The Transcendentals and the Code of the Extraordinary Mind (original) (raw)
Transcendentalism in Contemporary Literature
Transcendentalism is not Archaic: The Legacy of American Transcendentalism in Contemporary Literature, 2019
American Transcendentalism (1836-1860), despite having an amorphous and transient lifespan, holds strong importance in American history: religious, philosophical, and literary. Not only did this movement approach societal and spiritual life with new and radical perceptions concerning a variety of matters, but the tenets it preached still strike a certain chord within all who study them. Leaders of this compelling movement, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller, who are all prominent names in American literary history, called for a “transcendence” from a mediocre existence. Transcendentalism rooted from and sprouted diverse explanations of religion and philosophy including Unitarianism, Puritanism, and Idealism. However, in spite of the pivotal role politics, religion and philosophy played in the formation of the American Transcendentalist thought, this paper will not be discussing them. The following chapters have been orchestrated to exemplify, in breadth and depth, how 19th century American Transcendentalist doctrines yet seep from contemporary literature, contrary to a widespread belief that American Transcendentalist texts were extinguished when their explicitly transcendental authors passed away, and the movement itself subsided. In doing so, I will be analyzing two modern novels (fiction and nonfiction) in light of a quintessential transcendentalist text.
Continental Philosophy Review, 2011
The philosopher Salomon Maimon (1753-1800), who is widely known for his Autobiography (1792), 1 has unfortunately been a rather marginalized figure in philosophy, and his extensive philosophical work, which comprises several books, commentaries and journal articles, unduly neglected. This is all the more surprising, since Maimon was a very active figure on the philosophical scene during his day. Apart from his numerous articles, he kept up correspondence with prominent scholars, such as Reinhold, Ben David and others, though he never held a chair of philosophy himself. Fichte, who can be seen as the main philosophical heir of Maimon's thoughts, spoke of him with high esteem and confessed his limitless respect toward his talents. 2 Yet, after his death, Maimon's oeuvre fell almost completely into oblivion. As Samuel Atlas speculates, Maimon's critico-skeptical investigations were simply overshadowed by the grandeur and splendor of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel and their metaphysical systems. 3 A further reason might be Maimon's rather unorthodox style of writing and lack of systematic structure. With German not being his mother tongue, Maimon was aware of the grammatical infelicity of his expression, and deficiency in exposition and structure. Thus, he anticipated his fate: ''A writer who has a good style is read. One who has expository power is studied. One who has neither the one nor the other, supposing him,
Transcendental Approach in the Contemporary Philosophy of Mind: Is there any positive program
Absract: In this research I would like to show how transcendentalism works within the framework of the modern analytical philosophy of consciousness and in what sense it opposes the naturalism. A considerable number of analytical philosophers do not consider transcendentalism as a 'legal' trend of philosophy and often consider it as a purely historical-archival phenomenon. In this case, the self-definition of a transcendentalist in the analytical medium turns out to be not very clear at times. Below, I will try to clarify the essence of this approach in specific application towards the key issues of the analytical philosophy of consciousness and provide such characteristics of it which would allow unmistakably recognise the handwriting of a transcendentalist even in case they name themselves differently. In this case, transcendentalism should be understood as a certain type of argumentation, and a little bit more broadly, as a certain methodological principle. I will show what is the correlation of critical and positive components in such approaches as naturalism and transcendentalism.
In metaphysics the term «transcendental» is used to denote the different aspects of being, that is of whatever is real. The term indicates that being and its properties are present in each of the predicaments or categories, such as substance, quantity, quality, relation, location, time, action, etc. Therefore, they «transcend» the limits of these different classesl. Some early Greek philosophers had noticed that whatever exists must have some unity and goodness, but they never treated the theme systematically. The philosophy of being begins with Parmenides who describes his fulgurant intuition of the unitary and unchangeable character of being as having been revealed to him from aboye. Being is and not-being is not. Being is one and immutable; it is also knowable, for being and thinking, he writes, are the same.
In search of the transcendental
S. Mandalaki and G. Rethemiotakis, The Minoan World. Journey to the origins of Europe, Heraklion Archaeological Museum 2015, 95-136
The refined religious ideology apparent in the conception of the transcendental in relationship to death and the divine marks the development of metaphysical perceptions at the core of Minoan theological thought. Despite the absence of written sources of a religious or literary nature, indirect pictorial testimonies attest the gradual formation of an organised system of worship and ritual practices indicating a particularly advanced perception of the divine, on a par with that of Egypt and the East, some influences from both of which are apparent. Ground breaking in its conception, centred on mankind and the human relationship with the divine, Minoan religious ideology expresses the metaphysical pursuits of Minoan society while simultaneously forming a means of imposing palatial authority.
A STUDY OF TRANSCENDENTALISM IN THE WRITINGS OF Pt NEHRU AND DR APJ ABDUL KALAM
Trans Stellar Journals, 2021
Transcendentalism is a discipline of American thought which believesin the goodness of human nature. The transcendentalists feel the presence of God in every aspect of nature. Nature for them acts as a connector between man and God. American Transcendentalism was very much influenced by Indian spiritualism. This paper tries to find out various traits of transcendentalism in the writings of Pt Nehru and Dr Kalam; how they not only preached but practised transcendental qualities in their respective lives. Although they both show transcendental qualities yet the traits they reflect are much different due to their approach towards the world and its issues.
Transcendence and the Elusive Science of the Mind
Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture, 2009
This essay shows the presence of transcendence in the on-going attempt to come up with a purely scientific account of the workings of the human mind. At the center of the developmental stages of this attempt is the computational theory of mind, which regards the human mind as some kind of computer. With Wittgenstein's analysis of the limits of linguistic representation in the Tractatus as a framework, it is argued that the various difficulties encountered by this attempt are primarily due to the transcendental nature of the human mind, which eludes scientific explanation.
Salomon Maimon's Essay on Transcendental Philosophy (2010)
2010
Essay on Transcendental Philosophy presents the first English translation of Salomon Maimon's principal work, originally published in Berlin in 1790. In this book Maimon seeks to further the revolution in philosophy wrought by Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason by establishing a new foundation for transcendental philosophy in the idea of difference. Kant judged Maimon to be his most profound critic, and the Essay went on to have a decisive influence on the course of post-Kantian German Idealism. A more recent admirer was Gilles Deleuze who drew on Maimon’s Essay in constructing his own philosophy of difference. This long-overdue translation makes Maimon's brilliant analysis and criticism of Kant's philosophy accessible to an English readership for the first time. The text includes a comprehensive introduction, a glossary, translators' notes, a bibliography of writings on Maimon and an index. It also includes translations of correspondence between Maimon and Kant and a letter Maimon wrote to a Berlin journal clarifying the philosophical position of the Essay, all of which bring the book's context alive for the modern reader.
The Evolution of Transcendence
Evolutionary Psychological Science, 2016
The transcendent experience, often described as an ego-dissolving encounter with something greater than one's self, is cross-cultural and pan-historical. I present a model describing the evolution and function of various evolved modes of transcendence, such as group-directed transcendence, theory of mind (ToM)-evoking transcendence, aesthetic transcendence, and epistemic transcendence. I then discuss the vulnerability of these modes of transcendence to costly exploitation by selfish individuals who activate the transcendent state in others for their own reproductive benefit. In the ensuing section, I discuss the relationship between transcendence and human development across the lifespan, and conclude with some thoughts on the epistemic and ethical utility of transcendence.