Emerson, the Philosopher of Oppositions [Hardcover]

This book considers Emerson's philosophy through an exploration of his skepticism, mysticism, moods, and oppositions.Goodman shows how Emerson's essays embody sets of oppositions or 'contrary tendencies,' and argues that we miss the living nature of Emerson's philosophy if we fail to register the motions within his essays and the ways in which he dramatizes instability, spontaneity, and inconsistency within them.Goodman shows how Emerson's essays embody sets of oppositions or 'contrary tendencies,' and argues that we miss the living nature of Emerson's philosophy if we fail to register the motions within his essays and the ways in which he dramatizes instability, spontaneity, and inconsistency within them.Ralph Waldo Emerson developed a metaphysics of process, an epistemology of moods, and an 'existentialist' ethics of self-improvement, drawing on sources including Neoplatonism, Kantianism, Hinduism, and the skepticism of Montaigne. In this book, Russell B. Goodman demonstrates how Emerson's essays embody oppositions  one and many, fixed and flowing, nominalism and realism  and argues, in tracing Emerson's main positions, that we miss the living nature of his philosophy unless we take account of the motions and patterns of his essays and the ways in which instability, spontaneity, and inconsistency are dramatized within them. Goodman presents Emerson as a philosopher in conversation with Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, William James, Wittgenstein, and Cavell. He finds a variety of skepticisms in Emerson's work  about friendship, language, freedom, and the world's existence  but also an acknowledgement of skepticism as a 'wise' form of life.Introduction; 1. Emerson's philosophical style; 2. Varieties of skepticism in Emerson's thought; 3. Emerson and skepticism: a reading of 'Friendship'; 4. Paths of coherence through Emerson's philosophy: the case of 'nominalist and realist'; 5. Emerson, Montaigne, skepticism; 6. Reading 'Manners'; 7. Emerson's 'experience' and Plato'lcI