As Wild as Possible: Modal Sauntering in Henry David Thoreau’s Thought
Polish Journal for American Studies. December 30, 2025 Arkdiusz Misztal
The paper examines how the concept of the possible and the “peripatetic” style of thinking intertwine in Henry David Thoreau’s thought. Drawing on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of perception, it describes the embodied self engaged in walking, focusing on the reciprocity between the walker’s moving body and the pace of thoughts. It argues that walking becomes a principal means of accessing the modal multidimensionality of lived existence by aligning the embodied mind with the surrounding world. The paper then studies Thoreau’s views on walking as a strategy for opening oneself to the “wide” modalities of nature, proposing that sauntering is a mode of modal exploration that discloses the qualitative nature of the possible.