“Selected Essays and Ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson”
Details
Join Plato's Cave philosophers and UU Inquiring Minds this Sunday morning, November 4 at 9:00.
This Sunday:
Moderator, StoicDan, will introduce the discussion - “Selected Essays and Ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson”.
StoicDan is the organizer of Orlando Stoics, Tampa Stoics, and The Emerson & Thoreau Discussion Group.
Dan’s introduction:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was a philosopher and poet in the transcendentalist movement. He was one of the leading intellectuals in the United States in the 1800s, and his essays discuss individuality, virtue, freedom, and nonconformity. We'll briefly review his essays "Self-Reliance", "History", "Friendship", "The Over-Soul", "Nature" and "The Poet".
We will also review Emerson's relationship to the church and his spirituality.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay "Nature". Following this work, he gave a speech entitled "The American Scholar" in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence."
Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first and then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, Essays: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844), represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays "Self-Reliance", "The Over-Soul", "Circles", "The Poet", and "Experience." Together with "Nature", these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period. Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for mankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's "nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic: "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul." Emerson is one of several figures who "took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world."
Join the Plato's Cave discussion – be educated; be wise. –Steve
Coffee? Yes.
Suggested Reading (from Steve):
Other essays and their reviews can also be found at this website.
Notice: Suggested future solo 10-minute talks.
SIGN UP TO INTRODUCE FUTURE TALKS:
Please submit discussion subjects to me that YOU are willing to introduce for future Plato's Cave discussions. The introductions should be about 10-15 minutes.
Volunteers for ‘solo’ 10-minute talks
Scott – “The devolution of reason in contemporary America”
Ellen – 1) “Who am I?”
Dan – 1) “The Essays of Emerson” and 2) “Thoreau & Transcendence”
Special Interest:
StoicDan scheduled a new Meetup in Emerson & Thoreau Discussion Group
Current Discussion: "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau (Chapter 1, Part 3)
Emerson & Thoreau Discussion Group
Thursday, November 1 at 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Panera Bread, 11472 University Blvd, Orlando, FL 32817
More information: https://www.meetup.com/Emerson-Thoreau/
“Selected Essays and Ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson”