Coleridge and the Conservative ImaginationWhy should anyone bother with Coleridge either as a theologian or a political theorist? At first in desperation, but now quite deliberately, Alan Gregory convincingly suggests that one should bother because Coleridge mounted an imporant critique of reductionist explanations of human society and moral agency, and because Coleridge has much regarding that important enterprise to teach us still. While Gregory also offers a perceptive outline of early British conservatism, his main concern is with Coleridge's attack on reductionism, including his defense of the will against associationism, his criticisms of Enlightenment historiography, his discussions of the inadequacies of political economy, and the Trinitarian arguments against monism. There is, Gregory remarks, no grasping the range or inner dynamic of Coleridge's thought without appreciating his religious vision, his theology. Indeed, Coleridge himself affirmed that should we try to conceive a man without the ideas of God, eternity, freedom, will, absolute truth, of the good, the true, the beautiful, the infinite...the man will have vanished. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 10 | |
The Later Political Writings | 27 |
Philosophical Psychology and Conservative Politics | 39 |
Identification and the Goals of Rhetoric | 42 |
Imagination and the Renewal of the Mind | 51 |
Imagination and the Wisdom of History | 71 |
History as Prophecy | 96 |
Stifling the Imagination | 179 |
The Conservative Imagination Culture Nature and Grace | 197 |
Church State and the Higher Reason | 208 |
The Ordering of Nature and Culture | 233 |
The Worlds Befriending Opposite | 241 |
The Imagination | 255 |
Conclusion | 259 |
Bibliography | 267 |
Social Conflict and the Balance of the Mind | 119 |
Reason and the Critique of Commerce | 143 |
Social Criticism and the Religious Imagination | 167 |
| 281 | |
| 283 | |
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abstract activity appears argument atheism biblical Biographia Literaria Burke Burke's Christian church claim clerisy Coleridge argues Coleridge's political Collected Letters concern conservatism conservative Constitution consubstantiality contemporary context critique cultural discourse discussion distinction divine ideas doctrine economic Edmund Burke epistemological Essays eternal ethics existence fancy French Revolution Friend human ideal identification imago Dei individual institutions intellectual interpretation J. C. D. Clark Jacobinism knowledge Lay Sermon M. H. Abrams mechanic philosophy mind moral national church nature object Opus Maximum Paley Paley's particular persons Philosophical Lectures philosophical psychology philosophy political economy present primary imagination principle prophecy prophetic provides Pythagoras radical reading reality reason and understanding reductionism reflection relations relationship religion religious rhetorical role Samuel Taylor Coleridge Scripture secondary imagination sense social society sphere Statesman's Manual symbol theological theory things thought tion truth unifying unity University Press William Paley writings
Popular passages
Page 12 - The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science ; because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate ; but that which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation ; and its excellence may arise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverse also happens ;...
Page 13 - ... the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, molding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression.
Page 14 - ... we have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its defects or corruptions but with due caution ; that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion; that he should approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude.
Page 22 - Besides the ideas, with their annexed pains and pleasures, which are presented by the sense; the mind of man possesses a sort of creative power of its own; either in representing at pleasure the images of things in the order and manner in which they were received by the senses, or in combining those images in a new manner, and according to a different order.