ABSTRACT
Thoreau practiced an epistemology along a continuum of knowledge that stretched from writing a chronicle of objective observations to recording his subjective reactions to those findings. So, while placing facts within nature’s architecture, this project could not be construed solely as an attempt to capture “reality,” for Thoreau’s depiction emerged from his own imagination. His attacks on a sterile objectivity were both audacious and appealing. A generation later, phenomenological psychologists developed a fully articulated program that began with the premise that the mind did not see the object “as is,” but by integrating related perceptions (see chapter 5). Thoreau qualifies as a proto-phenomenologist.
