ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the circular view of philosophical history. It discusses Samuel Taylor Coleridge's presentation of Plato as a poet and the apparently quite contrasting strand of his Plato interpretation — as teacher of an esoteric system. The chapter deals with Lecture Four which suggests that Coleridge sees a certain kind of sublime art as, after all, giving people the best possible access to Plato's supposedly technical esoteric doctrines. It suggests that, for Coleridge, the doctrine of Ideas brings Plato the poet and Plato the esoteric system-builder together after all. The chapter also outlines some of Coleridge's marginalia to Tennemann on the Neoplatonists. Coleridge estimates the Neoplatonists according to their attitudes to Christianity. Coleridge is preparing to unite Christianity with Platonism. In Coleridge's Socrates we catch the first glimpse of a reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities which anticipates Plato and Christ.
