Term Paper on "Transcendentalists: Borrowing From Non-Western Cultures"

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Transcendentalists: Borrowing from Non-Western Cultures

The concept of transcendentalism is often used in the religious and philosophical debates, particularly to describe the characteristic of divinity, the feature of God to transcend being and the immanent world. Philosophically speaking, it is also used to refer to the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant and his followers and in a general definition it refers to the fact that there are modes of being and principles of existence beyond the reach of mundane experience. Nonetheless, in this paper I will analyze the transcendentalist school, also known as American Transcendentalism, movement started in the nineteenth century in New England, with the publication of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Nature."

Following some already existing trends and inspired from Emerson's words, a coherent movement started to be shaped in 1836, with the founding of the Transcendental Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with famous intellectuals of the time as members - Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Putnam, and Frederick Henry Hedge. Although a complete and exact definition of the main ideas and principles of the Transcendentalist group is hard to be sketched here, I have to say that the main features of the movement were the idealist and somehow utopian perspective over the connection between ideas and concrete action, and a questioning of the established cultural forms of the era. In Emerson's words, there is no such thing as a Transcendental party; that there is no pure Transcendentalist; that we know of no one but prophets and heralds of such a philosophy; that all who by strong bias of nature have leaned to the spiritual side in doctrine, have stopped short of their goal. We have had many harbingers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history has afforded no example. I mean, we have yet no man who has leaned entirely on his character, and eaten angels' food; who, trusting to his sentiments, found life made of miracles; who, working for universal aims, found himself fed, he knew not how; clothed, sheltered, and weaponed, he knew not how, and yet it was done by his own hands.... Shall we say, then, that Transcendentalism is the Saturnalia or excess of Faith; the presentiment of a faith proper to man in his integrity, excessive only when his imperfect obedience hinders the satisfaction of his wish" (Emerson, 1842)

According to the speech just quoted, Transcendentalist movement is inspired by the Kantian response to Locke's sensualism and the fundamental idea that the mind can apprehend absolute spiritual truths directly without having to go through the detour of the senses, without the dictates of past authorities and institutions, and without the plodding labor of ratiocination. This philosophical and epistemological perspective reaches beyond Kant's words, since the latter was constantly stressing the limitations of the mind when it comes to absolute or spiritual knowledge.

The social philosophy of the Transcendentalist movement was rather utopian, and the communities of Brook Farm, established by some members of the movement, were trying to give an institutional form to the ideas and principles of the group. Their definition of education and how it should be - namely to stimulate the child according to his/her own abilities - are still visible in the contemporary educational system, thanks to the influential work of some of its members, such as Elisabeth Palmer Peabody.

Moreover, Transcendentalism as a social movement is also associated with the protest against the Unitarian Church. Historians have commonly treated the relationship between the Transcendentalists and their Unitary opponents as a dispute between youthful champions of essential religious values and the tradition bound elders (Hutchinson, 1956). The spiritual debates were mainly caused by the idealistic approach to moral and social life that the Transcendentalists were promoting and to the virtues and abilities of the individual mind - such as the individual "oneness" and the power of intuitive knowledge and faith, that were contradicting the Unitarian perspective.

The roots of this approach can be barely found in the Western religiosity and culture and are, rather, coming from the Indian Vedic sources. Both Emerson and Thoreau, top representatives of the movement, were deeply interested in the Indian and particularly Hindu philosophy. This… READ MORE

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