Talk:transphenomenal

Should not be comparative. Something is either transphenomenal or not. I don't know the code to edit to change this. Vwoodstock 12:34, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Citations show otherwise. DCDuring TALK 14:52, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

RFV discussion
Apparently from a translation of Sartre. Independent use? DCDuring TALK 17:13, 16 May 2010 (UTC)


 * It does seem to be a word: - but what the hell does it mean? The definition: doesn't mean much to me. SemperBlotto 21:19, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It's existence is definitely attestable, but possibly in more than one sense, going back to 19th C at least. I would need to work up to this, but it seems like a long run for a short slide. We could use someone familiar at greater depth than WP offers with the Idealists of the 19th C for one sense and someone who knows Sartre for another. The term does not appear in WP. It appears once in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (article on Sartre). DCDuring TALK 00:05, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There are plenty of hits: --687 hits. I find many hits from which a link to Sartre is unapparent, thus seem independent. I am not eager to add attesting citations myself, but the term looks attestable. --Dan Polansky 12:35, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The definition now reads "Having its being not reducible to its being perceived." The being of a thing, I estimate, is the essense of the thing, meaning the set of all monadic predicates that hold true of the thing. Example monadic predicates would be "cat(x)", "white(x)", "living(x)", holding of a white cat that is still alive. It is quite plausible that the truth-values of some monadic predicates holding of a real-world concrete entity such as a cat or an electron cannot be determined by observation. These could be tagged as "transphenomenal", although it is not clear why they would not be tagged as "noumenal". In any case, the contrast set could include "phenomenal", "transphenomenal", and "noumenal". This is a mere estimate, though. --Dan Polansky 12:35, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you've already demonstrated a high level of aptitude for the task: you make it seem to easy, as if it were second nature to you. DCDuring TALK 15:34, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The late Anthony Flew's A Dictionary of Philosophy only uses the word in this article on Sartre, from which one could infer a definition of "having its character (nature?) not completely revealed in the totality of its manifestations". I don't know how this relates to other usage by philosophers. DCDuring TALK 16:09, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have added citations which suggest Kantian origins. I think there is a fairly clear line Kant>Hegel>Fichte/Schilling>Husserl>Sartre. The citations don't clarify the definition for me. DCDuring TALK 14:43, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Re origins: the putative etymon seems to be no older than the English term (possibly younger). It appears in commentaries on Kant starting in the 1880s, but I cannot find the German term in Kant, nor even the English term in any translations.  It appears to be the sort of word invented by latter-day interpreters in order to confuse the uninitiated.  -- Visviva 19:28, 24 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Striking this RFV on the whole entry as cited and thus RFV passed (nominated in this ). Whether this entry has any meaningful definition is another question that can be further clarified as part of a cleanup. The word is used in plenty of hits in Google books (, 595 hits) and some quotations appear directly in the entry. --Dan Polansky 09:58, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

RFC discussion: April 2011–September 2017
Definition: (philosophy, Sartre) Having its being or essential nature not reducible to its being perceived.

I can't understand this, let alone determine its correctness in the absence of citations or authority. What are the standards for a philosophical definition, especially one only defined in connection with a single author? DCDuring TALK 18:28, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks good now --WF on Holiday (talk) 16:07, 15 September 2017 (UTC)