trascendentale

trascendentale is the Italian adjective meaning transcendental. In philosophy, it is primarily used to describe a method or inquiry into the a priori conditions that make experience possible. The term is common in Italian discussions of Immanuel Kant, where trascendentale denotes the analysis of the forms of sensibility (space and time) and the categories of understanding that organize all possible experience.

Philosophical usage distinguishes between trascendentale and trascendente: trascendentale concerns the conditions for the possibility of experience, while trascendente refers to things that surpass possible experience or lie beyond empirical knowledge.

Historically, Kant popularized the transcendental approach in the 18th century, shaping later Italian and European thought. In Kantian contexts, writers discuss la filosofia trascendentale and works such as the Transcendental Aesthetic and Transcendental Analytic.

In mathematics, the term is less central in Italian, where numero trascendente or funzione trascendente are more common. Nevertheless, trascendentale appears in Italian-language texts describing concepts that go beyond algebraic definitions, such as transcendental numbers like pi and e, which are not roots of any nonzero polynomial with integer coefficients.

See also: Kant; transcendentalism; transcendental number; transcendental function.