In the literature on Ralph Waldo Emerson we often come across questions such as “Why should we read Emerson in the twenty-first century?” or “Has Emerson a future?” or “What kind of writing has Emerson produced?”—that is, questions concerning his relevance to the kinds of questions and concerns we face today. In this regard, one might think of his capacity to re-mystify the ordinary, of his literary achievements, or of his pioneering role as America’s first public intellectual. In this book, I establish that some of the questions Emerson himself asked in his writings are as pressing today as they were back then when everyone was encouraged, perhaps compelled, to share their “first-hand” account of the world. By situating Emerson in the tradition of philosophy as a way of life, in this book, I flesh out the connection between moral persuasion and literary excellence in his writings as a whole and establish his contribution to some of the ongoing discussions among contemporary philosophers. The main questions of the book are: What would an Emersonian view add to the tradition of philosophy as a way of life? What could his writings contribute to the contemporary literature on life’s meaning? Considering the emergence of questions and concerns such as the nature of pessimism, the connection between secular and religious senses of wonder, or the increasing marginalization of philosophy programs in higher education institutions, what could an Emersonian view add to the discussion?
My aim is to establish the variety of ways Emerson’s way of seeing is still refreshingly relevant. I advance the view that establishing his relevance is not hinged upon taking a “present-minded” approach to his works and introducing an Emerson whose concerns and questions were basically like ours—a trend in the literature to suppress his poetic vision and speculate about his contribution to the questions of epistemology, to downplay his religious temperament and lionize him as a secular humanist or a post-metaphysical thinker, an ally from the nineteenth century. Instead, I argue that Emerson’s contribution to the very questions of the past has made him relevant to the present too. That is, one could argue that he is relevant to the extent that we judge the tradition of philosophy as a spiritual exercise to be relevant. And as Socrates’ life has shown us, popularity is not proof of significance. The same arguments that we can use for the importance of being receptive to Socrates’ call are applicable to Emerson’s. The Emersonian project, I argue, is best understood in conjunction with the Socratic project of cultivating a soul that is receptive to the call for philosophia . I have my reservations about the term “philosophy as spiritual exercise” as it could easily be misunderstood or abused. For the sake of clarity, by philosophy as “spiritual exercise” I refer to an exercise in care for wisdom and virtue or the “best possible state of [one’s] soul” (Apology , 29e–2). In Apology Socrates examines two main charges against him in his trial: corrupting the youth and believing in “other new spiritual things” (24b7–c). Philosophy as an exercise in care of the self, as an open ending endeavor to realize the good and the beautiful in one’s life is that new thing Socrates was talking about, and to that extent, it is indeed a spiritual exercise.
In my appropriation of Emerson, I engage with some of the current questions of normative philosophy from a perspective inspired by Emerson but, at the same time, I go back to ancient philosophy to highlight Emerson’s contribution to some of the questions that are at the core of that tradition. In this view, in Henry Thoreau’s words, “to be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically” (Thoreau [1854] 1989: 14–15). Thoreau and Emerson had their fundamental differences but they couldn’t agree more on the conviction that philosophy should have a say on what Socrates in Apology calls matters of great concern (Apology , 38a).1 In this regard, Pierre Hadot’s ground-breaking works have shown the continuity and the reception of ancient philosophy by modern thinkers, including Emerson. But whereas in the former’s works there are occasional allusions in passing to the latter’s contribution, in this work I want to expand that allusion and advance the view that in all his originality in terms of his approach, from his views on the nature of wonder to his reflections on the ebb and flow of scholarly life, from his ecstatic imperative to live in such a way that no “trait of beauty” could escape one, to the aesthetic nature of his religious temperament, one can discern an outlook informed, if not formed, by the orientation of ancient philosophy. It is striking that even in his famous call for self-reliance one can discern the elements of a Socratic call for the beginning of philosophy. Without philosophy, self-reliance is unreliable.
In what follows, the unifying element between questions and problems I examine is to show the way Emerson’s methods of enquiry and his “poetic attempts” (EL, 948) to face the world and give a first-hand account of it is informed by the overall orientation of ancient philosophy, from Socrates and Seneca to Lucretius and Montaigne. For he believed their questions are our questions too because they speak to the human condition. For he believed “The world is always equal to itself, and every man in moments of deeper thought is appraised that he is repeating the experiences of the people in the streets of Thebes or Byzantium” (W, 7: 167). He thought philosophy means little if it cannot “set the soul on equilibrium when it leans to earth under the pressure of calamity” (JMN, 3: 45). Emerson is relevant to us today precisely because the driving force behind his writings was to examine the kinds of responses to the world that always remain a human possibility. If we can move beyond what Hadot calls the “perishable aspects” of such philosophies we can discern “an imperishable spirit which calls us to a choice of life, to the transformation of ourselves, and to a complete revision of our attitude with regard to human beings and to the world” (Hadot 1998: 309). Specifically, Emerson’s now outdated Man-talks or some of his troubling remarks fall within the former category, but still a large portion of his philosophy strikes a chord with us.
After all, one of the key takeaways from ancient philosophy is the idea that human responses to the world are not unlimited. That is why Matthew Arnold can call Emerson a “latter-day Marcus Aurelius” (Buell 2003: 185); that is why one could be a modern-day Alcibiades even if one is no longer bold and beautiful. Furthermore, by situating Emerson in the larger context of ancient philosophy, I am not implying that he was merely a spokesperson of a tradition with a set of pre-established beliefs. Yes, there is a sense in which we could suggest all his writings was a call for askēsis or self-transformation, as in ancient philosophy, but there are unique elements in his methods of enquiry and his style of writing that stand out as a clear example of the way this tradition evolves and remains receptive to what Anaximander calls “the assessment of time.”2 While I ask in what ways Emerson received ancient philosophy, I explore his novel reformulations of some of the questions he asked and the solutions he advanced. From the evolving nature of what he considered to be “scholarly action” to his investment in Persian poetry that shaped what I call his “literary humanism” and made him the disciple of a school of thought that saw an inherent link between moral persuasion and literary excellence, from his views on the role of wonder in shaping the orientation of one’s life to his acute awareness of the limiting conditions of life, we can see the extent of Emerson’s novel contribution to the questions and the solutions of ancient philosophy.
Besides sharing some overlapping similarities, my approach is different from, for example, John Lysaker’s insightful focus on “self-culture” or Bildung as the upshot of the Emersonian project, or George Kateb’s work in exploring the implications of Emersonian self-reliance. And though I am indebted to Joel Porte’s important call to shift our focus from Emerson’s speculative concepts to his “literary achievements,” I argue that Emerson’s literary excellence in describing “the world we converse with in the city and in the farms” is at the service of bringing about a moral persuasion to change our way of seeing the world.3
Likewise, David Robinson’s influential work, Emerson and the Conduct of life, shares some overlapping similarities with what I will be arguing in this book, but my main focus is not on Emerson’s shift from a Transcendentalist to a pragmatist. In comparison, by engaging Emerson scholars, I explore the implications of Emerson’s way of seeing for some of the ongoing discussions among moral philosophers about, for example, the relevance of philosophy today (Hadot , Alasdair MacIntyre), the relation between the religious and the secular senses of wonder (Thomas Nagel, Kateb), and the need for a philosophy receptive to literature (Martha Nussbaum, and Stanley Cavell). And last but not least differentiating factor in my research is the detailed argument that not only Emerson’s poetry but also his prose corresponds to a strand of ideas that shaped the overall orientation of Persian literary humanism (Adab ), exemplified in the writings of Rum...