Extremes meet: Coleridge on ethics and poetics (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Three goals have been set in this doctoral thesis: first, and most specifically, I have tried to give an accurate representation of Coleridge's philosophical development as it is reflected in his published writings from 1815 through 1825. Second, I argue that the catalyst in this development is his effort to resolve the tension between ethics and aesthetics in a way that is metaphysically coherent. Finally, I position Coleridge's ongoing effort within the philosophical context of the “war between reason and the passions,” the empiricist and rationalist poles of which are represented by Hume and Kant, respectively. Consequently, this thesis is divided into two parts, each having two chapters.; Chapter one focuses on Hume. Hume's moral and aesthetic theories both strive to hold a middle position between reason and the passions, and they encounter the same forms of internal conflict. In both cases, Hume's attempts to exclude reason lead finally to its fugitive but ineradicable reappearance.; Chapter two turns to Kant. I suggest that Kant wrote the Critique of Judgment in order give an a priori foundation to the quasi-passion “respect,” a necessary consequence of Kant's failure to build an rationalist ethics that excludes the passions.; Chapter three turns to Coleridge, especially the Biographia Literaria and revised Friend. It deals with Coleridge's efforts to free himself from Schelling's system, and to find a way out of the impasse represented by Hume and Kant. I argue that the “Essays on Method” are that way out.; The fourth and final chapter involves a reading of Logic and Aids to Reflection. I argue that the two works can be fruitfully considered as constituting a single effort to bridge the gap between Hume and Kant. I also argue that what emerges is a vision of the self and a model of moral judgment that begins and ends with sublime reflection, and that has a threefold structure whereby the “I” is the same, with a difference, from the “thou” that calls it into existence.