Coleridge and Scepticism [ electronic resource ] / by Ben Brice.
By: Brice, Ben.
Material type: TextPublisher: Oxford Scholarship Online , 2008ISBN: 9780199290253 ( e-book ).Subject(s): PhilosophyGenre/Form: Electronic booksOnline resources: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199290253.001.0001 View to click Summary: Coleridge tended to view objects in the natural world as if they were capable of articulating truths about his own poetic psyche. He also regarded such objects as if they were capable of illustrating and embodying truths about a transcendent spiritual realm. After 1805, he posited a series of analogical ‘likenesses’ connecting the rational principles that inform human cognition with the rational principles that he believed informed the teleological structure of the natural world. Although he intuitively felt that nature had been constructed as a ‘mirror’ of the human mind, and that both mind and nature were ‘mirrors’ of a transcendent spiritual realm, he never found an explanation of such experiences that was fully immune to his own sceptical doubts. This book examines the nature of these doubts, and offers a new explanatory account of why Coleridge was unable to affirm his religious intuitions. The book situates his work within two important intellectual traditions. The first — a tradition of epistemological ‘piety’ or ‘modesty’ — informs the work of key precursors such as Kant, Hume, Locke, Boyle, and Calvin, and relates to Protestant critiques of natural reason. The second — a tradition of theological voluntarism — emphasizes the omnipotence and transcendence of God, as well as the arbitrary relationship subsisting between God and the created world. It is argued that Coleridge's familiarity with both of these interrelated intellectual traditions undermined his confidence in his ability to read the symbolic language of God in nature.Item type | Current location | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode |
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Coleridge tended to view objects in the natural world as if they were capable of articulating truths about his own poetic psyche. He also regarded such objects as if they were capable of illustrating and embodying truths about a transcendent spiritual realm. After 1805, he posited a series of analogical ‘likenesses’ connecting the rational principles that inform human cognition with the rational principles that he believed informed the teleological structure of the natural world. Although he intuitively felt that nature had been constructed as a ‘mirror’ of the human mind, and that both mind and nature were ‘mirrors’ of a transcendent spiritual realm, he never found an explanation of such experiences that was fully immune to his own sceptical doubts. This book examines the nature of these doubts, and offers a new explanatory account of why Coleridge was unable to affirm his religious intuitions. The book situates his work within two important intellectual traditions. The first — a tradition of epistemological ‘piety’ or ‘modesty’ — informs the work of key precursors such as Kant, Hume, Locke, Boyle, and Calvin, and relates to Protestant critiques of natural reason. The second — a tradition of theological voluntarism — emphasizes the omnipotence and transcendence of God, as well as the arbitrary relationship subsisting between God and the created world. It is argued that Coleridge's familiarity with both of these interrelated intellectual traditions undermined his confidence in his ability to read the symbolic language of God in nature.
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