What was existentialism? how about Trancendentalism?

Answer 1

Existentialism is a philosophical movement that is generally considered a study that pursues the meaning of life and seeks value for the existing individual. Existentialism, unlike other fields of philosophy, does not treat the individual as a concept, and values individual subjectivity over objectivity. As a result, questions regarding existence and subjective experience are seen as being of paramount importance, above all other scientific and philosophical pursuits.

There are several philosophical positions, all related to existential philosophy, but the main identifiable common proposition is that existence precedes essence, i.e. that a man exists before his existence has value or meaning. Man defines the value or meaning of both his existence and the world around him in his own subjectivity, and wanders between choice, freedom, and existential angst. Existentialism often is associated with anxiety, dread, awareness of death, and freedom. Famous existentialists include Sartre, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Camus, Fanon, and de Beauvoir.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism

Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in the New England region of the United States of America in the early-to mid-19th century. It is sometimes called American Transcendentalism to distinguish it from other uses of the word transcendental.

Transcendentalism began as a protest against the general state of culture and society at the time, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard and the doctrine of the Unitarian church which was taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among their core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that 'transcends' the physical and empirical and is only realized through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions.

Prominent Transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, as well as Bronson Alcott, Orestes Brownson, William Ellery Channing, Frederick Henry Hedge, Theodore Parker, George Putnam, and Sophia Peabody, the wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne. For a time, Peabody and Hawthorne lived at the Brook Farm Transcendentalist utopian commune.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism