Random Notes on Transcendentalism

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Random Notes on Transcendentalism
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What is transcendentalism?

• Also called transcendental philosophy. 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.
• A literary and philosophical movement, associated
  with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller,
  asserting the existence of an ideal spiritual
  reality that transcends the empirical and
  scientific and is knowable through intuition.
• A movement in nineteenth-century American
  literature and thought. It called on people to
  view the objects in the world as small versions
  of the whole universe and to trust their
  individual intuitions. The two most noted
  American transcendentalists were Ralph Waldo
  Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

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Where does the World Come from?

• The world was created by God, the great spirit.
• We can understand the creator by looking at what
  he has created.
• Creation is made up of crops, rocks, trees, etc.
• We must get involved in the world by transcending
  (going beyond) this world into the world of God.
  

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How do you know about God?

• Things dont exist just for the sake of
  existence. They mean something.
• Read Nature, not the Bible.
• One source of the spirit is nature.
• Another source is Man.

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Each Person Has a Soul

• People have potential for development.
• They all have a duty to develop themselves.
• All people are individuals.
• People are basically good.

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Issues of the Time

• Abolition
• Temperance Movement
• Suffrage

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Practitioners of Transcendentalism
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
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Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

• Advocate of
• Self-Reliance
• Self-Trust
• Individualism
• All of these are HUMANIST beliefs which places
  the emphasis on MAN as opposed to GOD.

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Emerson

• Attended Harvard College
• He once wrote in a journal during his years at
  Harvard, I find myself often idle,vagrant,
  stupidI am indolent and shall be insignificant.
• Taught School for three years.
• Associate Pastor at a Unitarian church.
• Resigned pastorial position because he had
  difficulty with formal religion. Couldnt bring
  himself to administer communion.

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Emerson

• Emersons philosophy might come from this quote
• Trust thyself every heart vibrates to that iron
  string.

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Finally.

• Basically, Emerson believed man was IMPORTANT.
  Perhaps finding answers through
  transcendentalism, (essentially through himself),
  he thwarted his feelings of stupidity.