Trascendentalism

Transcendentalism
“The landscape, the figures, Boston, London, are facts as fugitive as any institution past, or any whiff of mist or smoke, and so is society, and so is the world. The soul looketh steadily forwards, creating a world before her, leaving worlds behind.” Emerson, “The Over-Soul” (1838)
Emilia Alcalá #2_ Juan A. Muro #30 Karime Nieto #31

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“Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.” Thoreau

Traditions that contributed…
 Puritanism.- 19th century Americans inherited the

mental habit of regarding natural objects and events as meaningful hieroglyphs, signs and symbols of a higher reality.

Transcendentalists learned to look beyond thepresent into a higher, more enduring world of types and universals.

Traditions that contributed…
 Platonism and neo-platonism.- Emerson declared

that Transcendentalism was extremely old, pointing to one of the movement’s ultimate philosophical sources: the Idealism of Plato and Plotinus. The Transcendentalists insisted that the ultimate realities of the universe are ideas, not things in arising cultural tide of materialism, consumerism, and physical comfort.

Traditions that contributed…
 Kantian metaphysics.- In his essay on

Transcendentalism, Emerson cites the philosophy of Immanuel Kant as an important framework and inspiration for the movement. Even the word “Transcendentalism” comes from Kant’s view that ultimate reality transcends the limits of our understanding. Kantpostulated that the only way of viewing the true nature of things is through what we call phenomena (only as they appear through the lens of human perception).

Traditions that contributed…
 Romanticism.- Transcendentalism was strongly

influences by European Romanticism. The social and political views of Rousseau, the radical Protestantism and defiant individualism of Blake, the scientificand metaphysical speculations of Goethe, the celebrations of mind and imagination of Coleridge, and the reverence for nature and solitude characteristic of Wordsworth.

 All these views find their American restatement,

adaptation, or counterpart in the writings of Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau.

Traditions that contributed…
 Orientalism and mysticism.- Emerson owned an extensivelibrary of Oriental literature in translation. Thoreau was introduced to Oriental religion and literature at Harvard and maintained an avid interest in Eastern spiritual lore throughout his life. Whitman’s interest in the East, though less formal and discipline, was just as keen as that of Emerson and Thoreau.

 In addition to their belief in cosmic unity, in the ultimate

interconnection andharmony of all things, these authors also absorbed from their Oriental sources the view that the phenomenal world, Nature, is a sort of Mayan veil which partly reveals, partly conceals, an ultimate Oneness.

Influence on other movements
 The movement directly influenced the growing

movement of Mental Sciences of the mid 1800’s which would later become known as the New Thought movement. NewThought draws directly from the Transcendentalists, particularly Emerson, known as their intellectual father.

 Emma Curtis Hopkins, Ernest Holmes, The

Fillmores, Malinda Cramer, and Nona L. Brooks were all greatly influenced by Transcendentalism.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on May 25,1803 in

Boston, Massachusetts and died on April 27 of 1882 in Concord,Massachusetts.  He was an american essayist, philoshopher and poet.  He lead the Trascedentalist movement.  His most famous essay was “Nature” in 1836.  He believed that all the things were connected to god and, therefore, all the things were divine.  His views were the basis of trascedentalism:  God doesn’t reveals the truth, truth can be experienced intuitively from nature.  He founded the...