Thinking about other people in nineteenth-century British writing / Adela Pinch.

"Nineteenth-century life and literature are full of strange accounts that describe the act of one person thinking about another as an ethically problematic, sometimes even a dangerously powerful thing to do. Adela Pinch explains why, when, and under what conditions it is possible, or desirable, to believe that thinking about another person could affect them. She explains why nineteenth century British writers - poets, novelists, philosophers, psychologists, devotees of the occult - were both attracted to and repulsed by radical or substantial notions of purely mental relations between persons, and why they moralized about the practice of thinking about other people in interesting ways. Working at the intersection of literary studies and philosophy, this book both sheds new light on a neglected aspect of Victorian literature and thought, and explores the consequences of, and the value placed on, this strand of thinking about thinking"--Provided by publisher

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Introduction: Love thinking -- Thinking as action: James Frederick Ferrier's Philosophy of consciousness -- Foam, aura, or melody: Theorizing mental force in Victorian Britain -- Thinking in the second person in nineteenth-century poetry -- Thinking and knowing in Patmore and Meredith -- Daniel Deronda and the omnipotence of thought -- Conclusion: The ethics of belief and the poetics of thinking about another person.

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