transcendentaladj.n.
/trɑːnsɛnˈdɛnt(ə)l//transɛnˈdɛnt(ə)l/ A. adj.
1. Of transcendent quality or nature; surpassing; excelling; exalted: = transcendent adj. 1.In quots. 1790–1868, more or less ironical or sarcastic.
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the mind > goodness and badness > quality of being good > surpassing excellence > [adjective]
sunderlyOE
noblec1330
precellentc1384
passantc1385
especialc1386
passinga1387
surmountingc1407
superlative?a1430
precelling?1435
pre-eminenta1460
outrepassed1477
divine1488
pre-excellenta1500
superexcellent1508
transcending1528
pre-ordinate1543
exceeding1552
superexcelling1554
exquisite1578
surpassingc1580
summary1587
paragon1593
transcendent1598
overmatchful1609
termless1609
overtoppinga1615
paramounta1626
overtowering1639
surpassant1654
transcendental1701
superior1711
towery1731
prize1739
supernala1817
tiptopsome1819
tip-topping1826
par excellence1839
superfine1850
towering1894
1701 N. Grew Cosmol. Sacra ii. viii. §33 The Deity himself, tho' he perceiveth neither Pleasure, nor Pain..as we do: yet must needs have a Perfect and Transcendental Perception, both of Pleasure, and Pain, and of all other things.
1727 N. Bailey Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict. II Transcendental, exceeding, going beyond, surpassing.
1790 E. Burke Refl. Revol. in France 10 All these considerations..were below the transcendental dignity of the Revolution Society. View more context for this quotation
1856 C. Merivale Hist. Romans under Empire V. xlviii. 423 His [the Emperor's] transcendental being was elevated above the restraints of all inferior existences.
1868 M. Pattison Suggestions Acad. Organisation 6 It related to the transcendental parts of education.
2. Philosophy.
a. originally in Aristotelian philosophy: Transcending or extending beyond the bounds of any single category; = transcendent adj. 4a. By 17th cent. writers often made synonymous with metaphysical.By Wilkins used with special reference to his own classification of things and notions.
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the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > ancient Greek philosophy > [adjective] > Aristotelian > of elements of Aristotelianism
predicamentalc1600
transcendental1668
transcendent1706
third-man argument1801
categorical1817
prioristic1890
1668 Bp. J. Wilkins Ess. Real Char. ii. i. 25 The most Universal conceptions of Things are usually stiled Transcendental, Metaphysic-all.
1668 Bp. J. Wilkins Ess. Real Char. ii. xii. 291 The words sin, fault, trespass, transgression,..being compounded with the Transcendental Particle, Diminutive or Augmentative,..denote a Peccadillo or small fault, or an Enormity or heinous crime.
1668 Bp. J. Wilkins Ess. Real Char. ii. xii. 318 Those Particles are here stiled Transcendental, which do circumstantiate words in respect of some Metaphysical notion; either by enlarging the acception of them to some more general signification,..or denoting a relation to some other Predicament or Genus, under which they are not originally placed.
1676 J. Glanvill Ess. i. 3 So different they [body and spirit] are in all things, that they seem to have nothing but Being, and the Transcendental Attributes of that, in common.
1682 H. More Annot. Disc. Truth 177 in Two Choice & Useful Treat. The Current Doctrine of Metaphysicians, who define Transcendental or Metaphysical Truth to be nothing else but the relation of the Conformity of things to the Theoretical..Intellect of God.
1710 G. Berkeley Treat. Princ. Human Knowl. §118 Those transcendental maxims which influence all the particular sciences.
1734 D. Waterland Diss. Exist. First Cause ii. 51 This is that pure, simple, absolute, transcendental Necessity, which the later School-men and Metaphysicians speak of.
1751 S. Johnson Rambler No. 131. ⁋1 The wish for riches; a wish..so prevalent, that it may be considered as universal and transcendental.
a1807 J. Opie Lect. on Painting (1809) 57 Learn to see Nature and beauty in the abstract, and rise to general and transcendental truth, which will always be the same.
b. In the philosophy of Kant (1724–1804): Not derived from experience, but concerned with the presuppositions of experience; pertaining to the general theory of the nature of experience or knowledge, a priori; critical (see criticism n. 1c). transcendental idealism [after German transzendentaler Idealismus (1781 or earlier in Kant as †transscendentaler Idealism)] : the view, esp. as found in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, that human knowledge (though not illusory) extends only to things as they appear to us and not to things as they are in themselves, and is accordingly confined to phenomena (see phenomenon n. 3).
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the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > absolute idealism > [adjective] > relating to transcendentalism > of Kant's transcendental philosophy
transcendental1798
transcendent1803
1798 A. F. M. Willich Elements Crit. Philos. 65 The division of transcendental logic into transcendental analysis and dialectic.
1798 A. F. M. Willich Elements Crit. Philos. 182 The transcendental is opposed to the empirical.
1801 Encycl. Brit. Suppl. II. 355 Kant..calls all knowledge, of which the object is not furnished by the senses, and which concerns the kind and origin of our ideas, transcendental knowledge.
1803 Edinb. Rev. Jan. 258 Philosophy..is transcendental, when..it investigates the subjective elements, which..modify the qualities or elements of the object as perceived.
1842 W. T. Brande Dict. Sci., Lit. & Art 1250/1 The transcendental he [sc. Kant] defines to be that which, though it could never be derived from experience, yet is necessarily connected with experience, and which may be shortly expressed as the intellectual form, the matter of which is supplied by sense.
1872 J. P. Mahaffy tr. Kant's Prolegomena 61 My having given this my theory the name of transcendental idealism, can authorise no one to confound it with the empirical idealism of Descartes.
1872 J. P. Mahaffy tr. Kant's Prolegomena 243 We must necessarily distinguish two sorts of idealism—transcendental and empirical. By the transcendental idealism of all phenomena, I mean the doctrine according to which we regard them all as mere representations, not as things per se.
1874 W. Wallace tr. G. W. F. Hegel Logic §42. 75 That unity of self-consciousness,..Kant calls transcendental..; and he meant thereby that this unity was only in our minds, and did not attach to the objects apart from our knowledge of them.
1877 E. Caird Crit. Acct. Philos. Kant ii. v. 289 Transcendental is the word by which we have learnt to distinguish à priori ideas..so far as they enable us to know objects.
2004 H. E. Allison Transcendental Idealism (ed. 2) Pref. p. xvi Transcendental idealism..is a doctrine of epistemological modesty, since it denies finite cognizers like ourselves any purchase on the God's-eye view of things.
c. Used of any philosophy which resembles Kant's in being based upon the recognition of an a priori element in experience.
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the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > absolute idealism > [adjective] > relating to transcendentalism
transcendental1829
transcendentalistic1892
1829 T. Carlyle in Foreign Rev. Dec. 115 The Idealist boasts that his Philosophy is Transcendental.
1843 R. W. Emerson Transcendentalist in Dial Jan. 302 It is well known..that the Idealism of the present day acquired the name of Transcendental, from the use of that term by Immanuel Kant, of Konigsberg.
1872 W. Minto Man. Eng. Prose Lit. ii. ix. 596 German transcendental philosophy.
1878 E. Dowden Stud. Lit. 47 The transcendental thinker [holds] that the mind contributes of its own stores ideas or forms of thought not derived from experience.
d. By Schelling ‘transcendental philosophy’ was used for the philosophy of mind as distinguished from that of nature.
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1903 R. Adamson Devel. Mod. Philos. I. 265 Philosophy of nature and philosophy of mind or transcendental philosophy are therefore at once parallel and complementary.
3. In uses derived from the philosophical sense:
a. Beyond the limits of ordinary experience, extraordinary.
ΚΠ
1834 T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus ii. v, in Fraser's Mag. Mar. 304/1 Sometimes it is even when your anxiety becomes transcendental, that the soul first feels herself able to transcend it.
1837 T. Carlyle French Revol. III. i. i. 4 Very frightful it is when a Nation,..becomes transcendental.
1856 R. W. Emerson Eng. Traits xiv. 234 This mental materialism makes the value of English transcendental genius.
1863 ‘G. Eliot’ Romola II. xix. 222 That bust of Plato had been long used to look down on conviviality of a more transcendental sort.
1868 J. T. Nettleship Ess. Browning's Poetry i. 34 Views..which, while less transcendental..are perhaps of more practical value.
b. Super-rational, superhuman, supernatural.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > [adjective]
supernatural?a1425
transnatural1569
metaphysical1590
hyperphysical1600
superphysicala1603
metaphysica1631
ineffectible1659
preternatural1696
supranatural1740
transcendental1826
transmundane1859
transmaterial1903
1826 W. Scott Woodstock II. ii. 53 The dexterity with which he threw his transcendental and fanatical notions, like a sort of veil, over the darker visions excited by remorse.
1841–8 F. Myers Catholic Thoughts II. iv. xvi. 265 A revelation which may justly be termed Transcendental—wholly incapable of being explained, but yet not incapable of being believed.
1850 E. P. Whipple Ess. & Rev. (ed. 3) I. 228 It [poetry] thus transcends the sphere of the senses, and is, in a measure, transcendental.
1858 C. Kingsley Lett. (1878) II. 67 Below all natural phenomena, we come to a transcendental—in plain English, a miraculous ground.
1903 F. W. H. Myers Human Personality I. p. xv Transcendental vision, or the perception of beings regarded as on another plane of existence.
c. More generally: abstract, metaphysical, a priori.
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the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > metaphysics > [adjective]
metaphysicalc1454
metaphysic1528
supernatural1569
transcendental1835
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > idealism > [adjective] > relating to innatism or apriorism
transcendental1835
a priori1841
aprioristic1874
nativistic1876
nativist1901
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of imagination > mental image, idea, or fancy > [adjective] > only in imagination or unreal
imaginary?1510
imaginative1517
rational1530
fantastical1531
fantasied1561
airy1565
fancied1568
legendary1570
dreamed1597
fabled1606
ideal1611
fictive1612
affectual1614
insubstantiala1616
imaginatorya1618
supposititious1620
fictitious1621
utopian1624
utopic1624
notional1629
affective1633
fictiousa1644
notionary1646
figmental1655
suppositious1655
fict1677
visionary1725
metaphysical1728
unrealized1767
fancy1801
nice-spun1801
subjective1815
aerial1829
transcendental1835
cardboardy1863
mythical1870
cardboard1879
fictionary1882
figmentary1887
alternative1939
alternate1944
fantasized1964
ideate1966
fanciful-
fantastic-
1835 I. Taylor Spiritual Despotism v. 212 Abstract and transcendental notions of an intolerant kind.
1840 W. M. Thackeray Paris Sketch Bk. II. 103 Having watched the Germans, with their..mysterious transcendental talk.
1850 R. W. Emerson Plato in Representative Men ii. 58 If he made transcendental distinctions, he fortified himself by drawing all his illustrations from sources disdained by orators and polite conversers.
1851 T. Carlyle Life J. Sterling i. xv. 126 To such length can transcendental moonshine, cast by some morbidly radiating Coleridge into the chaos of a fermenting life, act magically there.
1853 F. M. Müller Hist. Anc. Sanskrit Lit Introd. 9 This exhausting atmosphere of transcendental ideas could not but exercise a detrimental influence on the active but moral character of the Indians.
1856 N. Brit. Rev. 26 173 Proofs..that the most abstract and apparently transcendental truths in physical science will sooner or later add their tribute to supply human wants, and alleviate human sufferings.
1871 B. Jowett in tr. Plato Dialogues I. 75 An unmeaning and transcendental conception.
1901 Edinb. Rev. Apr. 427 He [Mill] rejected all transcendental conceptions.
d. Applied to the movement of thought in New England of which Emerson was the principal figure: see transcendentalism n. 1b.
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the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > absolute idealism > [adjective] > relating to transcendentalism > of transcendental philosophy of Emerson
transcendental1844
1844 C. Dickens Martin Chuzzlewit xxxiv. 407 Two literary ladies present their compliments to the mother of the modern Gracchi... It may be another bond of union..to observe, that the two L.L.'s are Transcendental.
1887 J. E. Cabot Mem. Emerson I. vii. 249 [In the Boston or New England Transcendentalism] the transcendental was whatever lay beyond the stock notions and traditional beliefs to which adherence was expected because they were generally accepted by sensible persons.
e. transcendental meditation: a method of relaxation and meditation based on the theory and practice of yoga popularized in the West by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi; abbreviated TM n. at T n. Initialisms 1a); hence transcendental meditator. A proprietary term in the U.S.
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society > faith > aspects of faith > spirituality > contemplation or meditation > [noun]
contemplation?c1225
meditation?c1225
recollection1576
meditating1609
recollectednessa1699
mantra1794
recueillement1845
transcendental meditation1966
TM1967
society > faith > aspects of faith > spirituality > contemplation or meditation > [noun] > person
contemplativea1425
silentiary1611
contemplant1612
ascetic1673
theoretic1675
theoric1798
transcendental meditator1966
society > faith > sect > non-Christian religions > Hinduism > systems of philosophy > [noun] > yoga > transcendental meditation
transcendental meditation1966
TM1967
society > faith > sect > non-Christian religions > Hinduism > systems of philosophy > [noun] > yoga > transcendental meditation > adherent of
transcendental meditator1966
1966 C. F. Lutes in M. M. Yogi Sci. of Being & Art of Living 13 The system on which Maharishi's teaching is based—a simple method of transcendental meditation..—is indeed systematic and produces measurable and predictable results and is therefore scientific.
1973 Times 30 June 14/3 Transcendental meditation is becoming popular as a way of coping with the stress of modern life.
1973 Times 30 June 14/5 Transcendental meditators do not like to publicize the possible dangers inherent in mind-bending techniques.
1975 Physics Bull. Sept. 397/2 The aim was to measure the breathing rate and lung ventilation of 15 transcendental meditators before, during and after meditation and compare the values with those obtained for 15 non~meditators.
1976 Official Gaz. (U.S. Patent Office) 3 Aug. tm77/2 Class 41—Education and Entertainment. 1,045,673. World Plan Executive Council—United States, Los Angeles, Calif... Transcendental Meditation.
1976 Early Music 4 467/1 The place of meditation and mantra made familiar to the West by the practitioners of Transcendental Meditation and similar Yoga techniques.
1980 Times 27 May 1/8 Transcendental meditation, as taught by the Maharishi's World Government of the Age of Enlightenment..involves learning the techniques of meditating.
4. Mathematics. Not capable of being produced by (a finite number of) the ordinary algebraical operations of addition, multiplication, involution, or their inverse operations; expressible in terms of the variable only in the form of an infinite series.The typical transcendental functions are sin x, ex, log x.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > number > geometry > curve > [adjective] > having certain property
mechanical1694
intercepted1702
rectifiable1706
transcendental1706
tortuous1867
monocyclic1869
bicursal1873
irreconcilable1881
closed1882
anautotomic1901
fractal1975
the world > relative properties > number > algebra > [adjective] > not algebraic
transcendental1843
transcendent1902
1706 Phillips's New World of Words (new ed.) Transcendental Curves,..are such Curves, as when their Nature or Property comes to be express'd by an Equation, one of the Variable or flowing Quantities there, denotes a Curve or crooked Line.
1811 C. Hutton Course Math. III. ix. 188 Transcendental or mechanical curves, are such as cannot be..expressed by a pure algebraical equation. Thus, y = log x, y = A .sin x,..y = Ax, are equations to transcendental curves.
1843 Penny Cycl. XXV. 120 The roots of equations of the fifth and higher degrees are..transcendental: there is no mode of expression except by infinite series.
1879 A. Cayley in Encycl. Brit. IX. 818/2 The so-called circular functions..the exponential function..the logarithmic function..are all of them transcendental functions.
1882 Glaisher in Encycl. Brit. XIV. 773/1 The small group of transcendental functions, consisting only of the circular functions..sin x, cos x, &c.,..ex, and log x.
1902 Encycl. Brit. XXXI. 287/2 There are numbers..which cannot be defined by any combination of a finite number of equations with rational integral coefficients. Such numbers are said to be transcendental.
B. n.
[the adjective used absol.] A transcendental conception, term, or quantity.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > scholasticism > [noun] > other elements of scholastic philosophy
transcendent1581
haecceity1635
thisness1643
indifference1660
transcendental1668
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > ancient Greek philosophy > post-Socratic philosophy > [noun] > Aristotelianism > elements of
material cause1393
matterc1395
matter subjecta1398
predicamenta1425
quality?1537
first substance1551
predicable1551
property1551
proprium1551
transcendent1581
final cause1587
category1588
habit1588
ante-predicament?1596
postpredicament1599
entelechy1603
transumption1628
secondary1656
objective cause1668
transcendental1668
general substance1697
third man1801
thought-form1834
posterioristic universal1902
ousia1917
the world > relative properties > number > algebra > [noun] > expression > expressible only as infinite series
transcendent1809
transcendental1843
1668 Bp. J. Wilkins Ess. Real Char. ii. i. 24 The right ordering of these Transcendentals is a business of no small difficulty; because there is so little assistance or help to be had for it in the Common Systems.
1711 G. Hickes Two Treat. (ed. 3) I. ii. 157 Generical Terms come so near to the Nature of Transcendentals, that they are very seldom capable of..exact Definition.
1726 J. Swift Gulliver I. ii. vii. 130 As to Ideas, Entities, Abstractions and Transcendentals, I could never drive the least Conception into their Heads.
1843 Penny Cycl. XXV. 120 The expression of the old transcendentals as recognised functions, and the writing of them accordingly, as log x, sin x, cos x, &c.
Draft additions March 2014
transcendental ego n. chiefly Philosophy (in Kantian and idealist thought) the noumenal self, which is itself beyond the reach of empirical knowledge but is postulated to explain how empirical knowledge is possible; (in wider use) a higher self or part of the self conceived as transcending the realm of ordinary knowledge or experience; frequently opposed to empirical ego n. at empirical adj. and n. Compounds; cf. transcendental self n. [After German transzendentales Ich (1787 or earlier in a letter by Kant, as transscendentales Ich). Kant introduced the concept in his Critik der reinen Vernunft (1781), although he did not use the term in that work, speaking instead of the ‘transcendental unity of apperception’ (transscendentale Einheit der Apperception).]
ΚΠ
1859 G. Jamieson Essentials Philos. iv. iii. 169 Kant..lays at the foundation a transcendental Ego or unity, regarded as absolute substance, absolute simplicity, absolute personality, whose characteristic he depicted as pure reason.
1896 Mind 5 394 If we reject the conception of a transcendental ego, the conception of an empirical ego must go along with it, for they are only conceived in antithesis to one another.
1914 G. F. Moore Metempsychosis 15 The true self is not what men think, whether they identify it with the body or self-conscious mind, but a transcendental Ego, essentially inactive and impassive, untouched by all the changes of its environment.
1957 F. Williams & R. Kirkpatrick in tr. J.-P. Sartre Transcendence Ego Introd. 19 Let us suppose, as Husserl claimed, that a transcendental ego ‘stands behind’ consciousness.
2005 M. A. R. Habib Hist. Literary Crit. xiv. 364 It is the transcendental ego (standing above experience) which unites and enables an ordering of the various experiences of the empirical ego.
transcendental self n. chiefly Philosophy a higher self or part of the self conceived as transcending the realm of ordinary knowledge or experience; spec. (in post-Kantian thought) the transcendental ego; frequently opposed to empirical self n. at empirical adj. and n. Compounds; cf. transcendental ego n. [Probably partly after German transzendentales Selbst (1846 or earlier), and partly after German transzendentales Ich (see transcendental ego n.).]
ΚΠ
1857 Encycl. Brit. XIV. 619/1 Beyond the field of consciousness there must exist a transcendental self, the ground and support of the phenomena; and to this transcendental subject..we may legitimately attribute a power of self-determination, or free causality.
1926 E. C. Butler Western Mysticism (ed. 2) i. 140 The essence of the soul..is what the mystics mean when they speak of the centre of the soul, or its apex... It has also been called in modern terminology the core of the personality, and the transcendental self.
1952 H. A. Hodges Philos. W. Dilthey ii. 29 Kant and the Neo-Kantians do not agree as to whether there is an independently existing reality behind the phenomena of nature, but they all agree in distinguishing between the ‘empirical’ and the ‘transcendental’ self.
1990 Yoga Jrnl. July 33/3 The transcendental Self..is inherently pure, perfect. The human mind..is not.
2002 F. C. Beiser German Idealism 4 Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel..made the Kantian transcendental self.., which was essentially only a construct to explain the possibility of a single objective experience,..into a metaphysical principle, the single universal self that is the source of all of nature and history.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1914; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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adj.n.1668