Abstract

Critics have ignored scholastic Aristotelianism as a possible source for WordsworthÕs philosophical outlook on the related areas of metaphysics and cognitive theory. Without denying fundamental orientations towards both empiricism and Platonism on these issues, I argue that Wordsworth also has much in common with the Aristotelians who debated with Locke. Wordsworth accepts, as these thinkers do, the passivity not just of sensation but of knowledge of objects external to the mind, and he believes that there are real essences. In common with the Aristotelian rejection of Platonism, these essences are held to be immanent in things.

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