Transcendentalen

Transcendentalen is the inflected plural form of the German adjective transcendental. In German, it is used to describe nouns that belong to or relate to transcendence, and it commonly appears in technical terms and in philosophical or mathematical contexts. The uninflected English equivalent is transcendental, but in German the form changes to fit case, number, and gender, with transcendentalen appearing in phrases such as transcendentalen Zahlen (transcendental numbers) or transcendentalen Funktionen (transcendental functions).

In philosophy, the term transcendental (and its inflected forms) appears in discussions of transcendental philosophy, most notably in the work of Immanuel Kant. Kant used the term to refer to the a priori conditions that make experience possible, such as the forms of sensibility (space and time) and the categories of understanding. Transcendental questions seek what conditions must obtain for knowledge and experience to occur, rather than what objects are in themselves.

In mathematics, transcendental describes numbers, functions, or objects that are not roots of any non-zero polynomial equation with rational coefficients (for numbers) or that are not algebraic (for functions). Classic examples of transcendental numbers are pi and e. Transcendental functions include certain non-algebraic functions, such as the exponential function, which do not satisfy polynomial equations with constant coefficients.

Usage outside mathematics and philosophy is less standardized, but the term can occur in linguistic or theological discussions to denote ideas or phenomena beyond ordinary empirical classification. Transcendentalen thus functions primarily as a grammatically inflected form tied to the broader concept of transcendence.