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A common description of Thoreau emphasizes his ardent individuality. One quote used to justify this comes from the concluding chapter of Walden: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away” (Thoreau 326). But such descriptions need be tempered by his fondness for communion with others, which is clearly seen in how he furnished his cabin while residing at Walden Pond: “I think that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit . . . I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society” (Thoreau 140). When we think of Thoreau, then, it should be with an awareness to both aspects, that is, his ability to march out of step with the rest of society and the satisfaction he gained from being with others. Any approach to his philosophy merits a balanced awareness of these dimensions. In the end, Thoreau wrote his philosophy from the subjective position, but he composed his works to transform and edify others, too.

From Thoreau’s perspective, it is naïve to think that any composition comes from a purely objective position; no author can ever remove the I from her or his work. Thoreau describes the dependence on the I in the second paragraph of Walden:

In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. (3)

While there have been thinkers who have wanted to escape the confines of the human being as a contextualized, limited animal, what we could associate with Thomas Nagel’s view from nowhere, Thoreau rejects a desire for complete objectivity. Yes, there is an external world that impinges on our senses, that poses limits, and may prove false our misguided conclusions and assumptions, but all experience is the experience of someone from a particular time and location.

This means that philosophy will never be objective; it will always carry within it the authorial I and the author’s prejudices, desires, and expectations. If we focus closely on the above passage, it also is clear that our experiences are quite limited; while we may know ourselves best, Thoreau never asserts that we know ourselves completely. Human endeavors, including philosophy, will be marked by incompleteness, which is a lack of intimacy with all that the world has to offer and a lack of intimacy with our own inner world, too. With every text, authors provide readers with only one perspective from within an infinite array of other possible angles.

Thoreau’s emphasis on infinite possibilities is not hyperbole. He bases this ability to divide perspectives infinitely on mathematical insights. Between any two points on a number line, for example, an infinite division is possible. The subjective view admits of infinite divisions; we can change our views by altering our relations with objects. Honoring perspectival shifts in A Week, Thoreau esteems what he calls “a separate intention of the eye.” Looking at the calm water’s surface as he and his brother float on the Concord River, Thoreau offers the following observation: “Wherever the trees and skies are reflected there is more than Atlantic depth, and no danger of fancy running aground. We noticed that it required a separate intention of the eye, a more free and abstracted vision, to see the reflected trees and the sky, than to see the river bottom merely; and so are there manifold visions in the direction of every object . . .” (48). Depending on how you approach any object and the emphases you select, or what separate intention of the eye you deploy, it is possible to encounter any object infinitely and to reposition it within its eternal relations (359).

This is why Thoreau values uncommon sense over common sense. Along with his emphasis on the perspectival nature of observations and writing, Thoreau’s reverence for uncommon sense is crucial to understanding his role as a philosopher and author. There are two passages in A Week emphasizing the tension between common and uncommon sense. He writes,

I perceive in the common train of my thoughts a natural and uninterrupted sequence, each implying the next, or, if interruption occurs it is occasioned by a new object being presented to my senses. But a steep, and sudden, and by these means unaccountable transition, is that from a comparatively narrow and partial, what is called common sense view of things, to an infinitely expanded and liberating one, from seeing things as men describe them, to seeing them as men cannot describe them. This implies a sense which is not common, but rare in the wisest man’s experience; which is sensible or sentient of more than common. (386)

In a passage on the following page, Thoreau writes, “What is called common sense is excellent in its department, and as invaluable as the virtue of conformity in the army and navy,–for there must be subordination,–but uncommon sense, that sense which is common only to the wisest, is as much more excellent as it is more rare” (387). Thoreau is directing the reader’s attention to experiences of liberation from the common ways of receiving, describing, and explaining the world. For Thoreau, humans become molded by customs and habits that affect our sensations, thoughts, and actions. He is not content with these common ways and wants to break free from them; being able to come to a rare angle of vision is not only liberating, but it is one of the elements of being wise.

As a philosopher and author, therefore, Thoreau is not satisfied with supposed objective writing. He encourages readers to experience the world and life through the first person, singular I, and he advocates freeing oneself from the commonplace thoughts and interpretations of life. He wants readers to explore life from many angles. While this honors the individual and her or his emplacement in a specific context, Thoreau wants people to transcend those constraints to experience the novelty and natural regenerative forces found in every context. This is arguably one of the most important reasons for writing, namely, the text’s potential to liberate readers. Thoreau writes,

Enough has been said in these days of the charm of fluent writing. We hear it complained of some works of genius, that they have fine thoughts, but are irregular and have no flow . . . We should consider that the flow of thought is more like a tidal wave than a prone river . . . The reader who expects to float down stream for the whole voyage, may well complain of nauseating swells and choppings of the sea when his frail shore-craft gets amidst the billows of the ocean stream . . . But if we would appreciate the flow that is in these books, we must expect to feel it rise from the page like an exhalation, and wash away our critical brains like burr millstones, flowing to higher levels above and behind ourselves. (A Week 102-03)

As a philosopher, then, Thoreau does not imagine his role as a comforter, nor does he imagine his role as a person who maintains the stability of society; his role, not dissimilar to Socrates’ role, is one of disturber and nonconformist, as he stands aloof from the state and the constraining elements of society. His essays and books, therefore, serve as an outlet for his short-circuiting thoughts: “Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institutions,–such call I good books” (A Week 96). To be a self implies a level of disobedience, and this same disobedience will be found in the author’s works.