Transendentalism

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Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism was a 19th- century American philosophy that emphasized the

Unity of spirit and nature . Its most renowned spokesman was Ralph Waldo Emerson , who called it the Saturnalia or excess of Faith ' That which is popularly called Transcendentalism , he wrote , is Idealism Idealism as it appears in 1842 (Emerson , 198 , 193

Originally applied to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant , the term transcendentalism was used to describe Kant 's philosophy , a view that claims that certain knowledge of the mental world and the

basic structures of human thought are possible (Andrews 3 . German Idealists such as Kant believed that knowledge was not only rooted in sense experience but that some knowledge is rooted in the inner reality and rational structure of the human mind . At the time , British and American philosophers believed that knowledge was only derived from sense experience , whereas Kant and the transcendentalists thought that knowledge of the mind itself was possible

Rather than being a well-organized and clearly defined movement transcendentalism was instead the name given to a loosely knit group of authors , preachers , and lectures bound together by their opposition to certain beliefs and practices . The transcendentalists shared a disdain for Unitarian orthodoxy , a desire to free American culture from bondage to deal traditions , and faith in the vast potential of democratic life in America . Situated in and near Concord , Massachusetts , between 1835 and 1860 , the transcendentalists formed a loose federation of kindred spirits rather than a disciplined , narrowly defined group

Emerson...