American Philosophy: Transcendentalism and the Self

Welcome to this new series on American Philosophies, where we explore key intellectual movements of the nation from the 19th century onwards.

We begin with Transcendentalism, a spiritual movement that began in New England in the early nineteenth century. It was a response to Unitarianism, which emphasized reason but left little room for direct, lived experience of the divine. Drawing inspiration from older currents like German Romanticisim, Neoplatonism, and strands of Indic thought such as Vedanta, writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Sophia Peabody Hawthorne began to write about a more immediate relationship between the self, nature, and what they often called the “Over-Soul.” For them, truth was not something handed down through doctrine, but something encountered directly—through attention, solitude, and a deep openness to the natural world.

Let us then chat about the Transcendental Club and their writings, their influence on American culture, and their relevance to the world of today. No reading is necessary, but free copies of Ralph Waldo's Essays - First Series can be found here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2944

The cover picture is Sophia Peabody's Isola San Giovani.