Transcendental movement - Essay Example

lled the concept into the world of human persons and has created the framework with which transcendental no longer connotes the beyond but refers to the “existence of mental operations…something through which human experience is made possible” (Transcendentalism). This change in the appreciation of transcendentalism has been brought by several interrelated human conditions, which acted as the catalyst for the inception of the movement. These conditions are the following. First is the presence of the Unitarians in opposition against the Puritans (Transcendentalism).

Unlike the Puritans who believe in the inescapable depravity of humanity, the Unitarians uphold the notion that there is merit inhuman striving. Second, are the revived interests in the work of David Hume the Dialogues on Natural Religion. Third, is skepticism. As skepticism is fuelled by Hume’s work, F. D. E. Schleiermachers Critical Essay Upon the Gospel of St. Luke has opened the idea that the “Bible is a product of human history and culture” (Transcendentalism). Fourth, is the Kantian influence.

Although several philosophers have contributed to transcendentalism, at the core of their philosophical contributions is the Kantian notion of transcendentalism which stipulates that “there was a very important class of ideas, or imperative forms, which did not come by experience, but through which experience was acquired; that these were intuitions of the mind itself; and he denominated them Transcendental forms (O, 101–2 qtd in Transcendentalism). The above conditions, which paved the way for transcendentalism, also helped shape its nature.

Transcendentalism has become the reaffirmation of the power of the human mind as it inquires into the nature of things and looks into human endeavors while at the same time maintaining “a modern, non-doctrinal spirituality” (Transcendentalism). It has become one of the most powerful tools with which human complacency and passivity in all facets of