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Idealism vs Transcendentalism - What's the difference?

idealism | transcendentalism |

As nouns the difference between idealism and transcendentalism

is that idealism is the property of a person of having high ideals that are usually unrealizable or at odds with practical life while transcendentalism is the transcending, or going beyond, empiricism, and ascertaining a priori the fundamental principles of human knowledge.

idealism

Noun

  • The property of a person of having high ideals that are usually unrealizable or at odds with practical life.
  • (philosophy) An approach to philosophical enquiry which asserts that direct and immediate knowledge can only be had of ideas or mental pictures.
  • Synonyms

    * (philosophy) philosophical idealism

    Antonyms

    * (philosophy) materialism

    Derived terms

    * epistemological idealism * metaphysical idealism

    See also

    * realism * pragmatism * materialism * physicalism

    References

    * *

    transcendentalism

    English

    Noun

  • The transcending, or going beyond, empiricism, and ascertaining a priori the fundamental principles of human knowledge.
  • Ambitious and imaginative vagueness in thought, imagery, or diction.
  • A philosophy which holds that reasoning is key to understanding reality (associated with Kant); philosophy which stresses intuition and spirituality (associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson); transcendental character or quality.
  • A movement of writers and philosophers in New England in the 19th century who were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths.