn Sina on 'common being' as its subject; Thomas Aquinas
accordingly takes 'being in general' (*ens*
*commune*) as the subject of metaphysics and makes this science
the 'common science' (*scientia communis*).
(ii.) Already in the *Metaphysics*-commentary of Albert the
Great, the science of metaphysics is said to deal with the 'first
and transcendental (determinations)' (*prima et
transcendentia*). Duns Scotus completes this interpretation of
metaphysics, by declaring it the 'transcendental science'
(*scientia transcendens*). (iii) Whereas Aristotle
founded the primacy of metaphysics as first philosophy on the nobility
of the objects it was concerned with, i.e. the highest causes, the
medieval foundation of being as the subject of metaphysics on being as
the first known generated an entirely new interpretation of the primacy
of metaphysics: this science is first, because it deals with the first
conceptions of the mind. Whereas Aristotle's first philosophy was
the most difficult science to learn, metaphysics as the medieval first
philosophy is the easiest of sciences, since it deals with the
self-evident. (cf. Bonetus, *Metaph.* 2, c. 7)




The relation of doctrines of the transcendentals to the science of
metaphysics rests on the recognition that the transcendentals are
properties of being qua being, i.e. the basic features of reality.
However, the epistemological aspect of doctrines of the
transcendentals, i.e. their status as the first, primitive conceptions
of the intellect, implicitly compromises the real character of the
transcendental properties of being, given that what can be conceived
exceeds the realm of what is real. Since the identity of the subject of
first philosophy with the first object of the intellect was
foundational for the medieval conception of metaphysics, a basic
instability underlies the medieval conception of metaphysics and hence
the doctrines of the transcendentals: being as the first object of the
intellect goes beyond the extension of real being as the subject of
metaphysics. (See Goris 2008 & 2011) This instability is
witnessed by the work of two Scotists in the early 14th century:
Nicolas Bonetus and Francis of Marchia.




Nicolas Bonetus places the doctrine of the formalities at the center
of a new, and systematically elaborated, science of metaphysics, which
focuses on the doctrine of the transcendentals and reserves the
consideration of the divine to natural theology. Bonetus considers the
concept of being, insofar as it is univocal to real being and being in
the mind, as the subject of metaphysics. From this univocal concept of
being, which signifies some determinate intelligible content distinct
from other intelligible contents, he distinguishes an all-encompassing
notion of being which signifies "everything positive which is
outside of nothing, whether it is real being, or being in the mind,
whether categorical, reducible to categories, or outside of all
categories." The consequence is that 'being' as the
subject of metaphysics, as a determinate formality distinct from other
quiddities, is dissociated from the first object of the intellect, and
convertible with the transcendental properties 'one',
'true', and 'good' only according to a
diminished degree of transcendentality. A comparable tendency can be
witnessed in the thought of Francis of Marchia. In answering the
question concerning the first intention of a thing, Francis
distinguishes between a material and formal priority of concepts. The
concept of 'thing' (*res*) is the first concept in
the sense of material priority, which is related to the priority of the
subject of metaphysics. The concept of 'something'
(*aliquid*) is the first concept in the sense of formal
priority, which is related to the priority of the object of the
intellect. The dissociation of the subject of metaphysics and the first
object of the intellect is squared with the dissociation of a general
metaphysics, which deals with the transcendentals and builds the road
toward a special metaphysics, which deals with the divine. (See
Folger-Fonfara 2008.)




In the light of these and later divisions of the science of
metaphysics, Suarez' project in the *Disputationes*
*metaphysicae* is to be considered a defense of the unity of
metaphysics, which nevertheless prolongs the dissociation that caused
these divisions. (See Darge 2004). Suarez distinguishes between being
as the first object of the intellect and being as the proper subject of
metaphysics: "being insofar as it is real being." This
makes it clear, finally, that the characteristic foundation of medieval
metaphysics, i.e. the identity of the subject of first philosophy with
the first object of the intellect, did not lead, despite its basic
instability, to a 'super-transcendental' metaphysics;
instead of sacrificing the realist understanding of metaphysics, the
medieval theoreticians of the doctrine of the transcendentals attacked
the identity of the subject of first philosophy with the first object
of the intellect. Underlying the medieval doctrines of the
transcendentals from Aquinas to Suarez, therefore, is the
realist understanding of metaphysics as a 'science of the
real' (*scientia realis*).


## 7. The Transcendental 'One'




The place of the concept of unity in the doctrine of the
transcendentals is determined by two defining moments in particular:
(i.) the relation between transcendental and categorical unity, or
metaphysical and mathematical unity, i.e. the one as the principle of
number; (ii.) the integration of the (Neo-)Platonic and Aristotelian
traditions of thought on unity.




Already in Aristotle, the assertion of the transgeneric character of
the one, that runs through the categories in the same way as the
concept of 'being', and hence is convertible with it, is
linked with the designation of 'indivisibility' as the
proper meaning of unity, and is connected with the categorical one: it
is "the first measure of a kind, and above all of quantity; for
it is from this that it has been extended to the other
categories." (Aristotle, Metaph. X, c. 1, 1052 b 18-19.) In his
most influential, yet highly controversial elaboration on the concept
of unity, Ibn Sina agrees with Aristotle that 'one' is
co-extensional with 'being' and differs from it in its
concept; he adds, however, that just like being, unity is not part of
the substance of a thing, and hence accidental in the sense of
extra-essential, a feature that he combines with its being accidental
in the sense of being the principle of number in the category of
quantity. Already Ibn Rushd criticized Ibn Sina for this confusion of
the metaphysical 'one' with the mathematical
'one'. The different reactions in the Latin medieval
doctrines of the transcendentals reflect the differences in their
internal systematics. Aquinas accuses Ibn Sina of being deceived by the
equivocity of the one, confusing the one that is convertible with being
and the one that is the principle of number. The point for Aquinas is
that the one that is convertible with being adds only something
conceptual to being, i.e. the negation of division; whereas the one
that is the principle of number adds something real, i.e. the relation
to a measure, as a consequence of which the extension of the concept of
being is narrowed down to the category of quantity. Duns Scotus,
however, agrees with the position that he ascribes to Ibn Sina, namely
that being and the one are not essentially convertible, and therewith
expresses the major divergence of his doctrine of the transcendentals,
in which the transcendentals do not add merely something conceptual to
'being', but something really distinct, in the sense in
which a property is really distinct from the subject. The argument,
however, that Duns Scotus provides for his position, namely the
observation that if 'being' and 'one' were
essentially convertible, then multitude would be devoid of reality, is
loyal to a major inspiration of Aquinas' reflection on
transcendental unity. Aquinas is also concerned to grant a positive
meaning to multitude and even accords a transcendental dimension to
multitude.




Although the positive appreciation of multitude in medieval
doctrines of the transcendentals stands in clear contrast to the
Neoplatonic reflection on the 'One', these doctrines tried
to synthesize the Platonic and the Aristotelian traditions of
speculation on unity, the so-called henological and ontological
traditions, by integrating the transcendental and the transcendent
dimensions of the 'one'. This integration becomes evident
in the doctrines of the transcendentals formulated by Aquinas and
Meister Eckhart, and in Renaissance-Platonism, e.g. the treatise *De
ente et uno* by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. This same
Neoplatonic tradition also inspired, however, a major critique of the
doctrine of the transcendentals, as formulated in the commentary of
Berthold of Moosburg on the *Elementatio theologica* of
Proclus and in the works of Nicolas of Cusa.


## 8. The Transcendental 'True'




In the same way as the reflection on the concept of unity in
medieval doctrines of the transcendentals envisaged to articulate a
more fundamental feature of unity underneath the mathematical
conception of unity, their investigation into the transcendental notion
of truth uncovered a basic feature of reality, prior to and explicative
of its logical dimension as a property of propositions.




What is a basic tension in Aristotle's affirmations concerning
the relation between being and the true, i.e. the tension between the
assertion that each thing is related to truth in the same way as it is
to being and the assertion that being-as-true (*ens ut
verum*) is a kind of intramental being that falls outside the
science of metaphysics, is part of a synthesizing program in
Anselm's treatise *De veritate*, where the propositional
truth, ontological truth, and moral truth are all explained, in an
integrative effort, under the aegis of the basic concept of
'rightness' (*rectitudo*). Anselm's definition
was important in early attempts in the medieval doctrines of the
transcendentals to relate the true that is convertible with being with
the truth of the proposition. Gradually, the definition of truth as the
'conformity of the thing with the intellect'
(*adaequatio rei et intellectus*) rose to hegemony,
which has the advantage of making explicit the constitutive relation
with the intellect, but threatens to make transcendental truth depend
upon actual cognition.




In *De ver*. 1.1, Aquinas presents his analysis of the
concept of truth in a threefold scheme, according to which there is a
moment of conformity of intellect and thing, right between the thing as
the foundation of truth and knowledge as its result; this conformity,
in which the meaning of the true is formally accomplished, is
transcendental truth. In contrast to this, in the *Summa theol.*
Aquinas uses a twofold scheme, according to which the intellect is true
in a primary sense, the thing only in a secondary sense, namely in
relation to the intellect; the aptness of the
'*adaequatio*'-formula is that it comprises both
senses. In the development of Aquinas' reflection on truth
between *De ver.* and the *Summa theol*., therefore, an
elimination of the intermediary moment occurs, a merging of
transcendental truth with the truth of cognition, which has been
interpreted as a dissolution of transcendental truth. (See Dewan
2004.)




The fundamental dimension of transcendental truth as an openness of
being in its intelligibility to cognition, which Aquinas had identified
in *De ver.*, is also clearly expressed in Duns Scotus'
reflection on truth in his commentary on the sixth book of the
*Metaphysics*. After having declared that all truth related to
the divine intellect is studied by metaphysics, he continues to
distinguish three senses in which the human mind is related to truth,
of which only the first is studied by metaphysics: namely when a thing
is said to be true because it is able to manifest itself to an
intellect capable of perceiving it, of which Scotus explicitly says
that it is convertible with being. The other senses, according to which
a thing is true because it is assimilated to or known by the human
intellect, fall outside the scope of metaphysics and belong to
logic.




In response to the same tension that motivated Aquinas to give more
emphasis to the intellect in the definition of transcendental truth,
the transcendental true was advanced to claim conceptual precedence
before and hence challenge the conceptual priority of the concept of
being. Potencies are specified by the formal aspect under which they
conceive things and the intellect is distinguished from the will, since
the formal object of the former is the true, the formal object of the
latter is the good. On account of 'the objective turn', the
identification of the first known with the proper object, it is clear,
therefore, that the true is in a sense the first known, as the formal
aspect under which everything is understood by the intellect. Henry of
Ghent is the main representative of this much-discussed position. He
distinguishes between the true as what is 'dispositively'
first known, in the sense of what is conditional for knowledge, and
being as what is 'objectively' first known. This
distinction respects the difference between direct and reflective
cognition, but also shows the vulnerability of the medieval foundation
of the priority of the concept of being. It might be taken as another
example of the basic instability that underlies the doctrines of the
transcendentals: the non-identity of the first object of the intellect
and the subject of metaphysics.


## 9. The Transcendental 'Good'




Whereas the transcendental 'true' imposes its
difficulties to qualify as a property of being as being, the indication
of which was Aristotle's exclusion of being of reason from
metaphysics, the transcendental 'good' raises the suspicion
of a naturalistic fallacy, by making the ethical good depend upon the
good as a property convertible with being. In a sense, the same
difficulty presents itself with all the transcendental properties: the
metaphysical explication of the concept of 'being'
(*ens*) in the 'most common notions'
(*communissima*), 'one' (*unum*),
'true' (*verum*), and 'good'
(*bonum*), competes with the consideration of these notions in
another science, in which they are principal: the one in mathematics,
the true in logic, and the good in ethics.




The metaphysics of the good, as it is conceived in the thesis of the
convertibility of the good and being in the medieval doctrines of the
transcendentals, was central in the early elaboration of the doctrine.
Its central inspiration was Aristotle's critique on Plato's
Idea of the Good in the first book of the *Nicomachean*
*Ethics*, which proclaimed the transgeneric and analogical
character of the good and opened with an authoritative definition:
"the good is that which all desire." (Arist., Eth. Nic. I,
c. 1, 1094a2-3) Medieval authors could rely on Boethius' *De
hebdomadibus* for an explanation of the goodness of reality, which
builds basically on its being created by what is essentially good; the
treatise is an exemplary harmonization of the Platonic and Aristotelian
traditions, which assert the transcendence resp. the transcendentality
of the good. Another important argument to account for the
convertibility of being and good is found in Aquinas, who connects the
actuality of being with the proper character of the good as that which
is desirable - since a thing is desirable only insofar as it is
perfect, and is only perfect insofar as it is in act, the goodness of a
thing depends on the actuality of its being. Aquinas' doctrine of
the transcendentals also provides a major model to think of the
relation between the metaphysical and the moral good, insofar as it is
foundational not only for the realm of theoretical reason, but also for
the realm of practical reason. In the same way as the first principle
in theoretical reason, the principle of non-contradiction, is founded
on the concept of 'being' as first known in the theoretical
realm, the first principle in practical reason, the first precept of
natural law: "Good is to be done and pursued, and evil
avoided," is founded on the concept of 'good' as
first known in the practical realm. (See Kluxen 1964, 93-100, &
Aertsen 1996, 326-330.)




Interestingly, the metaphysics of the good, which had been central
in the early elaboration of the doctrine of the transcendentals, seems
to have lost some of its appeal in the wake of a new concept of being.
Although Henry of Ghent organizes his treatise on the good in
*Summa* 41.1 in accordance with Aquinas' discussion of the
good in *De ver.* 21.1, the essentialist interpretation of the
concept of being that he established had only limited possibilities,
and even less impulse, to account for the fundamental difference
between the transcendental good and moral perfections. In Duns Scotus,
the good is an absolute property formally distinct from being; in
Suarez, 'the good' primarily signifies the perfection of a
thing, while adding the aspect of suitability (*convenientia*),
i.e. it connotes a nature having a natural inclination, capacity, or
conjunction with such perfection.