Transcendentals

The transcendentals (Latin: transcendentalia) are the properties of being and are connected with three main human abilities; to think, wish and feel. They correspond to three aspects of the human field of interest and are their ideals; science (truth), the arts (beauty) and religion (goodness). Philosophical disciplines that study them are logic, aesthetics and ethics. Jesus of Nazareth alludes to them when he mentions a person's capacities in mind, soul and heart in the Greatest Commandment. Vices can mislead one towards egoism (might/success), materialism (wealth/money) and hedonism (pleasure/satisfaction). Jesus was tempted by them and rejected them before started public life. In Christianity, believers are called to seek virtues of faith, hope and love that relate directly to God who Himself is Truth, Beauty and Goodness.

Parmenides first inquired of the properties co-extensive with being.Socrates, spoken through Plato, then followed (see Form of the Good). However, it is in Aristotle that we first see the term transcendentals used. They were so called as they transcended (ὑπερβαίνειν huperbainein) each of his ten categories. Aristotle discusses only unity ("One") explicitly because it is the only transcendental intrinsically related to being, whereas truth and goodness relate to rational creatures.

The Catholic philosopher Albertus Magnus elaborated the thought in the Medieval Age. His pupil, Saint Thomas Aquinas, posited five transcendentals: res, unum, aliquid, bonum, verum; or "thing", "one", "something", "good", and "true". Saint Thomas derives the five explicitly as transcendentals, though in some cases he follows the typical list of the transcendentals consisting of the One, the Good, and the True.

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