Some Considerations on the Scholastic Transcendental Philosophy in the Light of the Metaphysics of Avicenna, Aquinas, and Scotus

Talebzadeh, Seyed Hamid; Attarzadeh, Ali Reza

doi:10.22059/jop.2025.401203.1006945

Some Considerations on the Scholastic Transcendental Philosophy in the Light of the Metaphysics of Avicenna, Aquinas, and Scotus

Document Type : Scientific-research

Authors

Seyed Hamid Talebzadeh ¹ ^¶

Ali Reza Attarzadeh ²

¹ Professor, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

² . Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

10.22059/jop.2025.401203.1006945

Abstract

A set of concepts lies at the core of metaphysical thought, constituting the subject and predicate of most metaphysical propositions. The centrality of these metaphysical concepts, referred to in later Islamic philosophy as (philosophical) "secondary intelligibles" and in Scholastic philosophy as "transcendental concepts," was not recognized from the outset of the history of metaphysics. Rather, their prominence emerged under specific conditions shaped by Avicenna’s metaphysics. Scholastic philosophers, building on Avicenna’s innovations, further developed discussions concerning these concepts, and ultimately, Duns Scotus designated metaphysics as the science of transcendentals, and structuring its components based on his understanding of transcendental concepts. In this article, with reference to the metaphysics of Avicenna, Aquinas, and Scotus, and emphasizing their intellectual commonalities, we aim to propose a general framework for Scholastic transcendental philosophy. The rationale for selecting these three philosophers lies in the fact that Avicenna is the primary source of issues related to transcendentals; Aquinas introduced new issues in addition to Avicennian themes; and Scotus was the first to explicitly designate metaphysics as the science of transcendentals. In this paper, we first address the subject of metaphysics, its components, and the role that transcendental concepts may occupy within the metaphysical frameworks proposed by these philosophers. Subsequently, we explore the definition of transcendental concepts, their classifications, their functions, as well as the shared claim among the discussed philosophers regarding the proof of the externality of transcendental concepts and the significance of this claim.

Keywords

Transcendental Philosophy

Scholasticism

Metaphysics

Secondary Intelligible

Primary notions

Subjects

philosophy

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