transcendentalism

[ tran-sen-den-tl-iz-uhm, -suhn- ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

transcendental character, thought, or language.
Also called transcendental philosophy. 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.

transcendentalism

/ ˌtrænsɛnˈdɛntəˌlɪzəm /

1. any system of philosophy, esp that of Kant, holding that the key to knowledge of the nature of reality lies in the critical examination of the processes of reason on which depends the nature of experience
2. any system of philosophy, esp that of Emerson, that emphasizes intuition as a means to knowledge or the importance of the search for the divine
vague philosophical speculation
the state of being transcendental
something, such as thought or language, that is transcendental

transcendentalism

A movement in nineteenth-century American literature and thought. It called on people to view the objects in the world as small versions of the whole universe and to trust their individual intuitions. The two most noted American transcendentalists were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau .

From the German word Transcendentalismus, dating back to 1795–1805. See transcendental, -ism

That was sadly even true for Margaret Fuller, one of the leading lights of transcendentalism.

Your religion does not make it—its ethics are too weak, its theories too unsound, its transcendentalism is too thin.

The vagueness of transcendentalism is united with the materialism of nature worship, and the resulting equation is pessimism.

Here we have the root of the errors which are distinctive of dualism and the prevailing metaphysical transcendentalism.

Transcendentalism, too, had just passed the noon meridian of its splendor.

The chief fountains of this tradition were Calvinism and transcendentalism.

April 23, 2024inveterate

[in-vet-er-it ]

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