Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882 · American Philosophy · Prominent
Emerson was the sage of Concord. Trust yourself, he told Americans: one soul runs through every person and every wood, and it speaks to you now through your own intuition. Scripture is somebody else's record of an old miracle, gone cold. His 1838 address to Harvard's divinity students said so, scandalized orthodox Protestants, and kept him off that campus for close to thirty years.
Signature
The position Emerson is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Society
- leans Individualism
- Authority
- Self-Sovereignty
Positions on the 7 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Individualism (82 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (84 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- mildly leans Horizontal (66 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Opposition
- mildly leans Concurrence (62 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Ignorance
- leans Bondage (18 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
13 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Emerson refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Panentheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Direct Democracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Virtue
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Personal Judgment
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Eidetic Intuition / Non-Dual Awareness
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Intuition / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Other / Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Emanation / Other
What is the origin of reality? - Authority
- Self-Sovereignty
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Expression
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Union with the One / Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Evaluative Judgment
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Innate Good
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine / Self
What is your primary bond and loyalty?