What is Trancendentialism? Who was Emerson? Why did I even choose him?

Question

Help a poor student who just realized that he chose somebody that is impossible. Please have thoughtful answers and not copy paste answers. I will give best answer only to the person who has the best answer that I can understand.

Answer 1

Meaning of 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.

Usage-
A religious or mystical belief in a world or state of being beyond the reach of human apprehension and experience.

transcendentalism [Lat.,=overpassing], in literature, philosophical and literary movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to 1860. It originated among a small group of intellectuals who were reacting against the orthodoxy of Calvinism and the rationalism of the Unitarian Church, developing instead their own faith centering on the divinity of humanity and the natural world. Transcendentalism derived some of its basic idealistic concepts from romantic German philosophy, notably that of Immanuel Kant, and from such English authors as Carlyle, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. Its mystical aspects were partly influenced by Indian and Chinese religious teachings. Although transcendentalism was never a rigorously systematic philosophy, it had some basic tenets that were generally shared by its adherents. The beliefs that God is immanent in each person and in nature and that individual intuition is the highest source of knowledge led to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance, and rejection of traditional authority.
The ideas of transcendentalism were most eloquently expressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson in such essays as "Nature" (1836), "Self-Reliance," and "The Over-Soul" (both 1841), and by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden (1854). The movement began with the occasional meetings of a group of friends in Boston and Concord to discuss philosophy, literature, and religion. Originally calling themselves the Hedge Club (after one of the members), they were later dubbed the Transcendental Club by outsiders because of their discussion of Kant's "transcendental" ideas. Besides Emerson and Thoreau, its most famous members, the club included F. H. Hedge, George Ripley, Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, and others. For several years much of their writing was published in The Dial (1840-44), a journal edited by Fuller and Emerson. The cooperative community Brook Farm (1841-47) grew out of their ideas on social reform, which also found expression in their many individual actions against slavery. Primarily a movement seeking a new spiritual and intellectual vitality, transcendentalism had a great impact on American literature, not only on the writings of the group's members, but on such diverse authors as Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman.-

Answer 2

What the transcendental is I can answer, Transcendentalism and Emerson I'm afraid I don't know much about. But I hope this helps -

To transcend is to rise above something, to find something more in something ordinary, especially a regilious or spiritual experience.

Transcendental meditation is an activity common to almost all religions, where people try to find higher truths, understand the 'hidden, spiritual' world through meditation. This was common among Christians as well. Irish mystics used to eat green potatoes, hallucinate and then see the mystical truths of God.

The idea of a transcendent world is common to almost all cultures (except perhaps the contemporary one). It is the idea that something higher, greater can come from the component parts that is not contained in the sum of the parts. This means that a frog is more than just the individual bones, muscles, skin, organs, electrons, tissue, DNA, proteins, water, gases and minerals that it consists of. There is a transcendence from these component parts that makes the frog something living, something more just the parts.

In looking at a beautiful painting, there is something transcendent, beyond the paint and canvas and wooden frame we see. A good painting affects us emotionally, we look at in and interpret it, we think about it, it reminds us of things. This acts of not just seeing but reaction to a painting is a kind of transcendental relationship.

Some people today would argue that there is nothing transcendental in this world, that everything can be explained by electrons, protons, proteins, gases. Thoughts are from the food we eat and our bodies chemistry. The feelings from seeing a painting are from synaptic reactions in our brains, begun by stimulation of our optical cortex.
However we still cannot explain the transcendence of mind, of intelligence and self-consciousness, from the component parts of our brain tissue... perhaps it is simply too complex. Or perhaps there is a higher plane, another dimension beyond space, time and distance that we cannot test, but we can experience...

The transcendental is used to talk about this 'plane'.

The transcendental is just to talk about something that is special and higher, that is not found in the parts which it is made from.

The transcendental is most often used in religious contexts.

It is used to talk about going beyond the limits of human knowledge, experience or reason.

And I guess transcendentalism was some movement focused on the importance of that. Probably giving weight to mystical acts and experiences, although that's just a guess. Transcendental poetry and writing would be concerned with the Experience over the World Being Experienced, a bit like Impressionism in literatary form.

Answer 3

Emerson was a great Unitarian minister. He inspired Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.

To understand who he was is to understand freedom.

Transcendentalism is the belief that we can think for ourselves and choose how our beliefs will change as we continue to learn.

To 'transcend' means to move beyond. This is not rejection. It is using what exists as a foundation for the next step.

Most religions treat their people as children who need to be told what to do.

Transcendentalists believe that we are adults who can choose what works for us. This is true religious freedom, the freedom to choose what is right for us as individuals. Obviously this is radical, even today, but many people are gravitating to this system. It's not called Transcendentalism by most of them. New age, new thought, neo-pagan are some of the popular terms, but the names hold less meaning than the idea. The absolutely radical idea that we are intelligent enough to choose what we want to believe, picking and choosing bits and pieces of all truth we agree with.

If you live in a large city, you might want to check our a Unitarian church and interview it's members. Do a yahoo yellow pages search for Unitarian churches.

Answer 4

First Question:
tran·scen·den·tal·ism /ˌtrænsɛnˈdɛntlˌɪzəm, -sən-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[tran-sen-den-tl-iz-uhm, -suhn-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. transcendental character, thought, or language.
2. Also called transcendental philosophy. any philosophy based upon the doctrine that the principles of reality are to be discovered by the study of the processes of thought, or a philosophy emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual above the empirical: in the U.S., associated with Emerson.

Second Question:
Ralph W. Emerson: http://www.transcendentalists.com/1emerson.html

Third Question:
Because you're smart and you're going to impress your teacher with your ability to research and intellegence to form a your writings based on it.

Answer 5

I was going to give an answer and was thinking as I read the other answers. You folks who answered, I bow, very good job. some said what I was thinking and said it better than I could. I learned from you.

Answer 6

First learn to spell transcendentalism you pathetic illiterate.

Answer 7

Reccomending google.com. [=