- transcendentalism, transcendental philosophy (noun)any system of philosophy emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual above the empirical and material
- transcendentalism (Noun)The transcending, or going beyond, empiricism, and ascertaining a priori the fundamental principles of human knowledge.
- transcendentalism (Noun)Ambitious and imaginative vagueness in thought, imagery, or diction.
- transcendentalism (Noun)A philosophy which holds that reasoning is key to understanding reality (associated with Kant); philosophy which stresses intuition and spirituality (associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson); transcendental character or quality.
- transcendentalism (Noun)A movement of writers and philosophers in New England in the 19th century who were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths.
- Transcendentalism Transcendentalism was a religious and philosophical movement that was developed during the late 1820s and 1830s in the Eastern region of the United States as a protest to the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among the transcendentalists' core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both people and nature. Transcendentalists believed that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—ultimately corrupted the purity of the individual. They had faith that people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community could be formed.
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