The Knowledge That Endures

An examination of the elements of the Romantic theory of knowledge, mainly as developed in German Romanticism. It analyzes the problem of language, thought and reality as Coleridge saw it and places his views in a modern context.

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This book analyzes the major elements of Romanticism. It first reviews the ideas on the relation of mind and nature, of Kant and post-Kantian philosophers, addressing their dependence on the principle of the reconciliation of opposites. This principle of synthesis is also reflected in the discussion of imagination. Symbol, mythology and nature in the second part and in the analysis of Romantic irony in the third part. Romantic irony is described as a kind of deconstructive discipline for transcendental ambitions. The final part takes up the problem of literature as knowledge and suggests a sensible resolution of the conflict between autonomous and cognitive views which does not involve too rigorous a distinction of "beauty" and "truth".