The transcendental status of pulchrum (beauty) has been debated mainly within Thomistic scholarship, often overlooking earlier medieval sources. This study examines the treatment of beauty in the Summa of Alexander of Hales, situating it within the broader discussion on the transcendentals and reassessing its originality beyond Thomistic categories. This article conducts a close textual and conceptual analysis of the sections of the Summa Halensis that address pulchrum, comparing interpretations in recent scholarship and examining how beauty is discussed in relation to the communissima, causal frameworks, and Trinitarian metaphysics. Four characterizations of pulchrum are identified in the first part of the Summa Halensis: three connected to efficient, final, and formal–exemplar causality, and a fourth defining beauty as harmony and proportion. In the second part of the Summa, beauty is further treated as a principle of order and suitability for contemplation, suggesting a relational dimension among transcendentals. This study argues that, despite the conceptual tensions identified—particularly the opposition between its relational character and its link to formal causality—the account of pulchrum in the Summa Halensis supports interpreting beauty as a distinct transcendental, grounded in the harmony and relational order of being and ultimately connected with Trinitarian metaphysics.
Francisco Javier Ormazabal Echeverría (Sat,) studied this question.