Abstract

Now that his textually chaotic œuvre has been edited in its entirety, Coleridge emerges as a major post-Kantian philosopher. Coleridge’s early study of Unitarian and Platonic thought together with his confrontation of Humean scepticism enabled him to rise to the principal speculative challenge of the age: that of uniting Kant’s philosophy with a practical form of Christian religion. Founding his philosophy on the distinction between Reason and Understanding, Coleridge develops a dynamic faculty psychology in which the Imagination plays a major role. His investigation of possible metaphysical bases of the Categorical Imperative asserted by Kant leads him to construct a Trinitarian scheme that provisionally accounts for the mysterious origin of evil. In this way the esoteric, fragmentary Opus Maximum represents a culmination of Coleridge’s speculations in theology and philosophy.