[tran-sen-den-tl-iz-uh
m, -suhn-] 
| 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. |
| tran·scen·den·tal·ism (trān'sěn-děn'tl-ĭz'əm) n.
|
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.