Creativity, Self, and Communal Being in Emerson (original) (raw)
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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.
Relentless Unfolding: Emerson's Individual
The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2003
Amid its romantic excesses such as "[t]o believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men,-that is genius" (Porte 2001, 121), Emersonian individualism remains a living project, one we would do well to understand more thoroughly and pursue more rigorously. To aid in this recovery, I will, in a translating repetition of Emerson's thought that engages a range of texts, offer eight theses that any successful reconstruction of individualism must embrace. 1 I am not claiming that these theses are unique to Emerson; others hold similar views. I have elected to work with Emerson, however, because his work eludes the exhausted opposition between atomistic and collectivist accounts of human flourishing. Emerson thinks in severely relational terms. I say "severely relational" because he both denies the possibility of an atomistic self and refuses to dissolve human beings into, or defer our endeavors to, the systemic activities of macrosubjectivities like culture, states, traditional communities, civil-social associations, ecosystems, or even a divinity. Because he broaches the issue of how individuals are private and public, solitary and engaged, Emerson strikes me as a salutary interlocutor for those who would rethink individualism. 1. Individualism Requires Conscious Self-Fashioning Permit me a point of stipulation and clarification. In metaphysics, we might speak of singular beings as individuals, and distinguish them from larger collectivities to which they may or may not belong. In this sense,
Educational Philosophy and Theory
b Education, stockholms universitet, stockholm, sweden 'Where do we find ourselves?' (Emerson, 1983, p. 27) is the question which opens Ralph Waldo Emerson's classic essay 'Experience'. In admiration of Emerson, Nietzsche warns, addressing his reader, that answering this question may lead into 'countless paths and bridges and demi-gods which would bear you through this stream; but only at the cost of yourself' (1997, p. 129). Instead Nietzsche suggests a path into the unknown. The attention to Bildung and self-cultivation in this special issue is an attempt to explore Nietzsche's rephrasing of Emerson's question, 'But how can we find ourselves again?' (1997, p. 129). The contributors to this issue, in their writing and thinking, stay with this question, rather than giving it a hasty answer. Such a posture, for Emerson, characterizes democratic life. Emerson has long been admired as a writer and important figure of American culture and literature. His works have inspired philosophers such as Nietzsche, John Dewey, George Santayana and others, but until recently his writing thrived mostly on the peripheries of the discussions in professional philosophy. In philosophy of education, his work has shared this fate. Emerson is widely admired but not often thoroughly and explicitly discussed. 1 Still, as Heikki Kovalainen has argued: 'Emerson might be understood as the nexus author par excellence of […] various line of American Bildung. Not only was his philosophy of Bildung decisively shaped by Europeans and Americans, it also exerted subsequent influence on them, particularly Friedrich Nietzsche and the three classical American pragmatists, Peirce, James, and Dewey' (Kovalainen, 2012, p. 183). Nietzsche's prominent text on education, 'Schopenhauer as Educator' , can be seen as the work which is most indebted to Emerson. There, he pronounces the idea of education as a matter of finding oneself and finding oneself again; a form of education in which educators or teachers are thought of as cultivators, where cultivation is a liberation from set paths and bridges and other idolatrous gods that determine the goal of the journey (Nietzsche, 1997, p. 130). In this conception of education resound Emerson's words: 'Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul' (1971, p. 80). Education, for Emerson, is a form of cultivation of the self. But this is not all. If Emersonian education begins with questions like 'Where do we find ourselves?' then education as self-cultivation is not only a matter of Bildung as an enculturation in the hands of others. It also makes us 'responsible for our own self-cultivation' (Bates, 2012, p. 28). The tension between our dependency on others for provocation and education and our own improvisations in cultivating ourselves is a recurrent theme in this special issue. It is present in questions of inheritance and novelty, of language and our application of words, in positioning ourselves as scholars, in orienting ourselves as private and public beings between the political and the personal. These tensions are not intellectual riddles, but, as is demonstrated in this issue, experiences of life, in life. It has been largely due to the commendable work of Stanley Cavell and his extensive endeavors to reclaim for Emerson the status of a philosopher to be taken seriously as
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.
Instilling the sentiment : the poetic philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson
2010
did not leave behind himself a consistent philosophical system. His contribution to American, and not only American, philosophy and literature is of different nature. Irwin Edman (1951: v) in his introduction to Emerson's Essays writes that he does not read Emerson professionally. "For disclosures of the nature and signature of things," he says, "I prefer, on the whole, more explicit, more literal, and more analytic thinkers." Emerson indeed is neither explicit nor analytic, which is one of the reasons why he enjoys the reputation of a difficult philosopher. Still Edman (1951: v) admits that he does read Emerson, and he reads him because Emerson is "the thoughtful writer of prose which has, without any of the more patent devices of verse, the magical effects of poetry." In certain respects, Emerson is a complete failure as a philosopher. This is the result of his open hostility towards systematic thinking. Emerson's aunt is recorded to have said that no Emerson "is capable of deep investigation or of long continued thought," which some consider "the profoundest comment on her nephew" (Buell 1975: 45). A good illustration of Emerson's failure as a systematic thinker is his introduction to Nature. In his introduction Emerson (2006: I 5-6) sets out to clarify the basic terms employed in the treatise, most importantly the very term nature, which, as we all know, is capable of having manifold meanings. The most interesting passage is the last paragraph of the introduction, and it runs as follows: Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE. In enumerating the values of nature and casting up their sum, I shall use the word in both senses;-in its common and its philosophical import. In inquiries so general as our present one, the inaccuracy is not material; no confusion of thought will occur. Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the river, the leaf. Art
The Recognition of Emerson's Impersonal: Reading Alternatives in Sharon Cameron
Branka Arsić, ed. American Impersonal: Essays with Sharon Cameron, 2014
A chapter from Branka Arsic's edited collection in honor of Sharon Cameron, American Impersonal: Essay with Sharon Cameron (Bloomsbury, 2014). In the article, I engage Cameron's writings on Emerson, particularly her article "The Way of Life by Abandonment: Emerson's Impersonal." The impersonal, I argue, does not merely lead “to the social in its highest form,” as Cameron phrases it (WoL 85), but is itself accessed in and through sociality. This idea forms the basis of what can legitimately be called Emerson’s theory of recognition, though, importantly, recognition here looks differently from the way it does in established theories of recognition, for it radically prioritizes change and transformation over identity and self-sameness. Further, I read Cameron’s essay as hinting at the suggestion that Emerson does not merely theorize a communicative approach to the impersonal, but, by using “style … as a validation of propositions in lieu of logic or as a supplement to logic,” devises literary means of enacting it (WoL 91). But if Emerson’s theory of recognition is also a performance of recognition, the criteria for evaluating his writing fundamentally change. What Cameron critiques as a deficiency in the representation of the impersonal appears as a condition for its successful achievement from the perspective of the performative. But the person (and the particular, and the differential) does not therefore disappear in Emerson: It rather becomes an obstinate presence to the self as the result of the failure of acknowledgment or recognition derived from the other. Communicative self-transformation having failed, the transformative becomes transferred to the relation of the self to the person—a relation characterized by a destructive transformation of self-sameness that can be called masochistic, and that constitutes the experience of a painful self. If Emerson cannot recognize the person, he makes it a sufferable presence to the self by describing it as the result of failed recognition.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society and Solitude, Twelve Chapters
"Society and Solitude: Twelve Chapters by Ralph Waldo Emerson Callaway, H.G. ISBN10: 0-7734-5127-7 ISBN13: 978-0-7734-5127-8 Pages: 296 Year: 2008 Description This new edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Society and Solitude reproduces the original 1870 edition—only updating nineteenth-century prose spellings. Emerson’s text is fully annotated to identify the authors and issues of concern in the twelve essays, and definitions are provided for selected words in Emerson’s impressive vocabulary. The work aims to facilitate a better understanding of Emerson’s late philosophy in relation to his sources, his development and his subsequent influence. Reviews “This book is in fact a scholarly jewel suited for a large audience of university students and the educated public in general.” – Professor Jaime Nubiola, Department of Philosophy, University of Navarra, Spain “The present edition . . . goes beyond the usual compartmentalization of Emerson as an exclusively American figure almost exclusively in the literary milieu. . . . The book shows that Emerson should be read as an important figure in nineteenth-century thought—one who had a strong impact on contemporary philosophers, authors, and artists.” – Dr. Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski, Institute of Philosophy, Opole University, Poland Table of Contents Preface Note to the Text Introduction: Emerson and the Law of Freedom I. Society and Solitude II. Civilization III. Art IV. Eloquence V. Domestic Life VI. Farming VII. Works and Days VIII. Books IX. Clubs X. Courage XI. Success XII. Old Age A Brief Emerson Chronology Bibliography Index"
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life, A Philosophical Reading
978-0-7618-3410-6 • Hardback March 2006 • 62.99•(£39.95)978−0−7618−3411−3•PaperbackApril2006•62.99 • (£39.95) 978-0-7618-3411-3 • Paperback April 2006 • 62.99•(£39.95)978−0−7618−3411−3•PaperbackApril2006•36.99 • (£22.95) Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1860 book, The Conduct of Life is among the gems of his mature works. First published in the year of Abraham Lincoln's election as President, this work poses the questions of human freedom and fate. This new edition emphasizes Emerson's philosophy and thoughts on such issues as freedom and fate; creativity and established culture; faith, experience, and evidence; the individual, God, and the world; unity and dualism; moral law, grace, and compensation; and wealth and success. Emerson's text has been fully annotated to explain difficult words and to clarify his references. The Introduction, Notes, Bibliography, Index, and Chronology of Emerson's life help the reader understand his distinctive outlook, his contributions to philosophy, and his place in American culture and society.
“Solitude before Society: Emerson on Self-Reliance, Abolitionism, and Moral Suasion.”
Polity, 2016
Scholars have not reconciled Emerson’s anti-political individualism with his newly rediscovered abolitionism. I unite the apolitical and political Emerson by showing this separation is temporal. Solitude prefaces politics. I first explain Emerson’s solitary contemplation as imagination that reveals interpersonal obligations. Second, I show how these obligations draw the thinker back to politics, and in Emerson’s case, to abolitionism, where he advocated small conversations to encourage others to contemplation and then action. Conversation did not convert hostile slaveholders, but third, I note Emerson admired the abolitionists who attempted this moral suasion in the South at great personal risk. Their political activism exemplified self-reliance while in society.
By rejecting his role as a minister, Emerson broke away from the Unitarian Church, which was itself already breaking from religious orthodox theologies, opening up the possibility of a secularized reading of his work. The ordinary is central for Stanley Cavell, relating Emerson to the philosophy of ordinary language of Wittgenstein and Austin, all of them sharing a common sense of existence, loss and experience of the ordinary (Cavell, 1988). Cavell places Emerson at the beginning of the American philosophy, an element too long neglected, which also seems to evacuate the religious aspects of his thinking. Yet this return to the ordinary is also shared by a literature of which Emerson is a contemporary, and which embodies "the literature of the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the meaning of household life" that Emerson evokes and invokes in The American Scholar. Catherine M. Sedgwick, Lydia M. Child, Lydia Sigourney, and Eliza Buckminster Lee constitute this literature of the domestic novel, novel of the family or novel of the "Republican Motherhood" (Kerber, 1980), but it is also as liberals and religious authors that they can be understood (Buchanan, 1998), illustrating the development of a theology, Unitarian-inspired for some, within literature. I would like to understand the tensions of this literature with Emerson's work insofar as he read and knew them (Richardson, 1995) even in person, like Lydia M. Child, a friend of Margaret Fuller (Marshall, 2013). This will also raise the question of how this literature of reconciliation and Emerson attempted to respond differently to the problem of inheriting religiously and philosophically the violence of Puritanism in early nineteenth-century America.