Henry David Thoreau
1817-1862 · American Philosophy · Prominent
Thoreau lived alone by a pond at Walden for two years and filled journals with what he saw there, and those Concord notebooks pioneered close ecological observation. He also refused to pay a poll tax to a government that upheld slavery and made war on Mexico, and spent a night in jail for it. He set the reasoning out in 'Resistance to Civil Government': when the law makes you an agent of injustice, break it. Gandhi and King both read him.
Signature
The position Thoreau is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Society
- leans Individualism
- Government
- Anarchy
Positions on the 4 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Individualism (75 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (71 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (79 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
16 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Thoreau 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
- Anarchy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Freedom
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Personal Judgment
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Intuition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Other / Emanation
What is the origin of reality? - Authority
- Self-Sovereignty
What is the legitimate source of authority? - 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
- Vocation / Place
What is your primary bond and loyalty?