Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism represents the doctrine of some of the Schoolmen that there are ideas which rise entirely above (transcend) experience, and cannot be brought under any of the Ten Categories. Such an idea is that of Ens, pure being, which embraces the One, the Pure, the Good. Kant draws a distinction between Transcendent and Transcendental. By Transcendental he understands such a priori ideas as are manifested only in experience, e.g. Time, Cause, Space, etc. (i.e. what has relation to the permanent mental conditions of experience); while by Transcendent he understands "such ideas as are above experience, e.g. God, Soul, etc." The term Transcendentalism has now come to be synonymous with high-flown, fanciful, impracticable ideas, which refuse to be controlled by experience. It has also been applied to the idealism of Emerson (q.v.).