A "critical inquisition into the constitution of the intellectual faculties": Kantian transcendental analysis and transcendental reflection in S.T. Coleridge's Logic

• Published in: Intellectual history review Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 287 - 309
• Main Author: Struwig, Dillon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 03.04.2023; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: cognition; Coleridge; faculties; Kant; transcendental reflection
• ISSN: 1749-6977; 1749-6985
• DOI: 10.1080/17496977.2021.2017704

This essay examines Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Logic and its interpretation of Kant's "science of transcendental analysis" as a theory of the cognitive faculties and their "inherent forms" or "several functional powers". I explain why Coleridge characterises transcendental analysis as an "investigation into the constitution and constituent forms" of the faculties, and consider the reasons behind his schematic division of such inquiry into "transcendental [ ... ] Æsthetic, Logic, and Noetic". I argue that Coleridge's claims about the forms, operations, and contents that derive from different cognitive powers, and the philosophical method that enables us to prove such derivation, are based on Kant's theory of "transcendental reflection". I also explain how Coleridge's facultative conception of transcendental analysis relates to recent scholarship on Kant's accounts of (i) our cognitive capacities and (ii) the purposes of transcendental reflection. My essay does not aim to defend Coleridge's interpretation of Kant, but rather to provide a clearer picture of how this interpretation informs Coleridge's analysis of cognitive activity and mental content in Logic, including his "transcendental noetic", which seeks to explain the possibility of the kind intellectual intuition that Kant explicitly denies.