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What is transcendentalism kid definition?
Transcendentalism was the name of a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy that advocates that there is an ideal spiritual state that ‘transcends’ the physical and empirical and is only realized through a knowledgeable intuitive awareness that is conditional upon the individual.
Why Transcendentalism is so important?
Transcendentalism served as a metaphysical basis to explain and justify newfound democracy. The need for reconciliation of expansive and contracting impulses of transcendentalism is similar to democracy, where a person needs to realize without sacrificing both his need for liberty (egoistic tendency) and his goal of equality.
What did Transcendentalists most value?
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were two of the most famous and influential transcendentalists. Some influential transcendentalists, such as Margaret Fuller, were early pioneers of feminism. The philosophy of transcendentalism originated in Unitarianism, the predominant religious movement in Boston in the early 19th century.
What is a basic definition of transcendentalism?
Definition of transcendentalism. 1 : a philosophy that emphasizes the a priori conditions of knowledge and experience or the unknowable character of ultimate reality or that emphasizes the transcendent as the fundamental reality. 2 : a philosophy that asserts the primacy of the spiritual and transcendental over the material and empirical.
What did the Transcendentalists believe in?
Among the transcendentalists’ core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both people and nature. Transcendentalists believed that society and its institutions—particularly religion and politics—corrupted the purity of the individual. They believed that people were at their best when they were self-reliant.