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The transcendentals (, from transcendere "to exceed") are "properties of being", nowadays commonly considered to be truth, unity (oneness), beauty, and . 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.Albertus Magnus named exactly these four values. See Aertsen, Jan A. (2001). "Die Frage nach dem Ersten und dem Grundlegenden. Albert der Große und die Lehre von den Transzendentalien" Albertus Magnus. Zum Gedenken nach 800 Jahren. Neue Zugänge, Aspekte und Perspektiven. ed. by Walter Senner and Henryk Anzulewicz. Berlin: Akademie1, pp. 91–112. Since then, essence (res), otherness (aliquid) and, more recently, beauty (pulchrum) have been added. Today, they are found in theology, particularly in Catholic thought, as unity, truth, goodness and beauty.
Aristotle's substance theory (being a substance belongs to being qua being) has been interpreted as a theory of transcendentals.Aristotle, Metaphysics 1028b4; Allan Bäck, Aristotle's Theory of Abstraction, Springer, 2014, p. 210: "Since all that is, in any category is in virtue of having some relation to substance..., being a substance belongs to being qua being. Because of the centrality of substance for something to be, Aristotle says, "what is being is just the question what is substance." Metaph. Given Aristotle’s account of focal meaning, it has turned out that x is a being only if x is a substance. Items in non-substantial categories are beings, secondarily, only given their being in substance. ... Ιn Metaphysics IV, Aristotle offers both transcendental and categorical items as proper subjects for first philosophy." Aristotle discusses only unity ("One") explicitly because it is the only transcendental intrinsically related to being, whereas truth and goodness relate to rational creatures.Aristotle, Metaphysics X.1–2; Benedict Ashley, The Way toward Wisdom: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics (University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), p. 175.
In the Middle Ages, Catholic philosophers elaborated the thought that there exist transcendentals ( transcendentalia) and that they transcended each of the ten Aristotelian categories.Scott MacDonald (ed.), Being and Goodness: The Concept of the Good in Metaphysics and Philosophical Theology, Cornell University Press, 1991, p. 56. A doctrine of the transcendentality of the good was formulated by Albert the Great. Medieval Theories of Transcendentals (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) His pupil, Saint Thomas Aquinas, posited six transcendentals: ens, res, unum, aliquid, bonum, verum; or “being,” "thing", "one", "something", "good", and "true". Disputed Questions on Truth, Q. 1 A. 1. Saint Thomas derives the six explicitly as transcendentals, De Veritate, Q. 1 A.1 though in some cases he follows the typical list of the transcendentals consisting of the One, the Good, and the True. The transcendentals are ontology 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. Catechism of the Catholic Church references these three at Section 41. 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.
Modern “integral” or holistic philosophy within the Ken Wilber lineage, as well as Steve McIntosh, 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.
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