Contemplative Practice and the Ideas

Summary

Coleridge emphasizes the importance of ideas in various contemplative practices and everyday experiences. He introduces the concept of con-templum, a mental space where imagination allows ideas to be expressed aesthetically, giving them significant meaning in human life. Coleridge argues for a higher status of imagination compared to mere perception, and he posits that will is deeper than reason, suggesting that ideas of reason are closely linked to the human soul.

Study at a glance

Abstract

AbstractChapter 2 turns to Coleridge’s increasing focus on ideas as diffused in and through different kinds of contemplative practice and everyday experience. Throughout his thinking about contemplative reason, or Platonic nóēsis, he retained a Plotinian sense of theoria in and through sense and imagination. Section 2.1 outlines what the author calls the con-templum, a mental space opened up by imagination for ideas, allowing them to receive aesthetic expression, bridging the gap to allow ideas to have a deeply felt meaning in human life. Section 2.2 introduces the argument that, like Plotinus, Coleridge elevated the role and status of imagination as an insightful and not just a merely imaging and often deceptive faculty, as Plato viewed it. Section 2.3 reconstructs Coleridge’s argument for that reason to be ‘higher than’ imagination and his related position that will is deeper than reason. Finally, Section 2.4 examines Coleridge’s claim that ideas of reason are confreres of the human soul.