Transcendentalist

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil” -Ralph Waldo Emerson in Self Reliance. Ralph Waldo Emerson was a transcendentalist. Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that originated in the 19th century and was primarily influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Transcendentalists’ main beliefs are: self-reliance is essential to one’s life, nature is divine, every person should have an optimistic outlook, and humanity needs to adhere to their personal morals and beliefs. In today’s world we still see a multitude of the beliefs of transcendentalism.

With the fact that remained in history, the primary conception of transcendentalism was led by the unitarianism, the reaction to the strict Calvinism, which supported that people should live the spiritual life in terms of a continuing effort to cultivate one’s own spiritual resources. David Robinson explicated it in his article “Transcendentalism”:

“Transcendentalism […] has primarily much the position of the sun […] We are conscious of it as of a kind of splendid confusion […] But the circle of the moon is as clear and unmistakable, as recurrent and inevitable, as the circle of Euclid on a blackboard” (Chesterton, 24). These words encapsulate the driving rationale of the anti-transcendentalist argument – that although individuals seek transcendentalism, they can never truly realize it, or, to compare with the sun, see it. Rather, they inevitably place attention on the “moon,” the perspicuous reflection of transcendentalism – that is, individualism – and neglect the responsibilities of society. Emerson institutes the philosophy of transcendentalism in his essay, Nature, teaching that divinity pervades all nature and humanity. Although transcendentalists would offer that man can only better his spiritual life by embracing individualism, pursuing the ideal, and being one with nature, the ability and appeal of transcendentalism to advance enlightenment upon the soul of the individual rests on the false suppositions that feckless man can achieve perfection and that nature embodies God, thus causing transcendentalism to conversely detriment the spiritual life of the individual, isolating him, prescribing his rebellion, and invigorating his selfish pursuits, simply because he confides his soul in creation instead of the Creator (Tocqueville, 482).

Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement developed in the early-19 century. This literary movement based on the importance of God, man and nature, allowed numerous authors to become known. Nowadays, in a society full of innovations and in which nature is becoming less and less important, some people still feel the need to live far from the cities, in the wilderness, and still appreciate the simple things of life. Chris McCandless was one of them and decided to live a simple life by following the basic ideas of transcendentalism.

A month ago, you asked me to inform you on the goals and ideas of the transcendentalist philosophers. After some heavy research on the topic, I am ready to inform you to the finest of my abilities. How about we start with a little background and history? Sounds good? Great! First, transcendentalism is a movement that started in the early to mid-nineteenth century. According to definitions online, a transcendentalist Philosopher is a person that accepts ideas as a way of understanding life relationships rather than religious beliefs. Moreover, Transcendentalism describes a very modest idea. Men, women, children, and people in general are knowledgeable about themselves and their surroundings that transcends beyond what they can see, feel, taste, or touch. Most believe that this knowledge occurs as a result of intuition and imagination rather than logic or sense. As a result, the group declared cynicism of all recognized faiths, believing that spirituality lived in the individual, and the arbitration of a church was burdensome to attaining enlightenment.

According to Dictionary.com Transcendentalism is, “any philosophy based upon the doctrine that the principles of reality are to be discovered by the study of the processes of thought, or a philosophy emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual above the empirical”, but that’s only part of what Transcendentalism is. Transcendentalism is standing for One of the first people to write about Transcendentalism were Henry David Thoreau writer of “Resistance to Civil Government” and Ralph Waldo Emerson writer of “Nature” and “Self-Reliance”. Those writers through their writing inspired people like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi.

should decide for himself what believes to be right and upstanding and in no way, should that

Transcendentalism is a movement that developed in the early 1800s in America. Transcendentalism taught that individuals and nature alike were purely good at heart, but they had been corrupted by society. They believed that each individual has unprecedented power when completely reliant on themselves. This is completely and utterly contradictory to what the Bible says. The Bible states that everyone is corrupted by sin and needs Jesus to be saved from that sin. In addition, the Bible tells us that we must be dependent on God and that we ourselves cannot achieve anything without Him. Therefore, I believe that transcendentalism is completely ruled out by the Bible in many ways.

Nature itself is very important in the world and as for self-reliance it was seen as being something you should be. Along with social reforms being something that is going against what society deems right. Transcendentalist believed that nature was a main aspect of life and that it was

Transcendentalism are well educated people.They lived during the Civil War, these people were mostly New Englanders, some from Boston.Some people were struggling to find religion, that’s how others could tell they were transcendentalism.

Transcendentalism is a philosophical/social movement that sprouted to life in the mid 1820s and 1830s in the eastern United States. Transcendentalism emerged from English and German Romanticism, and was also influenced by ancient Hindu thoughts and writings. The main belief of transcendentalism is that humans and animals were born pure, and society and industrialization turned animals and people dirty and unclean spiritually. Like most other religions, transcendentalists had principles to live by. The Ten Tenets of Transcendentalism are the following:

They believed that God was directly inborn in every individual, much different than the church’s ideas. God could neither be understood nor described—but he can be experienced through nature and through the self. The idea of God in this sense was viewed negatively by many orthodox churches. American Transcendentalism was seen as a very radical movement during this time and was not accepted by many. Ideas of secular spirituality were now breaking through, and the Transcendentalists were trying to disconnect from organized religion and move away from Enlightenment ideas.

Transcendentalism was an American literature movement urging people to look past everyday material life, and reach into their souls to find inner peace with themselves. Transcendentalism originally came from Kantian idealism. This idealism was credited by Immanuel Kant.

Transcendentalism was a philosophical movement that occurred in America after the Enlightenment and before the Civil War. Transcendental authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau espoused closeness with nature throughout their lifespan while doing the same with self-reliance and nonconformity with mainstream society. This can be proven true for the stories “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson and “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau.

Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that started in the 1830s with the belief that the most important reality is what is sensed or what is intuitive, rather than scientific knowledge. The transcendental era was after the Enlightenment era and before the Civil War. Authors at this time wrote about individuality and the importance of nature. There were two major influences at this time, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.