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Transcendentalism
From CopperWiki
19th-century movement of writers and philosophers in New England who were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of man, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths.
Transcendentalism resulted in a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy. It is sometimes called American Transcendentalism or New England Transcendentalism to distinguish it from other uses of the word transcendental.
Transcendentalism began as a protest against the general state of culture and society at the time, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among Transcendentalists' core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that 'transcends' the physical and empirical and is only realized through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions.
Transcendentalism is centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson. Other important transcendentalists were Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Amos Bronson Alcott, Frederic Henry Hedge, and Theodore Parker. Transcedentalists were critics of their contemporary society for its unthinking conformity, and urged that each individual find, in Emerson's words, "an original relation to the universe".
