There are two kinds of knowing – experience and understanding – and the confusion between them is the cause of all sorts of trouble for any thinking person. Experience is the knowing of things. It appears to our senses simply as what is there without us doing anything. It is immediately and directly present to awareness with [...]
All posts tagged Ralph Waldo Emerson
Experience and Understanding
Posted by Jeff Carreira on November 17, 2011
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2011/11/17/experience-and-understanding/
The Soul Evolves
The human soul is not the procession of any single individual; it is the ground of awareness that is the essence of the entire human experience. It is a field of pure knowing. At least that is what Ralph Waldo Emerson learned from Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Emerson used the term the Over-Soul to express this [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on June 10, 2011
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2011/06/10/the-soul-evolves/
A Field of Pure Knowing
What is the human soul? Is it some phantom-like part of us or is it a living dimension of the universe from which all life flows? The later is what Samuel Taylor Coleridge taught and his brilliant description of this living soul was so powerful that it ignited a vision that entranced the American Transcendentalists [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on June 2, 2011
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2011/06/02/a-field-of-pure-knowing/
Breaking the Bonds of Language
Have you ever tried to have an original thought – or worse – had a truly original thought that you tried to put into language? That is when you realize that you are trapped in a prison constructed of words and sentences and syntax and grammar. You know something, in the recesses of your perceptual [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on May 26, 2011
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2011/05/26/breaking-the-bonds-of-language/
The Bible, Poetry and Mental Sensations
By the early part of the nineteenth century the Age of Reason had made it increasingly difficult for progressive religious thinkers to accept a literal interpretation of the Bible. It was clear that many passages of that sacred text could no longer be accepted at face value. There was a rush of interest in biblical criticism [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on May 19, 2011
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2011/05/19/the-bible-poetry-and-mental-sensations/
Are We Intelligent Matter or Incarnate Spirit?
One of the most confounding philosophical questions involves our understanding of who we really are. Are we intelligent matter – stuff that got smart – or are we incarnate spirit – smarts that grew stuff around it? This question is inherent in the very nature of our experience of being human. We have bodies and [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on May 5, 2011
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2011/05/05/are-we-intelligent-matter-or-incarnate-spirit/
The Integral Assumption of American Philosophy
Mind cannot exist without matter; matter cannot exist without mind. This is what I have come to see as perhaps the most essential theme that runs through American philosophy. In the modern western world it is the French genius Rene Descartes that is cited as having definitively cleaved mind from matter res cogitans and res [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on January 20, 2011
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2011/01/20/the-integral-assumption-of-american-philosophy/
Emerson & James in Defense of Individual Greatness
In 1850 Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a book that he called Representative Men. In this book he explains that great individuals represent possibilities of higher ways of being. These extraordinary individuals have the power to inspire others to reach for equal greatness in themselves through their heroic encouragements. As to humanities indebtedness to these great [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on October 29, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/10/29/emerson-james-in-defense-of-individual-greatness/
Evolutioanry Nonduality and Ralph Waldo Emerson
Evolutionary Nonduality, at least as it is taught by Andrew Cohen, is ultimately about recognizing that we are not separate from the entire process of cosmic evolution. We tend to relate to the idea of evolution as if we are a thing – a separate object – that exists within an evolving process, something like [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on September 23, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/09/23/evolutioanry-nonduality-and-ralph-waldo-emerson/
Emerson’s Ecological Thought
I am heading off to a retreat for a month and so I will be reducing my posts to one a week on Thursdays for a while now. I hope that you enjoy my last few on Emerson before I move on to start exploring Existentialism, which I have been reading recently. To get back [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on July 22, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/07/22/emersons-ecological-thought/
