Philosophers and literary critics have recognized for many years the profound recalcitrance of Emerson's thought to any kind of systematic formulation. It is the contention of this thesis that this recalcitrance is one of the main pointers to the nature of his philosophy, which is here described as "process" philosophy. All attempts to reduce Emerson's thought to a static system with definable terms is doomed from the beginning, since Emerson's universe was dynamic, fluid, processive, and therefore fundamentally indefinable. Chapter I ("Emerson's Quarrel with the Eighteenth Century") seeks to place Emerson within the Romantic tradition, emphasizing his reaction against the mechanical philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment. The image of the Great Chain of Being is seen as typical of this philosophy, and Swedenborg's theory of "correspondence" is seen as workable only within this context. Emerson's philosophy, however, was organic and processive, and therefore beyond the explanatory power of "correspondence." Chapter II ("Nature as Process") works out Emerson's understanding of Nature as dynamic and processive. Nature, for him was a system of interaction, a processive flow of objects into and out of themselves. Moreover, Emerson saw material reality as an "emanation" of the Divine, a process of spirit manifesting itself in material forms. At the same time, he saw Nature as "evolving" from material forms towards higher levels of spirit. Emerson managed to hold both views at once, seeing "emanation" and "evolution" as reciprocal transactions, so that the deevelopment (or un-folding) of the universe was simultaneously evolution and emanation. Chapter III ("The Process of the Soul") concentrates on Emerson's unifying center, the Soul. He thought that the Soul was the center of a web of interaction, a process or activity in which the world became unified through the mind and eye of man. Moreover, the Soul for Emerson was both a transaction with the divine Over-Soul and a dynamic process by which the seer and the thing seen, the subjective self and the objective world, are unified in a bilateral transaction. Chapter IV ("The Process of Art") applies Emerson's philosophy of process to one (of several) fields of human activity, artistic creation. Emerson understood art as activated initially by inspiration, a flowing of the Divine into man; and he understood art to be a kind of incarnation, an embodiment of spirit in matter, idea in form. Moreover, he maintained that beauty consisted of dynamic form, that is, form capturing the processive or fluid quality of life and nature. Furthermore, the appreciative process consisted of an observer investing artistic form with his own imaginative spirit. The final chapter ("Emerson and the Twentieth Century") attempts to relate Emerson's philosophy specifically and Romantic thought generally to such twentieth-century developments as relativity, emergent evolution, biological ecology, and transactional psychology. It becomes apparent that Emerson has numerous analogues in modern thought and that he was very close indeed to processive, non-categorical, descriptive approaches to reality and man's place in it. Because Emerson substituted a descriptive, transactional approach to reality rather than an explanatory, static approach, he ultimately moved beyond abstract philosophical speculation into pragmatic humanism. His transcendentalism was meaningful in terms of life and activity in the concrete situation. His processive descriptions ultimately invested the universe with life and incarnated man with the divine, allowing man to assume his central place in the universe. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1954 B34 / Master of Science

This thesis will be an attempt to gather together the important ideas set forth in Whitman's early writing which are to be found also in Emerson's lectures, essays, and poems written before 1855. It will attempt to show what Whitman might have gained from Emerson if he had had no other source, and if a creative intellect had not the power of originating its own ideas.

Emerson frequently illustrates his philosophy with complementary scientific examples that clarify his ideas. This study examines Emerson's enumeration of the laws and powers of Intellect in conjunction with twentieth-century science, illustrating his ideas in the method he often employs. The physiological model of the two hemispheres of the brain parallels the two intelligences Emerson ascribes to man--understanding and reason. Hemispheric theories describe an analogue to the Emersonian epiphany-- hemispheric integration--and help to distinguish the epiphany from other experiences associated with altered states of consciousness. Quantum physics and relativity theory illustrate the vision of the unity of nature perceived during the epiphany. Using modern science to illustrate Emerson's ideas in this way makes us apprentice to a rhetorical technique used and advocated by him.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Filosofía / El presente trabajo contempla el análisis comparado del rol de los estudios históricos en la conformación del individuo en ambos autores. Tanto Emerson como Nietzsche están en contra de una construcción del pasado que disminuya el valor del presente, sin embargo, en Nietzsche la historia no solo forma parte de la constitución del individuo, sino además una carga condicionante que no puede ser dejada de lado. La tesis es que ha sido esta preocupación por la historia la que hace que el pensamiento de Nietzsche pierda el carácter democrático y progresista que caracteriza al pensamiento de Emerson. Así, mientras el norteamericano dice que todos los seres humanos son la expresión de un alma común u oversoul, que puede ser entendida de manera casi panteísta, Nietzsche reserva las posibilidades de Self Reliance, es decir, de autoconfianza y autorrealización –usando un lenguaje más moderno- solo a los hombres superiores, de entre quienes deberá surgir el superhombre. La tesis sostiene que es la profundidad con la que Nietzsche considera la historia y la cultura lo que hace que entre estos autores surja esta diferencia fundamental.

This dissertation comparatively analyzes the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a nineteenth century American, and Jorge Luis Borges, a twentieth-century Argentinian, within the context of human rights. Through their writings, both Emerson and Borges provided a voice to the voiceless by addressing the most egregious violations of human rights during their respective days: For Emerson, the most virulent social ill was slavery; for Borges, it was fascism. While Emerson and Borges differ in several ways, they are remarkably similar in their emphasis of natural laws and natural rights, notably egalitarianism and liberty, which underpin humanity and comprise an integral aspect of civilization. By counteracting the antithesis of civilization, barbarism, the works of Emerson and Borges ultimately embody the tenets that would ultimately constitute The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thus, Emerson and Borges are indelibly linked through serving as harbingers of human rights. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Recent changes in the historiography of American Transcendentalism have inspired a reappraisal of the relationship between the Transcendentalist movement in New England and the pietistic wing of the Unitarian church. This thesis explores this reappraisal through a close reading of selected writings by Henry Ware Jr. in juxtaposition to the more familiar strains of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Divinity School Address and other Transcendentalist texts of the late 1830's and early 1840's. In opposition to the view that American Transcendentalism is an imported form of German Romanticism, the thesis argues that both Emerson and Ware represent a response on the part of rational religious liberalism to the emotional enthusiasm of the Evangelical movement, and that the primary inspiration for Emerson's philosophy came from his own mentor in the Unitarian ministry. Henry Ware Jr. was the senior minister of the Second Church in Boston from 1817-1830. Emerson was called to that same congregation in 1829 to serve as Ware's assistant and eventual successor. From 1830 to 1842 Ware was "Professor of Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral Care" at the Harvard Divinity School. His Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching was an influential handbook of homiletics. His devotional manual On the Formation of the Christian Character went through fifteen editions. His sermon "The Personality of the Deity" has traditionally been perceived as a response to Emerson's controversial 1838 address, which Emerson delivered at the height of Ware's tenure at the Divinity School, and which is often depicted as the opening salvo of the so-called "Transcendentalist Controversy." Chapter One of the thesis summarizes the changes in the historiography of American Transcendentalism. Chapter Two relates Ware's "Formation of Christian Character" to the broader Unitarian understanding of Self-Culture, which the Transcendentalists also shared. Chapter Three compares Ware's "Hints" to the Emersonian ideal of preaching as proclaimed in the Divinity School Address. Chapter Four addresses the issue of the "Personality of the Deity" in relation to Emerson's notion of an "Over-Soul." The final chapter offers some personal observations about the nature of history and the reappraisal of the relationship between Unitarianism and Transcendentalism. / Graduation date: 1996

A study of the influence of Negro slavery on Emerson's concept of freedom.

This paper discusses what Ralph Waldo Emerson believes to be the aim of education and how he thinks the aim is to be reached.

The purpose of this thesis is to relate the six personalities dealt with by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his Representative Men to such proportions of the essayist's ideas as may be applied to these six representative types, to the end of arriving at an understanding of Emerson's aim in writing about these six men and about great men in general.