Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772–1834)

1. Metaphysics

German philosophy showed Coleridge that he was not alone in seeking a new philosophical ground beyond either dogmatic empiricism or ungrounded metaphysical speculation. He was deeply influenced by, for example, Kant, F.H. Jacobi, Fichte and Schelling, but also examined them critically. In general, he believed idealist philosophy had failed to discern the true nature of a ‘self’ and its inherent relationality. Other central focuses in his work include the dynamic and constitutive nature of Ideas, the primacy of absolute Will over Being or Mind, and the relation of words as ‘living powers’ to thought and being.

Coleridge’s epistemology is inseparable from his moral philosophy. His insistence in the ‘Essay on Faith’ that conscience is a precondition of true self-consciousness, for example, is related to his theory of Ideas. He is often categorized as belonging to the Platonist and idealist traditions of thought; certainly he rejects the view that Ideas are merely abstract concepts opposed to reality or (as they were for Kant) merely regulative; they are constitutive of the world, and so must never be confused with mere images or objects of thought. He agrees with Plato that ideal and real are not opposed, and with Descartes that all ideas (as opposed to beliefs or opinions) are their own evidence; but his own theory of ideas is coloured by his agreement with Fichte, that if knowledge is possible at all, it begins with an ‘act of will’. There has to be an affirmation given to the inner witness of experience and feeling, even in the first step of perception; though at this stage the ‘yes’ is pure act, not a cognitive response. Like Fichte, he recognized that, without this, philosophy was powerless to refute scepticism; if, on the other hand, ideas have a dynamic of will, then conscience and consciousness must be intimately connected.

Coleridge’s theory of ideas is linked to his development of the German distinction between Vernunft (Reason) and Verstand (Understanding) (see Kant, I. §8; Hegel, G.W.F. §4). Reason is the faculty of Ideas, a unifying, uniquely human faculty which, in its unity with the will, is inaccessible to causal explanation. The Understanding, by contrast, is the faculty of ‘speculative intellect’; the power of analysis, of logical deduction, of calculation, quantification and explanation. Reason includes the faculty of imagination, the image of divine creativity. Imagination creates and interprets the symbols through which universal principles or Ideas are revealed in particular form. It recognizes that what appear to the Understanding to be contradictions (for example, a reality which is both universal and particular) are in fact the necessary polarities by which reality is constituted.

An important theme in Coleridge’s writings is that of ‘distinction-in-unity’. Drawn from a synthesis of the philosophies of Pythagoras, Plato and the Alexandrian Jew, Philo, with the Christian model of Trinity, this principle provides the basis of his contribution to the debate on the nature of the self and self-consciousness. Distinction-in-unity was not merely a logical, regulative concept but represented dynamic relationship; that through which, for example, the self is constituted. It is also the means of moral development by which individuals become persons. Coleridge argued that the necessary conditions of personhood (relationship, free will, reason and love) require a transcendent source of ‘personeity’. His Absolute is a primacy of Will, self-realized in Mind (Idea) and Being. Throughout his mature writings the nature and function of will and ‘act’ in relation to reason is constantly reassessed.

Coleridge found in Christianity a language through which the principle of self-consciousness was perfectly expressed. The Trinity was representable as ‘ipseity’ (‘this-ness’ or ‘self-ness’), ‘alterity’ (‘other-ness’) and ‘community’ (the former two realized in relationship). ‘Alterity’ is symbolized by Logos as the ‘Word’ or Idea of God; God-other-and-the-same, the first principle of relationship. The ‘Community’ (Spirit) of the Godhead is a self-realizing, self-limiting love of the ‘Other’ as another Self. These relations, Coleridge argued, constituted the principle of Humanity. The human self is only fully realized in relation to a Thou (‘Essay on Faith’).

Distinction-in-unity also provided the basis of his philosophy of nature. He agreed with the German Naturphilosophen that life must be understood not in terms of organization, mechanisms or configurations of atoms, but as polarities of forces and powers, and their products (see Naturphilosophie). Throughout his life he followed the latest scientific theories and developments in academic journals, and his Notebooks reveal strenuous efforts to show how moral and natural philosophy might be reconciled.

Coleridge saw philosophical integrity and linguistic veracity as interdependent. The abuse of language, with its lack of attention to etymology and to the relation of grammar and language to the processes of thought, resulted in intellectual and moral corruption (Aids To Reflection, 1825). It was necessary to ‘desynonymize’; to understand the unique, living quality of each word, and therefore its true relation to others. Words should reflect their true source – the Logos, the incarnate Word of God.

The Logos, as the unifying principle of the ‘Logosophia’, is first an epistemological principle representing the birth of language, of self-consciousness and therefore of philosophy. Logos is also an aesthetic medium; as ‘Word’ it is the archetypal symbol of the revelatory power of words and imagination. As the principle of polarity (‘alterity’) it is also the ‘life and light’ of nature’s powers, forces and products. Finally, Logos may be defined as ideal Humanity (universal and individual).