Emerson, Virtue, and Evil: Thoughts for a Rescue Operation (original) (raw)

Every scripture is to be interpreted by the same spirit which gave it forth. Emerson, "Nature" Mystical classics have neither birthday nor native land. William James, Varieties of Religious Experience The great theme of self-reliance pervading the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson resonates well with an American spirit of independence and individualism. Critic Brooks Atkinson was representative of this mainstream view of Emerson when he wrote that Emerson "…was the first philosopher of the American Spirit." 1 More recently, though, others such as Robert Bellah have discovered that, while Americans may have perfected a rhetoric of independence, they have need also of developing a rhetoric of community. We can see the difference between these two rhetorical forms if we place self-reliance within a context of ethical theories. Placed there, self-reliance seems to approach ethical egoism. If this is so, self-reliance may suffer the weakness of egoism, viz. impotence in conflict resolution and in developing a sense of community. There are even more substantial criticisms of Emerson. The gentle damning of him by Yves Simon comes to mind, when this Aristotelian classified the Sage of Concord with writers who "…instead of theories of virtue have developed theories of natural spontaneity." (emphasis his). Or Newton Arvin, in a literary idiom: Emerson is unwilling to give "…a steady confrontation of Tragedy, or a sustained and unswerving gaze at the face of Evil." 2 Any such charges that Emerson understood neither evil nor virtue deserve attention, for they are serious criticisms against one who consistently wrote in moralistic terms.

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Emerson's Philosophy: A Process of Becoming through Personal and Public Tragedy

2019

ed poet or writer must face in a tangible fashion an evil which threatens to make smaller the life around him, and that writers and scholars indeed do have practical, longterm obligations as citizens.” Emerson’s speech went on to describe that Christian religion and the Constitutional values of Americans were incongruent with the current state of racial affairs. Emerson chastised a man he had formerly admired, Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster, in his shift from slavery’s adversary to one who pushed for the law’s passage. Emerson wrote, “It is contravened by all the sentiments. How can a law be enforced that fines pity, and imprisons charity?” His own shift came not in turning his back on slaves as Webster did, but in moving from passive observation, as a peaceful founder of a major philosophical movement, to anger: “when justice is violated,” he wrote, “anger begins.” Finally, true to his defense of moral good, Emerson responded with fury as the issue of human bondage “turn[ed] ...

Socio-biographical Analysis of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance"

This paper intends to explore Ralph Waldo Emerson"s essay "Self-Reliance" within the guiding framework of relationships between text and author"s biography and the prevailing social milieu of 19 th century America. Published in 1841, "Self-Reliance" represents one of Emerson"s profound works that gained immense attention for its seminal appeal and reflections on the general nature of human or "individual" conduct within society. The paper intends to examine how particular biographical, social and political events may have influenced particular reflections within the text. Like Emerson"s first work "Nature" (1836), "Self-Reliance" (1841) was recognized for its peculiar character as a work of social commentary, espousing ideals of "how men ought to live" while deemphasizing the asphyxiating pressures of external authority. The paper would also attempt a critique of some of Emerson"s philosophies in a bid to generate a more comprehensive analysis.

Sovereignty of the Living Individual: Emerson and James on Politics and Religion

William James and Ralph Waldo Emerson are both committed individualists. However, in what do their individualisms consist and to what degree do they resemble each other? This essay demonstrates that James's individualism is strikingly similar to Emerson's. By taking James's own understanding of Emerson's philosophy as a touchstone, I argue that both see individualism to consist principally in self-reliance, receptivity, and vocation. Putting these two figures' understandings of individualism in comparison illuminates under-appreciated aspects of each figure, for example, the political implications of their individualism, the way that their religious individuality is politically engaged, and the importance of exemplarity to the politics and ethics of both of them.

From Self-Reliance to that which Relies: Emerson and critique as self-criticism

How is one to navigate between a thinking grounded in the individual and a claim for communality? In Emerson, this kind of difficulty comes into view in familiar sentences such as “Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense.” How does the relationship between the personal and the universal look and function? In this paper, it is argued that Emerson may bring us clarity regarding the difficulties we are facing when it comes to questions about how we are to frame human personality, morality and knowledge in the field of tension created by distinctions such as private/public, original/conventional, particular/universal. A crucial thought in this line of reasoning is that that the critical philosophy Emerson pursues is also self-critical. The idea that true critique is self-criticism is then used as a tool to make clear that there’s no fundamental gap to be bridged here. The self-critical dimension makes clear the ways in which coming to share a world – learning from one’s teachers for example – is a matter of earning (shared) words. Therefore, Emersonian self-cultivation does not stand apart from the cultivation of something shared, but should be seen as a form of path towards a shared world.

INTRODUCTION: Emerson and the Law of Freedom

Society and Solitude, A New Study Edition, 2008

On the title page of Emerson’s Society and Solitude (with “society” receiving preeminence of place), the reader is informed that the book consists of “twelve chapters.” The distinctness of the chapters is emphasized in, and over, the unity of the book in the original 1870 edition. The customary running header for the book title goes missing, and instead the chapter titles appear at the top of both the righthand and the left-hand pages. Though there is certainly weaving of themes and figures of thought through the twelve essays, and the dual theme of the title essay appears repeatedly, overall thematic unity is not greatly emphasized. According to the Memoir written by his son, Edward, “through all his life,” Emerson weighed “the claims of the scholar’s two handmaids, Society and Solitude,” but “always favored the latter.” Accordingly, in the present book, Emerson resists the excesses of his own stronger inclination: the solitude of the scholar (and its unifying insight). Moral and intellectual failings connected with excesses of solitude are warned of on the opening pages in the story of the “humorist” who believed that the penalty of learning is to become as intolerant as an executioner who would kill the last man but one.

Humanism and Ethos in the Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ars Aeterna, 2014

The article deals with the ideas of humanity and morality as reflected in the works of R. W. Emerson, the main representative of an intellectual movement called American transcendentalism. It conveys basic facts about the movement and focuses on the key aspects of Emerson’s transcendental philosophy, particularly his concept of the Over-soul and his concept of Nature, which gave his humanistic philosophy a religious and moral accent. Due to it, Emerson’s religious humanism also became the basis of American democratic individualism. The article offers insight into Emerson’s ideas on morality and ethical behaviour, which challenge us to live in harmony with God and nature.

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