Coleridgeの「理性」について

application/pdfW. Blake and S. T. Coleridge were oppressed at seeing people in their age being enslaved by sensationalism, materialism, atheism, and utilitarianism. They thought that Bacon, Locke, and Newton were responsible for the above-cited philosophies. They instinctively recognized that Newton's universe and Locke's epistemology left out God and man, and deprived the lively universe of its life. Therefore Blake blamed Bacon, Locke, and Newton calling them 'Satan', the incarnation of 'Reason' throughout his works. Similarly Coleridge attacked them as well as their materialism, but in his case it was not 'Reason' but 'Understanding' that was responsible for this materialism. He made a radical distinction between 'Reason' and 'Understanding' and defined 'Understanding' as natural reason or the faculty of being able to judge according to the senses. He insisted that materialism, atheism, and utilitarianism were all based on the laws 'Understanding'. In this sense Coleridge's 'Understanding' seems to be Blake's 'Reason'. On the other hand Coleridge gave 'Reason' a special meaning: direct revelation from God, divine essence present in man as his highest faculty, man's supernatural faculty. He could see a new light of imagination and inspiration glimmering in the conception of 'Reason' as a supernatural faculty which set free people and himself from materialism. In this sense Coleridge's 'Reason' seems to be Blake's 'Imagination' which means God in man