Notion Of Imagination Research Articles

Sublime and education: The two sides of Schiller’s esthetics

The article delves into the theme of the sublime in Schiller’s philosophical works, examining its relationship with the esthetical and educational framework outlined in the Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man. In his famous 1795 essay, Schiller’s predominant focus on the beautiful, almost to the exclusion of the sublime, historically led to interpreting the latter as detached from Schiller’s theoretical core on beauty and esthetic education. This study proposes a dialectical and synthetic perspective on the relationship between beauty and the sublime, contributing to a unified view of Schiller’s reflection on esthetic education. First, the article analyzes the role of sensible affects in the transition from Kantian esthetics of the sublime to Schiller’s theory of the tragic. In this metamorphosis, Schiller develops a new notion of imagination, shifting from the Kantian transcendental structure into a faculty of mediation between the sensible and the rational, which will become the cornerstone of the whole experience of beauty in the Aesthetic Education. The analysis concludes by examining Concerning the Sublime, supporting the hypothesis of later dating and considering it as a continuation of the incomplete Aesthetic Education essay. This writing embodies the unity between beauty and the sublime within a single educational project, grounded on the role of imagination in estheticizing the sensible world.

Expanding the Boundaries of Feminist Understanding of Art in the Posthumanist Era: Art and Care

In this article, the characteristics that make a work of art feminist in the posthumanist period will be analysed through artworks in which artists show a specific ort his both the materials of their medium and non-human living and non-living things. In addition, a discussion will be carried out about the fact that when the medium and the material become the work itself in a way that reveals different content and expression potentials, it can be characterised as feminist. This discussion will be addressed through the complex relationship between instrumental reason, which can be defined as the determination of the most effective and efficient means to sustain one’s life and for the benefit of one's material interests, and the concept of patriarchy, which expresses the domination of men over women in the axis of education, employment, domestic labour, wages and care. For this reason, firstly, the positions in feminist art debates, then the conditions of attribution of care to women and the struggles initiated against this, and finally the place of artworks that are shaped within the framework of feminism, care and notions of imagination and that are interested in revealing the autonomy of the material in posthumanism discussions will be explained.

The "unseen land of thought"

Through the construction of their miniature books, the Brontës demonstrate the critical, dynamic relationship between inert matter and the"material imagination," as theorised by French philosopher Gaston Bachelard. To make the books, the children drew on the resourceful things around their home: a range of literary matter that stimulated their imaginations and of paper scraps that they used to materialise it. This essay shows how all four Brontë children selected and creatively refashioned this material into their writing, crafting their own worlds with material and immaterial fragments. It demonstrates how scaling, and the process of miniaturisation were critical to their cognitive understanding, imaginative creativity, and writing practices; and it explains how their childhood imagination became a vital lifelong aspect of their identities that was always entangled with real life. Thus, the Brontës’ child-formed miniature books reflect Bachelard’s notion of imagination and matter awakening individuals to energy and agency.

Notes on an Algorithmic Faculty of the Imagination

Following Bernard Stiegler’s perspective on an ‘originary technicity’, this article explores the relationship between imagination and politics in light of recent developments in neural networks technologies (also known as machine learning algorithms). It examines how this new technology is reshaping the political role and place of human imagination. Furthermore, it uses Vilém Flusser’s terminology to examine to what extent this technology can be understood as a new ‘technical faculty of the imagination’. The first part will argue, following Stiegler and Flusser, for a type of approach to the notion of imagination that challenges the human-technology opposition. The second part will introduce the topic of neural networks technologies using the specific example of algorithmic image recognition systems and then, through the prism of the Kant-Hume debate on the foundations of universal knowledge, it will set three possible perspectives on the question of an algorithmic imagination. The third and final section will return to Flusser to see how the relation between imagination and politics is shifting from a modern and human-centred perspective to a post-historical and post-anthropocentric one.

Imagination as Crisis: Spinoza on the Naturalisation and Denaturalisation of Capitalist Relations

Abstract Many current Marxist debates point to a crisis of imagination as a challenge to emancipatory thoughts and actions. The naturalisation of the capitalist mode of production within the production of subjectivity is among the chief reasons behind this state of affairs. This article contributes to the debate by focusing on the notion of imagination, marked by a deep ambivalence capable of both naturalising and denaturalising social relations constitutive of the established order. Such an understanding of imagination is constructed from within the framework of historical materialism, and it draws on Spinoza and Marx, taking advantage of the similarities between the two with respect to the constitution of the subject. From this stems an investigation into the imagination as a material force that partakes both in subjection and liberation. This is further demonstrated in regard to juridical forms of subjectivation and the possibility of subverting these forms through imagination.

PEDAGOGICAL IMAGINATION. INTERDISCIPLINARY SOURCES AND AN OUTLINE OF THE CONCEPT

The paper explores the concept of pedagogical imagination in relation to three major sources of theoretical influence – ethnography, sociology and history. It makes the attempt to combine them and investigate how the notion of imagination might be used in pedagogy and the study of education in general. It raises the issue of subjectivity and puts it in the context of emergence of new forms of qualitative analysis in contemporary pedagogy. This new form of scientific inquiry and new analytical questions that arise along are related to the problem of experience. The paper also makes an attempt to highlight the significance of experience in gaining a deeper insight into the ways people shape their own educational experiences. When speaking of experience in the educational space, especially within the school reality, we might point out the subjectified forms of participation in those areas of public life. The stressed out in the text and combining mentioned types of imagination forms of living the participation in what is usually objectified and institutionalized field of education, upbringing, schooling systems and various educational policies implemented in schools requires nevertheless a critical approach towards the effects of functioning of those domains in the social praxis, a step which is typical for the aforementioned disciplines. To paraphrase Bruno Latour, today we need to reformulate what is social in the categories typical to the emic analysis natural to ethnography rather than to sciences which use tools promising maximum objective insight into reality.

Neuroimaging. How to Question Scientific Images and Their Artistic Value

Unquestionable holders of aesthetic content, images have a well-known role even in conveying scientific knowledge. In the present work, we focus on the epistemological role of images within neuroscience. We first analyze the concepts of representation, similarity, and informativeness. Second, we discuss relevant case-studies, i.e., images by functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and how the pictorial interventions commonly applied on them might have an impact on their informational content. Finally, we explore the notion of imagination as a relevant faculty for modelling neuroscientific theories and the concept of creativity as an instrument to aesthetically modify brain images. These manipulations enable images to achieve the scientific purpose, altering the relation of similarity between the image and the studied phenomenon. In conclusion, this process leads to rethinking the role of the neuroscientist as an active observer.

Da imagem ao imaginário passando pela imaginação: algumas reflexões sobre literatura e cinema

This essay takes the concept of image as a point of reflection and, through the notions of imagination and imaginary, seeks to analyze it through the confrontation between literature and cinema. The aim is to establish some of the premises that allow for a further dialogue on how, in contemporary times, such a concept is perceived, transfigured and enhanced, seeking to enquire about the impact and the implications which are present in a culture of image and «web», both in terms of aesthetic reception and acquisition of knowledge.

Imagination and Fancy in Conservative Discourse: The Issues of Translation

Not uncommon for Russian translations of British philosophical classics is the problem of not conveying the notions of imagination and fancy properly. The purpose of this paper is to serve as a reminder of the fact that concepts of fancy and imagination began to grow apart as early as the first part of 18 th century, and it is necessary to treat them accordingly for the translation to be correct. Very soon, the notion of imagination and the distinction between imagination and fancy began to be involved in the contemplation of political reality. Today it is the notion of political imagination that attracts researchers the most, providing a tool for explaining continuity and discontinuities in political process as well as left utopianism and conservative nostalgia. The awareness of the distinction between imagination and fancy could foster research activity in such fields as the history of ideas and intellectual history as well as studies in ideology and power. The distinction is examined on the basis of texts usually considered to be written by authors of conservative strand. It is an interesting fact, indeed, that it was conservatives who made the main contribution to the development of this distinction in English-language philosophy. Among them are Coleridge, who resolutely draw the line between fancy and imagination, and Burke with his appeal to the moral imagination. The kindred typology of imagination was proposed in 20 th century by such thinkers as Irving Babbitt, T.S. Eliot and Russell Kirk. The importance of Kirk lies partly in that fact that he began the discussion of the conservative attitude to imagination and tried to frame it as a coherent narrative.

The Sympathetic Imagination: Smithian Insights About Human Sociality

Caring for others than oneself has gone from being a puzzle to becoming a stylized fact in the field of experimental economics. The question that has yet to be answered is how? How do people evolve the concerns for others? What is the bridging mechanism between people’s separateness? By focusing on the textual interpretation of the imagination in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, I propose that Adam Smith’s notion of imagination is the mechanism by which the Smithian sympathy operates and through which social concerns are acquired. Though sympathy has for the longest time been the locus of Smith’s moral theory, the attentive reader can notice that sympathy is for Smith sometimes the product, a fellow-feeling, and sometimes the process by which people learn to achieve correspondence between another’s sentiments. Smith’s methodology works by way of asserting that self-love is not entirely different from caring for others. Rather, it is the imagination that directs sympathy in different directions; first toward others and then toward ourselves. Smith articulates a theory that is based on convergence whereby people learn how to balance the sympathy they have for themselves with the sympathy for others. Convergence is based on an imaginative exchange of sentiments, rendering other-regarding conduct neither innate nor stable.

“My Soul’s Imaginary Sight”: renaissance poetics and the notion of imagination

Nos séculos XVI e XVII, o significado conceitual de “imaginação” atrelava-se sobretudo à teoria aristotélica da phantasia, traduzida como imaginatio, em latim, e amplamente discutida em tratados sobre poesia e retórica. Neste artigo, propõe-se explorar brevemente algumas ideias relativas à especificidade histórica da noção de “imaginação” na poética renascentista, com vistas a evitar as abordagens transistóricas da poesia e de sua interpretação. Para tanto, serão comentados trechos específicos dos tratados The Defense of Poetry (1595), de Philip Sidney, Advancement of Learning (1605), de Francis Bacon, bem como algumas passagens das obras de William Shakespeare.

Ways of Imagining: A New Interpretation of Sartre’s Notion of Imagination

Ways of Imagining: A New Interpretation of Sartre’s Notion of Imagination

La imaginación en el contexto de la imagen digital. Notas acerca de la tecno-imaginación

El artículo reflexiona acerca de las transformaciones que la noción de imaginación ha tenido a lo largo del contexto clásico, moderno y contemporáneo. Para esto, se plantea la hipótesis en la que el despliegue de la órbita productiva y material de la sociedad, ha trasnformado las estructuras mentales de los sujetos en lo relativo a la actividad imaginativa. Se enfatiza la necesaria consideración del concepto de imaginación a la luz del contexto de la imagen digital. El texto propone una análisis general de nuestro contexto productivo, identificando a la matriz informática-digital como una manifestación determinante al momento de pensar en una noción actual del concepto de imaginación, la idea contemporánea de sujeto y una noción crítica en torno a la representación. Finalmente, se reflexiona acerca del impacto que la profusión exponencial de aparatos tecnológicos-digitales tiene al interior del problema propuesto, sugiriendo la necesidad de nuevos planteamientos críticos en torno a la cualidad imaginativa del sujeto, entendiendo sta última como una disposición política posible al interior del contexto de la imagen digital.

On Walking and Thinking: Two Walks across the Page

On Walking and Thinking: Two Walks across the Page

Imagining new materials: Design as puzzle-solving

How important is the imagination in the design and creation of new and innovative materials, and how can it be developed through formative processes? What happens when the real world becomes distinct from our imagination of it and what are the implications of such a rupture? These questions are considered with reference to a case study in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology, which is examined with a focus on social relations, and formative processes in particular, emphasizing how these relations contribute to the creation–design of new materials. The author also examines the notion of imagination, focusing on its importance in the design of nanomaterials, which she conceptualizes as analogous to puzzle-solving. Two further examples enable us to reflect on different approaches through which the imagination might be understood and how the above questions can contribute to a rethinking of the hylomorphic and textility of making models.

Jonathan Culler: Teoría, literatura y la posibilidad de la crítica

Este ensayo examina el modo en que Jonathan Culler aborda el problema de la posibilidad de la crítica y del papel de la literatura en la realización de esta posibilidad en el contexto postmoderno de cuestionamiento de la verdad. Se prestará especial atención a la trilogía Literary Theory. A Very Short Introduction (1997), The Literary in Theory (2007) y Theory of the Lyric (2015) donde Culler propone el retorno a lo literario sin olvidar las aportaciones de la teoría.Culler defiende la capacidad de la literatura de sustraerse a la determinación de la ideología. En su defensa de esta capacidad se hace sentir tanto la herencia de la estética – la concepción de la imaginación como juego libre de la determinación de las circunstancias materiales y la idea de la conciliación del particular y el universal – como del giro lingüístico. Veremos el alcance de esta posibilidad comparando la textualidad general derrideana, que Culler suscribe, con la “idéalinguisterie”, neologismo acuñado por Alain Badiou para referirse a la reducción de toda realidad a discurso. Concluiremos señalando en qué medida la falta de una teoría de la verdad fuerte impide a Culler ir más allá de la posibilidad de substraerse a la ideología.

Manipulative imagination: how to move things around in mathematics

In the first part of the paper, previous work about embodied mathematics and the practice of topology will be presented. According to the proposed view, in order to become experts, topologists have to learn how to use manipulative imagination: representations are cognitive tools whose functioning depends from pre-existing cognitive abilities and from specific training. In the second part of the paper, the notion of imagination as “make-believe” is discussed to give an account of cognitive tools in mathematics as props; to better specify the claim, the notion of “affordance” is explored in its possible extension from concrete objects to representations.

Imaginary Analogies: Commentary on G.E.R. Lloyd's ‘Fortunes of Analogy’

ABSTRACTIn this commentary I suggest that a comparative investigation of Ancient psychological notions may contribute to Professor Lloyd's project of understanding the role that analogy plays in human reasoning. In particular, I propose that the Greek notion of imagination (phantasia) may serve as a starting point. I argue that, because in Platonic and Aristotelian thought the ultimate object of knowledge is form (eidos), thinkers working in this paradigm were obliged to introduce a faculty mediating between the senses and the intellect. This is the imagination. Some of the problems associated with Greek conceptions of imagination carry over to the use of analogy. I suggest that because Chinese thought had a very different approach to images (in part based on a long history of reception of the Yijing) and a different approach to the object of knowledge, they did not need to forge a conception of a specific faculty of imagination and were thus in a position to exploit analogies in a way which was rather different from Greeks.

"tradition de l'innovation"? Réflexion à partir du corrélat innovation/créativité en DDL

Can we say that innovation has become a "tradition” in Language Didactology and Didactics? Then what hides behind this race for innovation, assuming a constant improvement? We develop here a possible interpretation of this phenomenon through the study of correlated innovation and creativity, starting from its historical and epistemological foundations, which reveals a prevailing "technical” vision of languages and of language appropriation, and which shows more broadly an intention to control human relationships. Finally, we will outline another possible direction where tradition would be a heuristic tool, especially for teacher training, leading to language didactics that deal with appropriation processes, based on the notions of imagination and relationship (vs. creativity, innovation and efficiency).

Imagining the Given and Beyond

Imagination is crucial to Joseph Margolis’ philosophy: he addresses its significance for the experience of works of art and, more importantly, he portrays it as constitutive of human reality itself. I explicate these claims and define Margolis’ notion of imagination vis-à-vis Jean-Paul Sartre’s, whose own conception of imagination Margolis rejects. Studying Margolis and Sartre in relation to each other illuminates crucial differences between their positions and highlights the different commitments that underlie their philosophical anthropology as a whole. In the conclusion of this paper, I argue that there are in fact certain affinities between their positions and suggest that we think of the problem of imagination meta-philosophically, as a problem that guides philosophical thought in its various attempts to define the human.