Kant himself is aware that this use of the term departs in a very significant way from previous usages and that is why he is particularly intent on distinguishing the notion of the ‘‘transcendental’’ from the ‘‘transcendent,’’ a distinction that he claims is unique to his new approach to philosophy. What makes it necessary to introduce the distinction and why had it been overlooked in previous philosophy? The answer, I think, has to do the fact that previous philosophers, in particular beginning with the neoplatonic tradition, had brought the two notions into close relationship. They had assumed that ‘‘transcendental knowledge’’ concerned primarily things that ‘‘transcend’’ the realm of individual, finite objects. The traditional ‘‘transcendental
predicates’’ were predicates that apply to anything at all that exists, including and above all God as the unchanging, infinite, and transcendent source of all kinds of beings.
Thomas J. Nenon, Some differences between Kant’s and Husserl’s conceptions of transcendental philosophy