The Psychological Implications of Cavell’s Interpretation of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Abstract

This hermeneutic theoretical dissertation examined Stanley Cavell’s (2003) interpretation of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s work and its implications for clinical psychology. Cavell (2003) interpreted Emerson’s philosophy as an epistemology of moods that anticipated Martin Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. In this context, Emerson is seen as incorporating skepticism into his philosophy as an inescapable condition of human existence. This study found that when Emerson’s writing is interpreted as an epistemology of moods it corresponds significantly with Carl Jung’s analytical psychology. Emerson’s idea of self-reliance is congruent with Jung’s process of individuation; both descriptions of human existence affirm the human capacity for intellectual intuition, the lived experience of the numinous through the soul. In this manner Emerson’s epistemology of moods is used to elucidate Jung’s analytical psychology.