A Theory of Imagining, Knowing, and Understanding


Book Description

This is a book about imaginative work and its relationship with the construction of knowledge. It is fully acknowledged by epistemologists that imagination is not something opposed to rationality; it is not mere fantasy opposed to intellect. In philosophy and cognitive sciences, imagination is generally “delimiting not much more than the mental ability to interact cognitively with things that are not now present via the senses.” (Stuart, 2017, p. 11) For centuries, scholars and poets have wondered where this capability could come from, whether it is inspired by divinity or it is a peculiar feature of human mind (Tateo, 2017b). The omnipresence of imaginative work in both every day and highly specialized human activities requires a profoundly radical understanding of this phenomenon. We need to work imaginatively in order to achieve knowledge, thus imagination must be something more than a mere flight of fantasy. Considering different stories in the field of scientific endeavor, I will try to propose the idea that the imaginative process is fundamental higher mental function that concurs in our experiencing, knowing and understanding the world we are part of. This book is thus about a theoretical idea of imagining as constant part of the complex whole we call the human psyche. It is a story of human beings striving not only for knowledge and exploration but also striving for imagining possibilities.​




Knowledge Through Imagination


Book Description

Imagination is celebrated as our vehicle for escape from the mundane here and now. It transports us to distant lands of magic and make-believe. It provides us with diversions during boring meetings or long bus rides. It enables creation of new things that the world has never seen. Yet the focus on imagination as a means of escape from the real world minimizes the fact that imagination seems also to furnish us with knowledge about it. Imagination seems an essential component in our endeavor to learn about the world in which we live--whether we're planning for the future, aiming to understand other people, or figuring out whether two puzzle pieces fit together. But how can the same mental power that allows us to escape the world as it currently is also inform us about the world as it currently is? The ten original essays in Knowledge Through Imagination, along with a substantial introduction by the editors, grapple with this neglected question; in doing so, they present a diverse array of positions ranging from cautious optimism to deep-seated pessimism. Many of the essays proceed by considering specific domains of inquiry where imagination is often employed--from the navigation of our immediate environment, to the prediction of our own and other peoples' behavior, to the investigation of ethical truth. Other essays assess the prospects for knowledge through imagination from a more general perspective, looking at issues of cognitive architecture and basic rationality. Blending perspectives from philosophy of mind, cognitive science, epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics, Knowledge Through Imagination sheds new light on the epistemic role of imagination.




Imagining and Knowing


Book Description

Works of fiction are works of the imagination and for the imagination. Gregory Currie energetically defends the familiar idea that fictions are guides to the imagination, a view which has come under attack in recent years. Responding to a number of challenges to this standpoint, he argues that within the domain of the imagination there lies a number of distinct and not well-recognized capacities which make the connection between fiction and imagination work. Currie then considers the question of whether in guiding the imagination fictions may also guide our beliefs, our outlook, and our habits in directions of learning. It is widely held that fictions very often provide opportunities for the acquisition of knowledge and of skills. Without denying that this sometimes happens, this book explores the difficulties and dangers of too optimistic a picture of learning from fiction. It is easy to exaggerate the connection between fiction and learning, to ignore countervailing tendencies in fiction to create error and ignorance, and to suppose that claims about learning from fiction require no serious empirical support. Currie makes a case for modesty about learning from fiction -- reasoning that a lot of what we take to be learning in this area is itself a kind of pretence, that we are too optimistic about the psychological and moral insights of authors, that the case for fiction as a Darwinian adaptation is weak, and that empathy is both hard to acquire and not always morally advantageous.




Lost Knowledge of the Imagination


Book Description

The ability to imagine is at the heart of what makes us human. Through our imagination we experience more fully the world both around us and within us. Imagination plays a key role in creativity and innovation. Until the seventeenth century, the human imagination was celebrated. Since then, with the emergence of science as the dominant worldview, imagination has been marginalised -- depicted as a way of escaping reality, rather than knowing it more profoundly -- and its significance to our humanity has been downplayed. Yet as we move further into the strange new dimensions of the twenty-first century, the need to regain this lost knowledge seems more necessary than ever before. This insightful and inspiring book argues that, for the sake of our future in the world, we must reclaim the ability to imagine and redress the balance of influence between imagination and science. Through the work of Owen Barfield, Goethe, Henry Corbin, Kathleen Raine, and others, and ranging from the teachings of ancient mystics to the latest developments in neuroscience, The Lost Knowledge of the Imagination draws us back to a philosophy and tradition that restores imagination to its rightful place, essential to our knowing reality to the full, and to our very humanity itself.




Creativity — A New Vocabulary


Book Description

Creativity — A New Vocabulary proposes a novel approach to the way in which we talk and think about creativity. It covers a variety of topics not commonly associated with creativity that offer us valuable insights and open up new and exciting possibilities for creative action. This second edition includes six new essays which continue to challenge the traditional vocabulary of creativity and its preference for individuals, brains, cognition, personality, divergent thinking, insight, and problem solving. The book proposes a more dynamic and relational perspective that considers creativity as an embodied, social, material, and cultural process. This book will be useful for a wide range of specialists within the humanities and social sciences, as well as practitioners from applied fields who are looking for novel ways, of thinking about and doing creative work.




Qualitative Research and Social Intervention


Book Description

This book presents procedures and research techniques that are based on critical perspectives of Psychology and Education. The content is characterized by innovations on the relationship between the researcher and the investigated context, and it problematizes different perspectives and approaches to the psychological phenomenon proposing new understandings of the subject, the world, the social and the field of investigation itself as a permanent dialectical movement. The book reports to Marxist-based perspectives - especially to Vygotsky's ideas and concepts. Therefore, it assumes the comprehension that in order to understand the phenomenon in its historical dimension it is necessary to put it into motion seeking to access the genesis of the manifestations evidenced at the moment of the investigation. That is, the historicity that characterizes the process of constitution of the human psyche can only be apprehended in its movement, thus, what matters is the process and not the product of its development. Nevertheless, apprehending phenomena in movement is a challenge for researchers interested in human processes within the scope of relationships or practices of professionals and/or subjects of various scenarios, which leads to the need to problematize the different moments of research and their dimension in the theoretical and practical fields. Which methodological techniques or procedures allow the apprehension of the meaning movement produced by the subjects in the investigated scenarios? To what extent does dialectical materialism derived from Marxism support the apprehension and analysis of research information of this nature? What other theoretical-methodological perspectives, related to Cultural-Historical Psychology, offer subsidies to these investigations? The theoretical perspectives based on the Social and Cultural analysis focus on the understandings of collective contexts precisely because of the subject view constituted in the inter-subjective relations that it undertakes - which adds even more complexity to the investigative processes. From this perspective, both the subject and other participants transform themselves during the investigation, such transformation needs to be permanently reflected and included in the research objectives and purposes, in order to follow the movement of the meanings in the expressed phenomenon.




The Cosmos and the Creative Imagination


Book Description

The essays in this book respond to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s recent call to explore the relationship between the evolution of the universe and the process of self-individuation in the ontopoietic unfolding of life. The essays approach the sensory manifold in a number of ways. They show that theories of modern science become a strategy for the phenomenological study of works of art, and vice versa. Works of phenomenology and of the arts examine how individual spontaneity connects with the design(s) of the logos – of the whole and of the particulars – while the design(s) rest not on some human concept, but on life itself. Life’s pliable matrices allow us to consider the expansiveness of contemporary science, and to help create a contemporary phenomenological sense of cosmos.




International Handbook of Psychology Learning and Teaching


Book Description

The International Handbook of Psychology Learning and Teaching is a reference work for psychology learning and teaching worldwide that takes a multi-faceted approach and includes national, international, and intercultural perspectives. Whether readers are interested in the basics of how and what to teach, in training psychology teachers, in taking steps to improve their own teaching, or in planning or implementing research on psychology learning and teaching, this handbook will provide an excellent place to start. Chapters address ideas, issues, and innovations in the teaching of all psychology courses, whether offered in psychology programs or as part of curricula in other disciplines. The book also presents reviews of relevant literature and best practices related to everything from the basics of course organization to the use of teaching technology. Three major sections consisting of several chapters each address “Teaching Psychology in Tertiary (Higher) Education”, “Psychology Learning and Teaching for All Audiences”, and “General Educational and Instructional Approaches to Psychology Learning and Teaching”.




Fundamentals of Cultural Psychology


Book Description

This innovative textbook is the ideal introduction to cultural psychology. It focuses on a holistic approach, which emphasizes that culture is created and shared by minds and society. Organized around short core concept chapters, the book encourages students to think critically about culture and the theories around it. Chapters explore what cultural psychology is and its forms of knowing, how cultural psychology can be used to understand higher psychological functions, and the human psyche as a whole. Each chapter contains definitions of key concepts, real-world examples from everyday human activities, reflection questions, short biographies of key figures relevant to cultural psychology, and chapter summaries. There are also links to video interviews from leading international scholars which provide critical reflections on core concepts in cultural psychology. This is the essential introductory book for students of cultural psychology, as well as cultural studies and anthropology. It will be useful for anyone looking to learn more about the history of ideas, the human mind, and its historical and material relationship with culture.




Understanding Imagination


Book Description

This book discusses that imagination is as important to thinking and reasoning as it is to making and acting. By reexamining our philosophical and psychological heritage, it traces a framework, a conceptual topology, that underlies the most disparate theories: a framework that presents imagination as founded in the placement of appearances. It shows how this framework was progressively developed by thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant, and how it is reflected in more recent developments in theorists as different as Peirce, Saussure, Wittgenstein, Benjamin, and Bachelard. The conceptual topology of imagination incorporates logic, mathematics, and science as well as production, play, and art. Recognizing this topology can move us past the confusions to a unifying view of imagination for the future. ​