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Penelope 
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 Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 8:39 am Post subject:
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I hate to admit it, but I hadn't ever heard of Thoreau until Tom Hood posted about him. I have only recently looked at some of these people you mentioned. I knew about Kant of course, but I just thought he was an economist!!! Critique of Pure Reason - I used to leave on a coffee table to impress my friends. 
I wonder if the reason I hadn't encountered Thoreau is because I'm British.
When looking at Transcendentalism, we were more likely to be pointed in the direction of Krishnamurti. Do you know about him? How does he differ from Thoreau?
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When you look at this life of action—the growing tree, the bird on the wing, the flowing river, the movement of the clouds, of lightning, of machines, the action of the waves upon the shore—then you see, do you not, that life itself is action, endless action that has no beginning and no end. It is something that is everlastingly in movement, and it is the universe, God, bliss, reality. But we reduce the vast action of life to our own petty little action in life, and ask what we should do, or follow some book, some system.
— Krishnamurti, Bombay 1958Get Daily Quotes |
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Thomas Hood
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| Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 6:04 pm Post subject:
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| Penelope wrote: |
| I wonder if the reason I hadn't encountered Thoreau is because I'm British. |
Maybe Thoreau is blamed for the loss of the empire? |
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Robert Tulip
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 1:26 am Post subject:
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| Thomas Hood wrote: |
| Kant had no influence on Thoreau, and, as Robert points out, their philosophies are antithetical |
The antithesis between Kant and Thoreau turns on their conflicting views of knowledge as representation or relation. For Kant, knowledge is the conceptual representation of reality, structured as language. This doctrine is known as the representational theory of truth. Thoreau has a more relational view of the nature of truth, whereby our knowledge of the world has a depth beyond the explicit concept, suggesting the theme of silent knowledge. This contrast between Kant and Thoreau underpins debate around the modern world view and its conflict with religious thought. Kant follows Descartes in accepting revelation as a politically expedient factor in thought, but also shared Descartes’ contempt for the traditional religious argument that we know things because God told us. This is why Mendelssohn gave Kant the nickname ‘the all-destroyer’. Thoreau questions the modern assumption that we can rely on reason rather than revelation, aiming to put back a sense of awe and wonder into thought. Kant also wrestled with this problem, but saw reason as complemented more by systematic empirical observation rather than by a sense of the divine. The point of Kant’s critique was that pure reason is not sufficient to form knowledge, which requires that concepts are based on perception.
As I read them, both Kant and Thoreau have an ultimate goal of understanding transcendence, but they have markedly different approaches. Hence the antithesis is more between their methods than their goals. Both agree that the cosmos is transcendent in some sense, but where Kant suggests that mathematics is the key to knowledge, Thoreau is more mythopoetic. |
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Saffron
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:47 am Post subject:
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| Thomas Hood wrote: |
| Saffron wrote: |
| . . .I am not sure what evidence you each are going on in arguing that Transcendentalism was not influenced by Kant. Please enlighten me. |
Saffron, my understanding is that Kant had no influence on Thoreau, and, as Robert points out, their philosophies are antithetical:
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| Kant’s theory of knowledge gave priority to mathematical reason, and here I think is a point of difference with Thoreau. Kant assigned more reality to a triangle than to a tree, while Thoreau saw the living thing as more real than the shape. |
Tom |
Robert & Tom,
I fully understand that Kant's idea that all thought was based on sensory perceptions from the objective world is the opposite of the Transcendentalist notion that the mind/intuition shaped ones understanding of the objective world/sensory perceptions/experiences. Just because Kant's theory of knowledge is different, even opposed to the Transcendentalist, does not mean they (in general, as a group) were not influenced by him. Thoreau was doubtlessly influenced by the other Transcendentalist and therefore it seems impossible to say that he was in no way influenced by Kant. The following quote from the very first post to my mind is misleading, if not false.
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| Not at all. Contrary to notions promulgated in numerous, authorative webpages, the Transcendentalism practiced by Thoreau had nothing to do with Kant, Unitarianism, or Harvard Divinity School. |
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| Thoreau was responsible, accountable, and significant below the enigmatic surface. He should not be painted with the same Transcendental brush as Emerson, Alcott , or Very: |
It is my understanding that this statement could be made about each one of the Transcendentalist, not just HDT. In fact, that is one of the striking things about the American Transcendentalist movement, it was not unified and rather there was much variation of ideas. It could almost be said that each of the individuals of the movement had their own brand of Transcendentalism. |
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Thomas Hood
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| Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 11:40 am Post subject:
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| Saffron wrote: |
| The following quote from the very first post to my mind is misleading, if not false. |
| Thomas Hood wrote: |
| Not at all. Contrary to notions promulgated in numerous, authorative webpages, the Transcendentalism practiced by Thoreau had nothing to do with Kant, Unitarianism, or Harvard Divinity School. |
Well, I wouldn't want to say anything misleading or false  , so if you would show me the error of my ways I'd be pleased to change. If Thoreau were influenced by Kant, I'd like something specific he said or did under that influence.
Walter Harding describes the alleged Kant connection on pp.62-3 of The Days of Henry Thoreau.
| Harding wrote: |
| ". . . there was a body of knowledge innate with man and that this knowledge transcended the senses -- thus the name "Transcendentalism." This knowledge was the voice of God within man -- his conscience, his moral sense, his inner light, his over-soul -- and all of these terms and others were used by the various Transcendentalists. But it was central to their belief that the child was born with this innate ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Unfortunately however as he grew older he tended to listen to the world about him rather than the voice within him and his moral sense became calloused. Thus did evil come into the world. And therefore it was the duty, the obligation of the good citizen to return to a childish innocence and heed once more the voice of God within him" (p.62). |
Now, to me this looks more like Rousseau than Kant, although my knowledge of Kant doesn't extend much beyond Will Durant. Is there any suggestion in the writings of Thoreau that he embraced congenital infant goodness? Are "We need the tonic of wildness" (17.24) and "In wildness is the salvation of the world" supposed to apply to infants? I think they refer to an openness to mystery in the uniqueness and creative potential of every physical event.
Tom |
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Saffron
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| Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:08 pm Post subject:
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Tom,
I think you misunderstand me. I am not meaning to suggest that the whole of Kant's philosophy influenced HDT. I believe the influence only to go as far as the one idea that I have referred to in my previous posts. An example: my approach to teaching and in general working with people has been greatly influenced by Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I have not read the whole book, nor do I need to in order to be deeply effected by the central idea in his book. My ideas are not identical to Freire's, but he is at the root of them. I use this example from my own thinking to explain how I see the relationship between one of Kant's concepts and the ideas of the Transcendentalist and even Thoreau.
Saffron |
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Robert Tulip
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| Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 11:56 pm Post subject:
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| Thomas Hood wrote: |
…Walter Harding describes the alleged Kant connection
| Harding wrote: |
| ". . . there was a body of knowledge innate with man and that this knowledge transcended the senses -- thus the name "Transcendentalism." This knowledge was the voice of God within man -- his conscience, his moral sense, his inner light, his over-soul -- and all of these terms and others were used by the various Transcendentalists. But it was central to their belief that the child was born with this innate ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Unfortunately however as he grew older he tended to listen to the world about him rather than the voice within him and his moral sense became calloused. Thus did evil come into the world. And therefore it was the duty, the obligation of the good citizen to return to a childish innocence and heed once more the voice of God within him" (p.62). |
Now, to me this looks more like Rousseau than Kant, although my knowledge of Kant doesn't extend much beyond Will Durant. Is there any suggestion in the writings of Thoreau that he embraced congenital infant goodness? Are "We need the tonic of wildness" (17.24) and "In wildness is the salvation of the world" supposed to apply to infants? I think they refer to an openness to mystery in the uniqueness and creative potential of every physical event. Tom |
Hi Tom, these ideas show a strong conceptual affinity between Thoreau and Kant, despite their differences. Kant’s argument was that the senses alone are not sufficient to provide knowledge, which also requires the ordering faculty of reason, also known as the transcendental imagination. Kant asks where we get our ideas of space and time, and observes that these are not the product of sense perception but of pure reason. He calls them the a priori categories of the understanding, because space and time are not objects that we can observe, but the formal framework into which observation is placed.
This illustrates what a slippery word transcendental is, in that Kant’s claim that the ideas of space and time are transcendental is very different from traditional theism.
Your juxtaposition of ‘openness to mystery’ and ‘return to innocence’ is interesting in that many would argue they amount to the same thing. Kant’s theory of morality, based on doing duty, does seem to have an affinity with Thoreau’s ideas in that Kant held that conscience is the source of true duty. |
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Thomas Hood
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| Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 1:40 am Post subject:
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| Saffron wrote: |
Tom,
I think you misunderstand me. I am not meaning to suggest that the whole of Kant's philosophy influenced HDT. |
Saffron, my objection to the Kant connection is based on a real consideration. Kant is right about the organizing powers of the mind: We go from the unknown to the known and achieve insight because the mind is active. But Kant misunderstood insight and attributes subtle objective features to the subjective mind (as in the subway example). Insight is similar to extrapolation and interpolation in mathematics. The mind continues and completes a trend already physically present. This is not the imposition of a form ("a transcendental flight of fancy") but a completion of inherent form, like the angel Michelangelo found trapped in a stone. That is, our experience is not an arbitrary imposition of meaning but a development of meaning already present. The clay of experience is as active in creation as is the potter. I hope shortly to give a concrete example of Thoreau's view on the working of the mind.
Tom |
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Thomas Hood
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| Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:48 am Post subject:
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| Robert Tulip wrote: |
| Your juxtaposition of ‘openness to mystery’ and ‘return to innocence’ is interesting in that many would argue they amount to the same thing. |
Probably many do so argue, Robert, “Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” To enter the cloud of unknowing -- a return to the aboriginal, uninterpreted raw data of experience -- the adult must struggle against fixed interpretation, the dead hand of convention. ("Convention is death," Thoreau somewhere said.) The difference between infant and adult is that the adult has developed a self that is a framework for reinterpretation.
| Quote: |
| Kant’s argument was that the senses alone are not sufficient to provide knowledge, which also requires the ordering faculty of reason, also known as the transcendental imagination. Kant asks where we get our ideas of space and time, and observes that these are not the product of sense perception but of pure reason. He calls them the a priori categories of the understanding, because space and time are not objects that we can observe, but the formal framework into which observation is placed. |
Kant is correct in that no recognition (not just space and time) is given by the senses but requires an activity of mind. And he is also correct that recognition requires "pure reason" but this is reason as used in a peculiar sense by Transcendentalists to mean approximately intentionality. Will intruded into experience because the interpreter contributes to interpretation. Recognition has inherent moral quality because it give expression to the inner self (genius) of the interpreter. Recognition is always recognition as. I find the maxim "Style is character" a more convenient expression of this state of affairs. The way we recognize and express discloses personality.
Kant's idea of space and time as a priori categories is, I think, a mistake. This idea does not accord with modern science, and it differs from Thoreau's in that Thoreau thought in terms of the uniqueness of place and moment:
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| "Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly"(2.1). Or, "This frame [the partially completed house], so slightly clad, was a sort of crystallization around me, and reacted on the builder" (2.9). |
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| "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains" (2.33). |
Are such statements possible for Kant?
Tom |
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BabyBlues
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| Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 1:12 pm Post subject: Quoting
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Tom,
You are quoting yourself...that is very Harold Bloom of you.  |
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Thomas Hood
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| Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 2:49 pm Post subject: Re: Quoting
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| BabyBlues wrote: |
Tom,
You are quoting yourself...that is very Harold Bloom of you. |
Alas, Babyblues, Harold was no friend of Thoreau. Let me quote myself again:
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| Thoreau is the most hated man in America, blamed for the hippies and other excesses of individualism. No literature about Thoreau is to be trusted without inspection, including the biased Wikipedia article. |
In the volume of essays about Thoreau that Harold edited, he repeatedly pairs Thoreau with excrement. The details are too disgusting to discuss in a public forum like this, but don't take my word for it. See for yourself. Or check out discussion of Harold Bloom on Waldenlist.
Tom |
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BabyBlues
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| Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 8:56 pm Post subject: Bloomist
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| I am no Bloomist myself, as he tends toward the sweeping generalization, self-importance and a very narrow canon. It makes sense that Bloom might be anti-Thoreau as the latter's conviction for the following of one's own beliefs might keep indivduals from blindly following the "critical genius" of the omniscient Bloom. In the world of literary analysis, he has his name on more things than Trump does in the general business/merchandise realm. What will we see next... Bloom Towers? Bloom Water? Bloom Taj Mahal? |
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Robert Tulip
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| Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:48 pm Post subject:
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| Thomas Hood wrote: |
| Robert Tulip wrote: |
| It is magnificent that the wild frontier was close enough to permit Thoreau to give free rein to his transcendental imagination, . . . . |
Please, Robert, Walden was no more wild frontier than the woods in back of my house. Free rein to his transcendental imagination my foot. Walden may be the most heavily and consciously edited book every written -- seven versions, I'm told. Give the guy some credit. Tom |
Hi Tom, getting back to this earlier point, I was not saying that Walden was at the frontier, just that it was closer to it than our modern world is. The other side of the frontier is untamed nature, considered in broad mythopoetic terms, and the fact that HDT was able to lob up at such a beautiful place and find solitude shows how much closer the other side was in those days. Modern departure into technological alienation has only accelerated our distance from nature since then. I don't see why you believe transcendental imagination is incompatible with careful editing. Thoreau needs to use words precisely to describe the transcendent.
By the way, the other day I happened to see Southpark on TV. Eric crossed off HDT's name on the cover of a copy of Walden and wrote in his own. None of the judges had heard of Walden, and Eric got first prize for his writing effort.
Robert |
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Thomas Hood
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:34 am Post subject:
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| Robert Tulip wrote: |
| I was not saying that Walden was at the frontier. . . . |
Robert, I'd like to convey how used the Walden area was before Thoreau moved there. The woods there was second growth, all the original trees having been cut. The area was the traditional slum district of Concord and had been inhabited by blacks and alchoholics. The blacks were, I'm told, run out of the area when the white Irish railroad workers built their shanties there along the railroad tracks just at the west end of the pond. Railroad construction had ended and the Irish were moving out when Thoreau moved to Walden. Thoreau's father had already bought two shanties for boards just as Thoreau did with the last remaining Irish shanty. Recycle, reuse, and renewal are optimistic themes in Walden. No matter what you start with, things can be reformed and made better.
My objection to the term transcendental imagination (It's Kant's term, isn't it?) is that Thoreau read no Kant. Further, it suggests "a flight of transcendental fancy," that is, transcendental moonshine, the term used to dismiss the high point of the New England Renaissance. In reality, Thoreau's allusive imagery is based on concrete features of experience and wonderfully gives expression to psychological depth. This more complex used of language, American Transcendentalism, was apparently considered an American literary trade secret and evidence of American literary superiority, and was deliberately never made public. Unfortunately, it produces a prose that can be as inpenetrable as a very dark woods.
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| By the way, the other day I happened to see Southpark on TV. Eric crossed off HDT's name on the cover of a copy of Walden and wrote in his own. None of the judges had heard of Walden, and Eric got first prize for his writing effort. |
This is, I think, a condemnation of the judge's -- and by implication the public's -- ignorance.
Tom |
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Saffron
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