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concept1830s-1860s

American Transcendentalism

Disciplines:
philosophy
theology
literature

Summary

American philosophical and literary movement of the 1830s-1860s centered on Concord, Massachusetts, holding that reality is fundamentally spiritual, that individuals can access transcendent truth through intuition, and that society and its conventions corrupt natural virtue.

Core Contribution

Developed a distinctly American philosophy combining German Idealism, Romanticism, and Unitarian theology; emphasized self-reliance, the divinity of nature, the reform of society, and the primacy of individual intuition over institutional authority.

Historical Influences

Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau

Intellectual Lineage

No conceptual lineage found.

Allied Works

Walden Self-Reliance Nature

Contemporaries & Peers

No recorded contemporaries.

Minds Influenced

No recorded minds influenced.

Intellectual Posterity

No conceptual posterity found.

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