Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Modern Religion of Conscience Open Access
Mathes, Adam (Spring 2020)
Abstract
When read as a variant of Fichte’s philosophical psychology and philosophical theology, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1825 Aids to Reflection is an exercise in developing a habit of mind that can discern the distinction between freedom of the will and genuine freedom. I argue that freedom of the will is a type of negative freedom qualified as a capacity to choose independent from constraints, which I differentiate from genuine freedom, which is a type of positive freedom qualified as the alignment of oneself with the ordering of God. By guiding the reader through a progressive series of reflective practices, Coleridge assists the reader in moving from a condition of self-estrangement (described as spiritual dearth and aridity) to one of self-acquaintance, (described as richness and wholeness). Coleridge responds to the possibility of relating psychology to faith by fashioning a method of rational self-realization and placing it in service to spiritual cultivation. For these reasons, Aids to Reflection stands in the Christian theological tradition that finds knowledge of God related to—if not disclosed through—self-knowledge. Moreover, as a work concerned with the relation of freedom and subjectivity for the sake of religion, Aids to Reflection also belongs within the family of discourse described as the modern religion of conscience.
I make this argument primarily through expository readings of Coleridge’s major prose and religious writings of roughly 1817 to 1825. Secondarily I interpret The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and “The Wanderings of Cain” as illuminating some of the challenges Coleridge hoped to resolve through his method of spiritual cultivation.
Table of Contents
I. Introduction 1
A Note on Writing with Coleridge 12
II. Chapter 1 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Modern Religion of Conscience 21
A Time of Competing Rationalities 23
The Modern Religion of Conscience 26
Loss and Isolation 34
The Mariner and Cain in Disorientation 38
Conclusion 48
III. Chapter 2 – Biographia Literaria and Fichte’s Principles of Subjectivity 53
Principal Themes 54
A Note on Sources 58
The Activity of the Mind and the Structures of Self-Consciousness 62
Imagination and Subjectivity 77
Drive Structures 83
Conclusion 93
IV. Chapter 3 – Rational Self-Realization as Spiritual Cultivation: “Essays on the Principles of Method” 97
Instability in the “Essays on the Principles of Method” 99
What is Method? 103
Method, Religion, and Faith 111
Conclusion 122
V. Chapter 4 – Aids to Reflection: The Christian Faith is the Perfection of Human Intelligence
127
From Disorientation to Orientation 129
Method of Ascent 133
Structure and Overview of Aids to Reflection 137
Human Intelligence 144
Conclusion 149
VI. Chapter 5 – Freedom and Captivity 152
Reason as the Light of Faith 153
Coleridge’s Speculative Theology 160
Freedom and Captivity in the Mariner and “Cain” 172
Conclusion 184
VII. Conclusion 185
The Mediation of the Understanding 187
The Pentads 199
Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Modern Religion of Conscience 208
VIII. Bibliography 213
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