Online research in philosophy

Callaway’s intention, as he states in his Foreword, is to contextualize Emerson’s thought historically and so to help readers see that Emerson is not just an essayist and idealist poet but also an important philosopher whose later thought has been neglected. Emerson’s most familiar texts are probably some of his earliest, like Nature, “Self-Reliance,” the Divinity School Address, and other Transcendentalist texts Emerson wrote in the 1830s and 1840s. Arguably, the texts that Emerson produced in the subsequent three decades are both more mature and more philosophically important. As Callaway suggests in his Introduction, the later Emerson may have overcome his earlier Transcendentalism, at least if we understand his Transcendentalism as a reaction against materialism and its attendant political concerns. The essay in the Conduct of Life are, as the title suggests, concerned with the material conditions of our life and with the tug-of-war that goes on as we are pulled between them and the universal Ideal. This same tug-of-war of “double consciousness” is present in his earlier texts, certainly, but in this later text it receives a different treatment. These texts were written in the years leading up to the Civil War, and they are consciously marked with the stamp of the societal questions that were coming to a boil in American as Emerson wrote.

Of the many nineteenth-century writers who have come to be known collectively as the American Renaissance, none, writes David Van Leer, 'aspired so relentlessly to the mantle of philosopher as did Ralph Waldo Emerson'. In this, the first book to treat Emerson as a serious philosopher, Dr Van Leer explores Emerson's interest in the subject, while remaining sensitive to the unfolding of Emerson's own complex career. He argues that Emerson's essays can be read quite seriously in terms of their philosophical content; and that in fact such philosophical readings show the individual works to be far more carefully structured than has usually been assumed.

This new edition of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Society and Solitude reproduces the original 1870 edition—only updating nineteenth-century prose spellings. Emerson’s text is fully annotated to identify the authors and issues of concern in the twelve essays, and definitions are provided for selected words in Emerson’s impressive vocabulary. The work aims to facilitate a better understanding of Emerson’s late philosophy in relation to his sources, his development and his subsequent influence.

In the last few years H.G. Callaway has produced several helpful editions of some important texts by Emerson. Emerson's Conduct of Life was originally published in 1860, and it has appeared in a number of editions since then, but Callaway's edition has several noteworthy features that cause it to stand out from the crowd and make it an important contribution to Emerson studies. This is a rare volume that will serve students, academic philosophers, and causal readers alike: a critical edition of a less-familiar text that is attractive to ordinary readers without sacrificing scholarly rigor.

Buell has written an excellent intellectual biography of Emerson--which is especially good on Emerson's relationship to Thoreau. This is a book in the style of American literary studies and certainly of use to students of Emerson's thought in philosophy. "On the occasion of Emerson’s 200th birthday, Lawrence Buell revisits the life of the nation’s first public intellectual and discovers how he became a "representative man.".

My new edition of Emerson's Conduct, modernizes the prose spelling, annotates the text and adds a short chronology, a bibliography foused on Emerson's sources, a new Introduction, and a comprehensive index. Available in HB and PB.

This is a standard and useful collection of Emerson's writings--broadly available.

This is my review of the book of essays, Emersonian Circles, dedicated to the Emerson scholar and editor Joel Myerson.

Edited by Len Gougeon and Joel Myerson, this book presents the first comprehensive and authoritative collection of Emerson’s writings against slavery and the subjugation of American Indians—writings that reveal Emerson’s deep commitment to social reform. Included are speeches and lectures that have never before been published or collected in any other edition of Emerson’s writings.