Coleridge and the Crisis of Reason

Coleridge and the Crisis of Reason examines Coleridge’s understanding of the Pantheism Controversy – the crisis of reason in German philosophy – and reveals the context informing Coleridge’s understanding of German thinkers. It challenges previous accounts of Coleridge’s philosophical engagements, forcing a reconsideration of his reading of figures such as Schelling, Jacobi and Spinoza. This exciting new study establishes the central importance of the contested status of reason for Coleridge’s poetry, accounts of the imagination and later religious thought.

RICHARD BERKELEY completed his Ph.D. in Philosophy and Literature at the Australian National University as a Commonwealth Scholar. He is currently studying law at the University of Otago Law School, New Zealand, and is Assistant Master of Knox College, University of Otago.

Acknowledgements * Abbreviations * Note on Quotations from MSS * Introduction * PART I: COLERIDGE AND SPINOZA * Silence and the Pantheistic Sublime in Coleridge’s Early Poetry * Spinoza and the Problem of the Infinite * The Providential Wreck: Coleridge and Spinoza’s Metaphysics * PART II: COLERIDGE AND THE PANTHEISM CONTROVERSY * Understanding the Pantheism Controversy * Reading under a Warp: Coleridge and Jacobi’s Transformations of ‘Reason’ * Coleridge, Mendelssohn and the Defence of Reason * Coleridge and Schelling: The Seductions of Ideal Pantheism * PART III: * THE PANTHEISM CONTROVERSY IN COLERIDGE’S LATER THOUGHT * The Anxiety of Pantheism: Hidden Dimensions of Coleridge’s Transcendental Deduction * Coleridge’s Trinity: The Defence of Immanence * Reason, Understanding and Truth * Bibliography * Notes * Index