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24 Transcendentalist Legacies in American Philosophy

  • Russell B. Goodman
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Handbook of American Romanticism
This chapter is in the book Handbook of American Romanticism

Abstract

This essay considers Emerson’s influence on five important American philosophers, four of them pragmatists: William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty. The fifth philosopher, Stanley Cavell, identifies not with the pragmatists, but with the “ordinary language philosophy” of Ludwig Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin. Pragmatists do not all believe the same things, but they all look back to Peirce’s linking of significance or meaning to action, as in his claim that “there is no distinction of meaning so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice” (1992, 131). James accepts Peirce’s principle of significance and develops a pragmatic theory of truth (which Peirce did not accept), according to which a true idea is one that we can “ride […] prosperously from one part of our experience to any other part” (1987, 512). James also embraces as part of his pragmatism the “humanistic” thesis that our human nature colors all we know and do, an idea echoed in Rorty’s claim that although the world is “out there” truth is not: it “cannot exist independently of the human mind” (1989, 5). James viewed Emerson as a seer more than as a philosopher, but acknowledged his anticipations of pragmatism. Peirce credited Emerson with clearing the path for the “realism” he developed in the 1890s, and Dewey understood Emerson as a “philosopher of democracy” who was “the one citizen of the New World fit to have his name uttered in the same breath with that of Plato” (1977, 191). Rorty conceived of a successor subject to philosophy drawing on Emerson, Dewey, Shelley and others in which “the quest for certainty would be replaced with the demand for imagination” (1999, 34). Cavell, who wrote about the Transcendentalists for about forty years, insisted that both Thoreau and Emerson are philosophers who should be seen in the context of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger. Cavell incorporated their thought into his ongoing work on ordinary language, skepticism, democracy, and moral perfectionism.

Abstract

This essay considers Emerson’s influence on five important American philosophers, four of them pragmatists: William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, John Dewey, and Richard Rorty. The fifth philosopher, Stanley Cavell, identifies not with the pragmatists, but with the “ordinary language philosophy” of Ludwig Wittgenstein and J. L. Austin. Pragmatists do not all believe the same things, but they all look back to Peirce’s linking of significance or meaning to action, as in his claim that “there is no distinction of meaning so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice” (1992, 131). James accepts Peirce’s principle of significance and develops a pragmatic theory of truth (which Peirce did not accept), according to which a true idea is one that we can “ride […] prosperously from one part of our experience to any other part” (1987, 512). James also embraces as part of his pragmatism the “humanistic” thesis that our human nature colors all we know and do, an idea echoed in Rorty’s claim that although the world is “out there” truth is not: it “cannot exist independently of the human mind” (1989, 5). James viewed Emerson as a seer more than as a philosopher, but acknowledged his anticipations of pragmatism. Peirce credited Emerson with clearing the path for the “realism” he developed in the 1890s, and Dewey understood Emerson as a “philosopher of democracy” who was “the one citizen of the New World fit to have his name uttered in the same breath with that of Plato” (1977, 191). Rorty conceived of a successor subject to philosophy drawing on Emerson, Dewey, Shelley and others in which “the quest for certainty would be replaced with the demand for imagination” (1999, 34). Cavell, who wrote about the Transcendentalists for about forty years, insisted that both Thoreau and Emerson are philosophers who should be seen in the context of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger. Cavell incorporated their thought into his ongoing work on ordinary language, skepticism, democracy, and moral perfectionism.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. The Editors’ Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. 0 Introduction 1
  5. Part I: Definitions, Backgrounds, Contexts
  6. 1 Antebellum Period and Romanticism: Definitions and Demarcations 9
  7. 2 Antebellum Literary Culture: The Institutions of Romanticism 33
  8. 3 Transnational Dimensions of Romanticism 55
  9. 4 American Romanticism and Religion 81
  10. 5 Romanticism and European Philosophy, or “Idealism As It Appears in 1842” 119
  11. Part II: Intellectual, Spiritual, and Political Debates
  12. 6 Romanticism and Democracy 143
  13. 7 Romanticism and Social Reform 163
  14. 8 American Romanticism and Esotericism 185
  15. 9 America as Interior Space: Artificial Landscapes and the Modernization of Literature in Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Fiction 207
  16. Part III: Contestations of Authorship and Genre
  17. 10 Authorship as Profession and the Uses of Genre in Antebellum America 229
  18. 11 Poet-Prophets and Seers: American Romanticism, Authorship, and Literary Institutions 249
  19. 12 Life Writing and Romantic Expressivism 269
  20. 13 The Fireside and Sentimental Poets 293
  21. Part IV: Close Readings
  22. 14 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature (1836): American Romantic “Manifesto” 313
  23. 15 Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845): Romanticism and (Proto)Feminism 335
  24. 16 The Continuous Creation of Walden 355
  25. 17 Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) 375
  26. 18 Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) and the Historical Imagination in American Romanticism 389
  27. 19 Romanticism and History: Göttingen and George Bancroft’s History of the United States (1834) 415
  28. 20 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and the Politics of Sentimentalism 435
  29. 21 Myth and Mythmaking in the Douglass Circle 453
  30. 22 “The Soul Selects Her Own Society”: Emily Dickinson’s Poetry and the Creation of the Self 477
  31. 23 The Great Psalm of the Republic: Walt Whitman’s Democratic Poetics 495
  32. Part V: Reception Histories
  33. 24 Transcendentalist Legacies in American Philosophy 517
  34. 25 Rethinking Gender in Antebellum American Literature 537
  35. 26 “In the Woods We Return to Reason and Faith”: American Romanticism, Environmentalism, and Seeker Spirituality 561
  36. Index of Names 579
  37. Index of Subjects 589
  38. List of Contributors 599
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592238-025

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. The Editors’ Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. 0 Introduction 1
  5. Part I: Definitions, Backgrounds, Contexts
  6. 1 Antebellum Period and Romanticism: Definitions and Demarcations 9
  7. 2 Antebellum Literary Culture: The Institutions of Romanticism 33
  8. 3 Transnational Dimensions of Romanticism 55
  9. 4 American Romanticism and Religion 81
  10. 5 Romanticism and European Philosophy, or “Idealism As It Appears in 1842” 119
  11. Part II: Intellectual, Spiritual, and Political Debates
  12. 6 Romanticism and Democracy 143
  13. 7 Romanticism and Social Reform 163
  14. 8 American Romanticism and Esotericism 185
  15. 9 America as Interior Space: Artificial Landscapes and the Modernization of Literature in Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Fiction 207
  16. Part III: Contestations of Authorship and Genre
  17. 10 Authorship as Profession and the Uses of Genre in Antebellum America 229
  18. 11 Poet-Prophets and Seers: American Romanticism, Authorship, and Literary Institutions 249
  19. 12 Life Writing and Romantic Expressivism 269
  20. 13 The Fireside and Sentimental Poets 293
  21. Part IV: Close Readings
  22. 14 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature (1836): American Romantic “Manifesto” 313
  23. 15 Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845): Romanticism and (Proto)Feminism 335
  24. 16 The Continuous Creation of Walden 355
  25. 17 Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) 375
  26. 18 Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) and the Historical Imagination in American Romanticism 389
  27. 19 Romanticism and History: Göttingen and George Bancroft’s History of the United States (1834) 415
  28. 20 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and the Politics of Sentimentalism 435
  29. 21 Myth and Mythmaking in the Douglass Circle 453
  30. 22 “The Soul Selects Her Own Society”: Emily Dickinson’s Poetry and the Creation of the Self 477
  31. 23 The Great Psalm of the Republic: Walt Whitman’s Democratic Poetics 495
  32. Part V: Reception Histories
  33. 24 Transcendentalist Legacies in American Philosophy 517
  34. 25 Rethinking Gender in Antebellum American Literature 537
  35. 26 “In the Woods We Return to Reason and Faith”: American Romanticism, Environmentalism, and Seeker Spirituality 561
  36. Index of Names 579
  37. Index of Subjects 589
  38. List of Contributors 599
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