E-Book Overview
Coleridge's relation to his German contemporaries constitutes the toughest problem in assessing his standing as a thinker. For the last half-century this relationship has been described, ultimately, as parasitic. As a result, Coleridge's contribution to religious thought has been seen primarily in terms of his poetic genius. This book revives and deepens the evaluation of Coleridge as a philosophical theologian in his own right. Coleridge had a critical and creative relation to, and kinship with, German Idealism. Moreover, the principal impulse behind his engagement with that philosophy is traced to the more immediate context of English Unitarian-Trinitarian controversy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The book re-establishes Coleridge as a philosopher of religion and as a vital source for contemporary theological reflection.
E-Book Content
COLERIDGE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION: Aids to Reflection and the Mirror of the Spirit
DOUGLAS HEDLEY
Cambridge University Press
COLERIDGE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION
Coleridge's relation to his German contemporaries constitutes the toughest problem in assessing his standing as a thinker. For the last half-century this relationship has been described, ultimately, as parasitic. As a result, Coleridge's contribution to religious thought has been seen primarily in terms of his poetic genius. This book revives and deepens the evaluation of Coleridge as a philosophical theologian in his own right. Coleridge had a critical and creative relation to, and kinship with, German thought. Moreover, the principal impulse behind his engagement with that philosophy is traced to the more immediate context of the English Unitarian±Trinitarian controversy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This book re-establishes Coleridge as a philosopher of religion and as a vital source for contemporary theological re¯ection. d o ug l a s h e dl e y was educated at the universities of Oxford and Munich. He is a fellow of Clare College and lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge in the Faculty of Divinity.
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
COLERIDGE, PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION Aids to Re¯ection and the Mirror of the Spirit DOUGLAS HEDLEY University of Cambridge
PUBLISHED BY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS (VIRTUAL PUBLISHING) FOR AND ON BEHALF OF THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia http://www.cambridge.org © Cambridge University Press 2000 This edition © Cambridge University Press (Virtual Publishing) 2003 First published in printed format 2000
A catalogue record for the original printed book is available from the British Library and from the Library of Congress Original ISBN 0 521 77035 1 hardback
ISBN 0 511 01148 2 virtual (netLibrary Edition)
Mind and understanding is, as it were, a diaphanous and crystaline globe, or a kind of notional world, which hath some re¯ex image, and correspondent ray, or representation in it, to whatsoever is in the true and real world of being. (Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, vol. ii. p. 517)
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Contents
Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Notes on the text
page ix xi xiii
Prologue: explaining Coleridge's explanation
1
1
The true philosopher is the lover of God A spiritual philosophy The revival of natural theology Platonism The Platonic Trinity German Idealism and the Platonic Tradition Paley, Locke and Socinianism Priestley, Unitarianism and Platonic idealism Identity and difference: henology or ontology? Supreme being and self-consciousness `i am who i am'