transcendentalist

English

Etymology

transcendental +‎ -ist

Noun

transcendentalist (plural transcendentalists)

1. One who believes in transcendentalism.
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 2:

     “I accept the universe” is reported to have been a favorite utterance of our New England transcendentalist, Margaret Fuller; and when some one repeated this phrase to Thomas Carlyle, his sardonic comment is said to have been: “Gad! she'd better!”

2. Any of a group of philosophers who assert that true knowledge is obtained by faculties of the mind that transcend sensory experience; those who exalt intuition above empirical knowledge and ordinary mentation. Used in modern times of some post-Kantian German philosophers, and of the school of Emerson.

Related terms

• transcendentalism

See also

• Wikibooks: Transcendentalist Theology