Page History

SCANNED PDF

For medieval thinkers generally, transcendental terms are said to transcend the categories "in the sense that they belong no more to one category than to another, and they do not correspond to common natures" (E. Jennifer Ashworth, "Medieval Theories of Analogy," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

...

For Duns Scotus, transcendentals are so called because they transcend both the division of being into finite and infinite, and the further division of finite being into the ten Aristotelian categories. Being itself (ens) is a transcendental, and so are its "proper attributes," i.e., "one," "true," and "good," all of which are convertible, or coextensive, with "being." But Duns Scotus also identifies an indefinite number of disjunctions that are disjunctively coextensive with being and therefore count as transcendentals, such as infinite-or-finite, necessary-or-contingent. Finally, he holds that all the so-called pure perfections are transcendentals because they transcend the division of being into finite and infinite, although they are not convertible, or coextensive, with being. Thus, e.g., God is wise and Socrates is wise, but earthworms--although earthworms—although most certainly beings--are beings—are not wise. 

But if Duns Scotus distinguishes pure perfections from both the proper attributes of being, i.e., convertible, or coextensive, transcendentals (passiones entis convertibiles), and the disjunctive transcendentals (passiones entis disjunctae), isn't this because his metaphysics is attributively dualistic? Aren't "pure perfections" simply the properties of spirit or mind as distinct from matter or body? Isn't this why Duns Scotus says that wisdom is a transcendental even though earthworms are not wise?

...