1. Area of Interaction Environments:
Transcendentalism considers how we shape and affect our environments and how we fit into the world

2. Significant Concepts
We have an impact on our environment, and our environment impacts us
We have our own ideas and need to nurture and act upon those
Individuals are unique and those ideas should be respected

3. MYP Unit Question
What constitutes my environment and what are my responsibilities within that environment?

4. Transcendentalism Walden Pond

5. (trans – en – dent – al – ism)
Transcendentalism

6. Definition Transcend: to go beyond or rise above
Transcendentalism: the belief that knowledge of life is derived from intuitive sources rather than reason (logic) and experience.

7. The movement was from the 1830s to the 1860s in Boston.
Transcendentalism is an attempt to gain civil liberties and literary freedom from England.
The first “American” literature.

8. Transcendental Roots
Philosophical concept of transcendence developed by Plato
Affirmed existence of absolute goodness beyond description, knowable only through intuition
Religious philosophers applied this to divinity
Doctrine that God is transcendent is a fundamental principle in the orthodox forms of Christianity, Judaism and Islam

9. Metaphysical Idealism
German philosopher Immanuel Kant split Transcendent and Transcendental
Transcendent=entities that exist outside of human experience (God and soul)
Transcendental=Metaphysical Idealism, how the mind forms its perceptions, the study of pure mind and its forms.

10. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau --the main authors

11. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson is mostly given credit for the movement, although Henry David Thoreau was his disciple, of sorts.
This knowledge is based upon faith in a higher intuition, inner light, and divine intellect.
                                        

12. Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau ( ), a member of Emerson's Transcendentalist circle in Concord, advocated a life of simplicity in an age of increasing technological complexity.

13. Basic Beliefs 2. Individuality and self-knowledge are essential
1. There is a Divine bond between man, God, nature called the Oversoul
2. Individuality and self-knowledge are essential
3. One’s spiritual well-being ignites intellectual activity
4. Divine intuition comes from God (follow your gut, it is God talking)
5. Humans are inherently good
6. All people have access to divine inspiration (there are no “chosen ones”); therefore, all people can become social reformers

14. Two Major Works “Self Reliance” Walden by Ralph Waldo Emerson by
Henry David Thoreau