The concept «work» in the American philosophical discourse of the 19th century (based on the books by Henry Thoreau and Ralf Emerson)

The paper is devoted to an analysis of the American philosophical discourse of the 19th century. The works by Henry Thoreau and Ralf Thoreau are investigated in terms of cognitive linguistics. This approach makes it possible to reveal the features of the said philosophers’ world-view and to reconstruct a fragment of the world picture represented in the works of the major American thinkers. The concept «work» in H. Thoreau and R. Emerson’s discourse has a similar set of cognitive features, which proves that the philosophers understand this concept in the same way. But the hierarchic difference in the stricture of the concepts defines a distinction in axiological priority of the thinkers. The moral aspect of work is more important for Ralf Emerson. For Henry Thoreau the work is the source of joy and a powerful tool of ethic upbringing. But for both American philosophers the work is the most important existential value, the tool of conceptualization and transformation of the world.

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