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Transcendental   /trˌænsəndˈɛntəl/  /trˌænsəndˈɛnəl/   Listen
adjective
Transcendental  adj.  
1.
Supereminent; surpassing others; as, transcendental being or qualities.
2.
(Philos.) In the Kantian system, of or pertaining to that which can be determined a priori in regard to the fundamental principles of all human knowledge. What is transcendental, therefore, transcends empiricism; but is does not transcend all human knowledge, or become transcendent. It simply signifies the a priori or necessary conditions of experience which, though affording the conditions of experience, transcend the sphere of that contingent knowledge which is acquired by experience.
3.
Vaguely and ambitiously extravagant in speculation, imagery, or diction. Note: In mathematics, a quantity is said to be transcendental relative to another quantity when it is expressed as a transcendental function of the latter; thus, a^(x), 10^(2x), log x, sin x, tan x, etc., are transcendental relative to x.
Transcendental curve (Math.), a curve in which one ordinate is a transcendental function of the other.
Transcendental equation (Math.), an equation into which a transcendental function of one of the unknown or variable quantities enters.
Transcendental function. (Math.) See under Function.
Synonyms: Transcendental, Empirical. These terms, with the corresponding nouns, transcendentalism and empiricism, are of comparatively recent origin. Empirical refers to knowledge which is gained by the experience of actual phenomena, without reference to the principles or laws to which they are to be referred, or by which they are to be explained. Transcendental has reference to those beliefs or principles which are not derived from experience, and yet are absolutely necessary to make experience possible or useful. Such, in the better sense of the term, is the transcendental philosophy, or transcendentalism. Each of these words is also used in a bad sense, empiricism applying to that one-sided view of knowledge which neglects or loses sight of the truths or principles referred to above, and trusts to experience alone; transcendentalism, to the opposite extreme, which, in its deprecation of experience, loses sight of the relations which facts and phenomena sustain to principles, and hence to a kind of philosophy, or a use of language, which is vague, obscure, fantastic, or extravagant.


noun
Transcendental  n.  A transcendentalist. (Obs.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Transcendental" Quotes from Famous Books



... Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), who was pre-eminently the thinker among the literary men of his generation, that the new German thought found its way into England. During the fourteen months which he spent in Germany—chiefly at Ratzburg and Goettingen—he had familiarized himself with the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant and of his continuators, Fichte and Schelling, as well as with the general literature of Germany. On his return to England, he published, in 1800, a free translation of Schiller's ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... getting dark, though a band of transcendental green still burned upon the prairie's western edge when they finished supper and, sitting round the fire, took out their pipes. The hobbled horses ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... the most ingenious and elaborate elucidations, and have given rise to a process of reasoning, the results of which can scarcely yet be anticipated, but must bear in a very important degree upon some of the most abstruse points of what may be called transcendental physiology." ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... there is here but a restricted use for formulas. In this sort of practice, the engineer has need of some transcendental sense. Smeaton, the pioneer, bade him obey his "feelings"; my father, that "power of estimating obscure forces which supplies a coefficient of its own to every rule." The rules must be everywhere indeed; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... inclined to a timorous policy, had declared that "no feeling of wounded pride, no motive of questionable expediency, nothing short of real and demonstrable necessity, should ever induce him to moot the awful question of the transcendental power of Parliament over every dependency of the British crown. That transcendental power was an ordinance of empire, which ought to be kept back within the penetralia of the constitution. It exists, but it should be veiled. It should not be produced on trifling occasions, or in cases ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge


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