Naturalistic Transcendentalism
Issue: Vol 24 No. 2 (2016)
Journal: Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism
Subject Areas: Philosophy
DOI: 10.1558/eph.32011
Abstract:
Transcendentalism was a philosophical movement that arose prior to Darwin publishing The Origin of Species. It arose out of the Enlightenment, in which the importance of natural law in the working of the universe was recognized. Ralph Waldo Emerson was interested in exploring religious questions from the point of view of the enlightenment. For him, the human faculty of intuition was very interesting. After Darwin was published, most of science lost interest in exploring human intuition partly because no naturalistic basic for it was known. Today, it is appropriate to return to the study of transcendentalism, building on what was done in the 19th century, but with a 21st century understanding of the laws of nature. Much work can be done from this perspective, possibly developing a new philosophy of the humanities. This is the defining work by the author of this approach to philosophy.
Author: Peter Bishop
References :
Bronowski, J. 1965. Science and Human Values. New York: Harper & Row.
Channing, William Ellery. 1819. “Unitarian Christianity.” May 5. Delivered at the Ordination of Rev. Jared Sparks. First Independent Church of Baltimore.
Cunning, David, “Descartes’ Modal Metaphysics.” 2014. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/descartes-modal/
Darwin, Charles Robert. 1979 [1859]. The Origin of Species. New York: Avenel.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. 2014. The Portable Emerson. Edited by Jeffrey Cramer. New York: Penquin.
Goodman, Russell. 2014. “Ralph Waldo Emerson.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/emerson/
———. 2015. “Transcendentalism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/transcendentalism/
Hatfield, Gary. 2015. “René Descartes.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/descartes/
Newman, Lex. 2014. “Descartes’ Epistemology.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/descartes-epistemology/
Newton, Isaac. 1846 [1687]. Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, edited by N.W. Crittenden. Translated by Andrew Mott. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Mathematical_Principles_of_Natural_Philosophy_(1846)
Russell, Paul. 2014. “Hume on Free Will.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/hume-freewill/
Searle, John R. 2004 Biological Naturalism. http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~jsearle/BiologicalNaturalismOct04.doc