Contemplative Practice and the Ideas
Coleridge's Contemplative Philosophy January 16, 2020 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198851806.003.0003 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that Coleridge developed a Plotinian conception of contemplative reason in which imagination opens a mental space (the "con-templum") for ideas to receive aesthetic expression and become meaningful in human life. |
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.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |