1. The Philosophical School of Transcendentalism
(SAH)
The Philosophical School of Transcendentalism
Main Philosophers: Ralph W. Emerson, Henry D. Thoreau, Margaret Fuller
by Ms. C. Cotner
1/21/16

2. TRANSCENDENTALISM
According the the website The Basics of Philosophy, the school of Transcendentalism “…was a movement centered in New England during the mid-19th Century grounded in the claim that divine truth could be known intuitively.”(Mastin) For example, divine truth or ultimate reality transcends established religious doctrines into an ideal spiritual state experienced not by the physical or logical but through feeling.
(Heidinger)

3. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson is best noted as an essayist, philosopher, and poet. “With his publication of Nature” (which was an expression of the firm belief in the mystical unity of nature) Transcendentalism as a major cultural movement” began. (Mastin)
His major contribution was “two volumes of Essays published in 1836 of which Self-Reliance is the most influential. (Mastin) In it he describes his abiding faith in the individual (‘Trust Thyself’) and opposes the reliance on social structures because one must approach divinity directly not mediated through some institutions. (Mastin)

4. “The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself” (Emerson)
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

5. Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau, like his colleague Emerson, was a philosopher, transcendentalist, and writer. He is best known for the philosophy of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance which was later credited in action by the likes of Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Mastin) Thoreau believed that there was more to reality than what a person could experience with their senses, and more knowledge than what a person could discover through human reason. He advocated intuition, self-examination, individualism, and the exploration of the beauty of nature and humankind.(Mastin) In his seminal essay Civil Disobedience, he boldly asserts that the only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.” (Mastin) He advocated abolition of slavery, direct action, and peaceful revolution by withdrawing his allegiance in person and property from the government that supports or permits the use.” (Mastin)

6. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” (Thoreau)
–Henry David Thoreau

7. Margaret Fuller
Margaret Fuller, a contemporary of Thoreau and Emerson, is noted as “the most important woman of the 19th century.” (Ossoli) She is most know as America’s first feminist with her manifesto Woman of the 19th Century. (Ossoli) Her idea that souls were “of no sex” is an example of her transcendentalist philosophy. (Ossoli). She believed that “understanding human nature was the key to bringing about social reform. . . and articulated the belief in bettering the condition of humankind through the use of Enlightenment ideas of progress.” In terms of feminism, she writes, “Male and female represent the two sides of the radial dualism. . . there is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman. (Tangorra)

8. “The especial genius of women, I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency?” (Fuller)
–Margaret Fuller

9. Commentary
The Transcendentalist were a unique group of philosophers in the 19th century. They relied on nature, self-reliance, and individualism, to transcend the rational for a connection to the ideal, God, spirituality, or the universal soul. They were seemingly pacifists who wrote poetry, essays, and lectures to advocate their position. They were trying to show a different approach to the spiritual without the trappings of a social religion or church. Their writings of civil disobedience and philosophy are renown in such people as Gandhi who protested English rule over India by refusing to eat, or Martin Luther King, Jr. who led a peaceful march on Washington, or even today with the Black Lives Matter protest. They influenced literature and America’s ideal of nature and spirituality. Their philosophy was
profound in the actions of America’s youth in the 1960s when the counter-revolution seemingly imitated their return to nature by leaving the cities to live communally with nature in the country and by the many acts of non-violent sit-ins or protests for women’s rights, civil rights, and anti-war. It was a philosophy for begging change through transcendence. As Thoreau himself once said, “Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.” (Thoreau)

10. Works Cited
Emerson, Ralph, Waldo. “Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes.” BrainyQuote Jan
Fuller, Margaret. “Margaret Fuller Quotes.” BrainyQuote Jan. 21,2016
Heidinger, Kurt, “Transcendentalism.” Biocitizen: School of Field Environmental Philosophy Jan
Ossoli, Marchioness, “Sarah Margaret Fuller.” The Windo: Philosophy on the Internet Jan.21, 2016.
SAH. “School of Arts & Humanities.” Jan. 21, 2016.
Tangorra, Gina C. “Margaret Fuller the Reformer: A Transcendentalist in the Era of Reform.” Constructing the Past, Volume II Issue 1, Article 7. (2010) January 2016.
Thoreau, Henry, David. “Henry David Thoreau Quotes.” BrainyQuote Jan. 21, 2016.