ABSTRACT
Knowledge of the transcendentals is itself a form of abstraction. In ethics it is transcendental abstraction which provides the first principle from which the principles of right and virtue and justice are derived. It is only transcendental abstraction which can provide the ends to which practical activity must be directed. This chapter discusses this topic with a detailed analysis of the act of transcendental abstraction. It identifies the biological and social basis of this act. The chapter shows what transcendental abstraction can achieve in the sciences, in metaphysics, in ethics and in the practical disciplines. It also identifies the limits of transcendental abstraction and makes a case for the necessity of a higher, revealed wisdom. The role of teleological explanation in the biological sciences is even more well established – and this in spite of numerous attempts to expunge it by distinguishing, as Ernst Mayr does, between teleomatic, teleonomic, adaptive and properly teleological processes.
