Transcendentalism+Overview


 * Transcendentalism:** 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.
 * 19th century European romantic movement
 * Emerson’s essay “Nature” in 1836 and “self- reliance” in 1841
 * Rejected the prevailing “philosophy of empiricism” which held that all knowledge comes from experience, from information acquired by fives senses and the intellectual capacity to reason
 * Higher reality, the “world of the spirit.” Through an inborn power.
 * Above and beyond 5 senses
 * Saw nature not only as beautiful, but also as reflection of divinity- literally, the face of God.
 * Macrocosm (the universe) and the microcosm (the individual) were directly connected
 * Purpose of human life was union with the so-called “over-soul” which embraced – and was reflected in ---everything in the world.
 * Anti-religious
 * They felt that the authority of organized religion needed to be rejected and that people needed to find God within themselves, through the power of “intuition”
 * Self-reliance and individuality—not obedience to outside authority—were the pathways to self understanding and to the divine