The American Pragmatists outlined in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a profound evolutionary process philosophy. The view of reality they explored was one in which all of reality was seen as an unending flow of energy. Human life was part of that flow, even the physical forms of material objects were part of [...]
All posts tagged Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson’s Process Philosophy
Posted by Jeff Carreira on July 15, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/07/15/emerson%e2%80%99s-process-philosophy/
Emerson’s Call to Greatness
When I ask myself who was Ralph Waldo Emerson the answer that comes to my mind is that he was a call to greatness. Throughout all of his writing what can be heard is a never ending call to be great, to rise up to the highest pinnacle of humanity and to represent that possibility [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on July 13, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/07/13/emersons-call-to-greatness/
Evolution, Enlightenment and Reincarnation (Part 3)
In Emerson’s new account of evolutionary spirituality the human soul is on a journey of its own creation – a journey from its original source through the process of manifestation to a perfected state of purity. And the soul has many lifetimes to make this journey. Emerson does not however mean to imply that the [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on July 8, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/07/08/evolution-enlightenment-and-reincarnation-part-3/
Evolution, Enlightenment and Reincarnation (Part 2)
Emerson wondered how would it be possible to evolve to the perfected state in the span of only one lifetime given the weight and drag that Fate places on human development? How could a man like him, born into the limiting circumstances of 19th century New England, hope to achieve mystical perfection before death separated [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on July 5, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/07/05/evolution-enlightenment-and-reincarnation-part-2/
Evolution, Enlightenment and Reincarnation (Part 1)
In 1860 Ralph Waldo Emerson published an essay called Fate in a collection called The Conduct of Life. This essay is written by a mature Emerson, a man who has worked and taught for nearly 3 decades and who has found some of his youthful – perhaps naïve – optimism dulled by time. In his [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on June 29, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/06/29/evolution-enlightenment-and-reincarnation-part-1/
Kant, Coleridge and the Power of Intuition
My current presentation of the evolutionary ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson is a good place for a discussion about epistemology to fall in. How do we know what we know? is the question that epistemology asks. Sure we might know something is true, but how do we know it is true? What I am amazes me [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on June 24, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/06/24/kant-coleridge-and-the-power-of-intuition/
Spiritual Realism and Process Philosophy
As I have read through Emerson’s writing I see two aspects to his metaphysics. On the one hand he describes a spiritual Realism in which the collective human soul of humanity exists in a transcendent and exalted form. Spiritual development involves finding this higher soul, or Over-Soul as Emerson called it, in our own experience [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on June 17, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/06/17/spiritual-realism-and-process-philosophy/
Emerson’s Dualistic Idealism
Emerson was an Idealist. He believed that ultimately some form of mind was the foundation for the rest of reality. His spiritual teaching about Self-Reliance and the Over-soul are all based on his idealism. In short there is some universal mind that “materializes” as the physical world filled with physical beings. Not only is Emerson [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on June 11, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/06/11/emersons-dualistic-idealism/
The Holistic Vision of Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am sorry that I missed a post this week due to travel, but I am excited to share more from Ralph Waldo Emerson. As we understand more how Emerson’s thought developed we see the foundations of our own mind. Emerson was arguably the most significant figure of the American Romanticism that blossomed in America in [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on June 2, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/06/02/the-holistic-vision-of-ralph-waldo%c2%a0emerson/
The Conscious Evolution of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Part 3)
Why is the universe evolving? That is a question that must necessarily arise if we are to even entertain the possibility that there might be any form of consciousness directing the process of evolution. If we see a deterministic universe governed by universal laws there is no reason to speculate as to the “Why?” of [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on May 24, 2010
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2010/05/24/the-conscious-evolution-of-ralph-waldo-emerson-part-3/
