Transcendentalism: A Modern Philosophy

Mankind has lost its place at the center of God’s universe. Now, when you watch the

weather, or plants growing, or someone suddenly die, what you feel is obnoxious

bafflement. In the past, you might have said God was responsible or the devil... Definitions

of the universe based on speculation or on scriptural faith are no longer automatically

accepted... You would have looked out on this vast and undefined universe in would’ve

thought, as did the thinkers of that day, that we needed a method of conscious-building.

(James Redfield Celestine Prophecy 25).

It is exactly this type of thinking that led to the Transcendental philosophy of the 1800s. This philosophy forever change people’s lives, but today we really only know about Transcendentalism from our history books. Today everybody live in a modern world. A world that has largely forgotten this and many other philosophies. In no other country is this more apparent than in America. That is why I believe the Transcendental philosophy that puts thought and higher thinking over superficial wants and needs is exactly what the world and especially America, needs to believe in and follow. Paul Ruben put it ,that “Americans have lost sight of the American Dream and the principles this country was built on” (Paul Ruben Chapter 4: Early Nineteenth Century American Transcendentalism: A Brief Introduction 1).

Yet, if everyone has forgotten what Transcendentalism is, then first everybody needs a clear definition of what Transcendentalism is. The truth is a clear definition can not be found, but Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary tenth Edition defines Transcendentalism as “1: A philosophy that emphasizes the a prior conditions of knowledge and experience or the unknowable character of ultimate reality that emphasizes the transcendent as the fundamental reality. 2: A philosophy that asserts the privacy of the spiritual and transcendent over the material and empirical” (Marriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary tenth Edition Transcendentalism 265). Perhaps a little clearer is Encarta’s Definition, which states that Transcendentalism as “a Philosophy and literature belief in a higher reality than that achieved by human reason” (Encarta Transcendentalism 1). The definition is so vague because every transcendentalist (especially the founders) had his or her own specific definition, that was hard them selves to describe let alone to others . One of the primary founders of Transcendentalism, Henry David Thoreau, actually stated, “I should have told them at once that I was a Transcendentalist. That would have been the shortest way of telling them that they wouldn’t understand my explanations” (Paul Ruben Thoreau, Journal , v:41).