Abstract

The focus of this article is on an ambivalent conception in medieval thought, namely the term ‘transcendens’, which on the one hand signifies a reality beyond created beings, i.e. God, and on the other hand signifies something common to all beings. Armandus de Bellovisu, in his Declaratio difficilium terminorum, has thematized exactly this difference between transcendence that follows from ‘nobility of being’ and that which follows from ‘commonness of predication’. The medieval term ‘transcendens’, because of its ambiguity, thus includes two fundamental concepts, which represent divergent philosophical tendencies concerning the specification of First Philosophy: the one understands it as «Philosophy of Transcendence», the other as «Transcendental Philosophy». The history of metaphysics is characterized by the tension between these two tendencies, but as we shall see, it also shows that they are intimately connected.