Knowledge and Indifference in English Romantic ProseThis 2003 study sheds light on the way in which the English Romantics dealt with the basic problems of knowledge, particularly as they inherited them from the philosopher David Hume. Kant complained that the failure of philosophy in the eighteenth century to answer empirical scepticism had produced a culture of 'indifferentism'. Tim Milnes explores the way in which Romantic writers extended this epistemic indifference through their resistance to argumentation, and finds that it exists in a perpetual state of tension with a compulsion to know. This tension is most clearly evident in the prose writing of the period, in works such as Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Hazlitt's Essay on the Principles of Human Action and Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. Milnes argues that it is in their oscillation between knowledge and indifference that the Romantics prefigure the ambivalent negotiations of modern post-analytic philosophy. |
Contents
| 1 | |
the eighteenth century | 25 |
Wordsworths prose | 71 |
Hazlitts immanent idealism | 105 |
4 Coleridge and the new foundationalism | 144 |
Coleridge and theosophy | 176 |
life without knowledge | 209 |
Notes | 216 |
| 254 | |
| 272 | |
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Common terms and phrases
absolute abstraction aesthetic Aids to Reflection ambivalence argues artistic association associationism attempt Biographia Literaria claims cognitive Coleridge Coleridge's Coleridge's thought common sense concept concerned consciousness Consequently creation creative criticism David Hume dialectic discourse distinction eighteenth century empirical empiricism English Romantic epistemic epistemology Essay existence experience fact faculty feeling foundational foundationalism foundationalist genius ground Hartley Hazlitt Hegel human Hume Hume's Hume's fork Ibid idealism ideas imagination imitation indifference intellectual intuition invention Jacobi judgement Kant Kant's Kantian kind knowing knowledge language later Locke Locke's logical M. H. Abrams merely metaphysics method mind moral nature notion object original perception philosophy poet poetic truth poetry possible Preface principle problem proposition prose question reality representative realism Romanticism Samuel Taylor Coleridge scepticism Schelling sensation Spinoza sublime synthetic a priori t]he theory things tion trans transcendental argument understanding unity University Press W. V. Quine Wordsworth writing