It has been extensively discussed in disciplines like philosophy, politics, and sociology what modernity and post-modernity are. It has been investigated how human thought has changed over time and how it relates to diverse phenomena in related domains. In order to investigate how imagination has influenced culture and creativity throughout history, this article explores John Rundell's book Rethinking Imagination: Culture and Creativity. The book is made up of a number of essential pieces that cover related topics. The literary analysis method is used in this essay to comprehend the key ideas that each author is trying to get through. This method allows a researcher to do an in-depth analysis of the important issues being discussed by the author of a text. The articles in the book try to critique and appraise preceding thinkers on the issue of culture and creativity. The authors also come uo with their own positions based on the critiques and appraisals.
Keywords: imagination, culture, creativity, reason
Book Summary: Rethinking Imagination: Culture and Creativity
Modernity and post-modernity are two phenomena that scholars have identified as overlapping. Apart from the overlapping, some sets of ideas that comprise each phenomenon often counter each other. Other key concepts that have this special relationship include redemption and democracy, apocalypse and progress romanticism and enlightenment, reason and imagination. John Rundell’s book brings together a number of essays that analyse the issues from an imagination viewpoint. In understanding the features of modernity in the society, the authors look at the whole process as differentiation and automation of spheres that are beyond the traditional concepts of what makes up a society. Traditionally, the society was seen as a product of functional division of labour. However, the essays concentrate on the process of pluralization that is often looked into when critiquing culture.
Rundell notes that modernity is a culture born by the attempt of members of the society to obtain a balance between critique and creativity. The current generation is torn between the past and the present. This enriches the culture of the people as they try to adopt ways of life from both times. In the course of the tension between the past and the future, creativity emerges. Creativity is a phenomenon that denotes the unity between life and art. Traditionally, art was considered the relationship between an object and its meaning. This has changed as the two phenomena have been separated and the physical reality of an object in the contemporary world constitutes an interior that is separated from the outside.
The inner authenticity of contemporary art, also referred to as idealization, has led to autonomization of culture. The external differentiation of culture has enabled individuals avoid the conflicts between aspects of life such as religion, politics and the economy. The postmodern critique seems to undermine some of the criteria and conditions through which culture is articulated. Some authors within this era portray post-modernity as the shock of the new that is as a violent discord between modernity and culture. Culture is portrayed as only fashion and manipulation rather than an institutionalized phenomenon. Culture in the post-modern seems to vary between creativity and what is consumed by the general population.
A society of Culture: The Constitution of Modernity by Gyorgy Markus
Modernity is a concept that varies between imagination and culture, making it hard for it to be captured in terms of its influence and impact in the society. The opposing concepts of imagination and reason is what makes the culture modern. Each of this forces have a long history when it comes to their relationship with culture. Acquiring a constructive connection that links reasoning and imagination is important in understanding the concept of culture.
Markus perceives culture as a phenomenon that is conscious on its own and has the ability to know that it exists among many others. Therefore, modernity is a concept that fights for its own survival by distinguishing itself from its competitors. The idea of consciousness of culture is described as ambiguous and split at the same time. Markus agrees that culture is a non-biological behaviour considered from the broader perspective. However, some scholars still feel that culture is what allows individuals to live in the world and act in a manner that allows them to mutually understand each other.
Modern is a term that is simply translated to mean the contemporary, the opposite of the by-gone. The times are defined by their ability to remain up-to-date. Modernity is a force of change which is harnessed and utilized for the benefit of humanity. The notion of culture implies that practices are acceptable if they are perceived as satisfactory. In a society that is socially stratified, certain cultural practices are considered higher than the others if they befit people associated with power, prestige and distinction. Practices that belong to the realms of high culture should be creative in a manner that they become more productive and objective. The result of the high-cultural activities should be socially considered as valuable in themselves even without other socio-practical effects being considered. There is no worldview in contemporary descriptions of culture. The high-cultural practices are given more attention than the rest.
The Apocalyptic Imagination and the Inability to Mourn by Martin Jay
Whenever the calendar changes, some ideas are born while others are destroyed. Individuals are likely to depart from their traditions due to anxiety and expectation that accompanies a new century and millennium. The end of the 20th century was characterized by more energy and vigour. Individuals always imagine that change of calendar must come with radical endings and new beginnings. People feel that something must happen to mark the shift from one century to another. Individuals believed that history is about to come to an end from both a scientific and religious perspective.
Jay considers the apocalyptic imagination as a result of widespread Christianity, especially with the recreation of the nation of Israel. The spread of Christian fundamentalism made many people believe that rebuilding of Israel was a key landmark towards the end of history. Ronald Reagan, in one of his key debates, evoked Armageddon. Many people considered this evocation beyond its metaphoric interpretation. Hall Lindsay’s The Late Great Planet Earth sold about 8 million copies worldwide. The book, and many others that were famous at the time, widely dwelt on the issue of the apocalyptic thought. Towards the end of the 20th century, religious prophets were dwelling more on political signs that and natural indicators of a worldwide disaster. The apocalyptic discourses had a shared moral tone. For instance, the AIDS towards the end of the 20th century was seen as a punishment for sexual immorality.
In the wake of all the apocalyptic discourses, individuals still had to achieve a mental equilibrium at the personal level. The dialectical fantasies drove people into melancholia. The domination of nature in the apocalyptic discourses needed some undoing for individuals to convince themselves that all was well. However, the most valid lesson learnt in the course of the imagination was the need to avoid violating nature. Personification of nature made it look like it had the ability to strike back. When the calendar changed without the dreaded changes in the order of the universe, the wounds created by melancholia healed and the mourning ceased. Therefore, the whole apocalyptic imagination served the mere purpose of ensuring that humanity stays on course.
The Elementary Ethics of Everyday Life by Agnes Heller
According to Heller, discussions on the two types of discourses, theoretical and practical, distracts individuals from the fundamentals of morality and makes the whole issue of ethics a mere kind of knowledge. Ethics is all about the virtues and discussions on the subject should not be on the source of morality. Preliminary questions on what is ideal in ethical behaviour do not have answers and simply distract individuals from moving between knowledge of ethics and putting it into action.
The practical discourse of ethical thinking is circular. One should first appreciate that they have to do what is decent and good. This acceptance sets them on a path to determine what befits them as good and decent. In the pre-modern, taking responsibility was regarded as a response to the question on the right thing to be done. Ethics is considered traditional where older members of the society pass the ideals to younger ones. Modernity requires that all individuals treat every action differently. They should question and test the contents of the moral customs and virtues, including those that are considered traditional, before taking part.
Heller associates the pre-modern with pre-determined absoluteness of gestures. This has shifted in the contemporary society and every person is expected to resolve actions issues at the individual level in order to match their decency. However, it is also important to consider that a person takes responsibility for other people’s judgements, intentions and considerations in some instances because of the monological nature of moral attitude. Individuals desist from perpetrating actions that they would like committed against them. Morality in the modern society has deviated from the ontological pre-givens in an effort to determine universal principles that humanity can agree on.
European Rationality by Nicholas Luhmann
According to Luhmann, most of the aspects of culture that are considered modern have been modelled by the European tradition. Europe has defined universal descriptions of radical transformation of the society’s structure since the Middle Ages. Europe has contributed immensely to development of the concept of rationality. Self-erosion and utopian renewal are the two processes that account for the current European culture. Luhmann notes that though this argument is valid, many authors have merely given a vague appraisal of the whole process due to failure to rationally make a distinction between the European semantics and their counterparts from other parts of the world.
The history of European rationality is characterized by the convergence of being and thought. Appreciating the fact that nature has parts that characterize it and do not require any external points, is the essence of rationality. Human beings devised ways of storing information, especially through printing. This necessitated intense consistency between the ideas with individuals question each other and creating truth wars. This started to change in the 29th century since the value of issues was determined on the basis of pleasure. For instance, economic rationality developed to cure the issues created by nature itself. Unlike the traditional scientific rationality, the new forms were aimed at maximizing the wellbeing of the people. Judicial rationality was formed on the need to maintain consistency in the way laws were applied in the society.
Social aggregation introduced new perspectives to rationality. It has led to deconstruction of systems as individuals share ideas and been seeing issues from a different perspective. The European rationality continuum was characterized by correspondence of thought from one perspective and action and nature on the other. If the environment is orderly, the continuum presumed that the attention of an individual will be directed towards its eventual chaotic nature, which is then considered a mistake. Thought and action are phenomena that explain a kind of logic where human beings make a distinction between positive and negative values. Distinguishing identities in the society is a process that involves creating paradoxes. For a concept to be included in an observation, it must exclude itself from the environment operatively. The differences are what builds up complexity and makes it easily identifiable by the human mind.
Imagination in Discourse and in Action by Paul Ricoeur
Ricouer’s essay examines whether conception of imagination that is based on the notion of semantic innovation can be used outside the discourse in which it was originally conceived. There are classical philosophical problems whose solutions can be used to break the tie between semantic innovation and imagination. This can form a good foundation for further development in the philosophy of imagination.
One of the challenges facing the question posed in the essay is lack of a smooth transition between theoretical and practical spheres. Fiction has often been used to describe an action that has taken place and an individual’s future plan. It has also been used to create the field of intersubjective action. However, transition into the action sphere is usually complicated due to lack of a clear intersection between the theory and practical. The social imaginary is considered as the precursor of the practical function of imagination. Utopia and ideology are two functions that that echo the contradictions and ambiguities that interfere with the smooth transition between semantic innovation and imagination. The contradictions and ambiguities are not only a result of the theory of imagination but also a constitutive phenomenon within them.
Ricouer’s paper dwells on the problems faced in imagination from a philosophical perspective. He notes that there is reasonable misuse on the empirical theory of knowledge. Both linguists and logicians should have the ability to detect these problems, especially those that emerge from lack of distinction between the objective and the ideal sense. Behaviourist psychology is also enjoined in these problems because some mental entities that are unobservable contribute to the larger issue.
Creativity and Judgement: Kant on Reasoning and Imagination by John Rundell
Kant’s work has been utilized broadly as a foundation for self-understanding of modernity. His works give meaning and depth to the concept of reason through cognitivist formulations. He argues that a human being can either choose to be part of nature, just like animals, or go beyond nature by exploiting their reasoning and imagination. Knowledge, belief and opinion exist in a hierarchy and an individual should depend on both subjectivity and objectivity of truth to determine its value.
The central question to Kant’s theory is the unprovable pretensions of truth as alleged by earlier philosophers. Another key issue is the subservient role played by reason in life. Kant’s ideas are aimed at strengthening the practicability of reason based on the existing theoretical philosophy. He insists on the importance to separate the idea of understanding from the concept of reason. There is need to solidify empirical knowledge through understanding. However, this accumulation of knowledge should be done cautiously to prevent the eventual accumulation from being a source of illusion and error.
Reason, Imagination, Interpretation by Johann Arnason
According to Arnason, a good understanding of both reason and imagination can only be obtained if one examines the concepts from a broad cultural perspective. The western culture provides an opportunity to philosophers to look at the two concepts both as self-interpretative and global-constitutive. There is a striking asymmetry between the two concepts being examined. Imagination is one of the most ignored themes in philosophy. However, a closer examination of the concept brings it out as co-existing with consciousness and culture.
There is s structural disagreement between reason and imagination in the modern culture. Shifting from a substantive perception to a procedural one is important for a modern understanding of reason. Both reason and imagination are involved in the process of self-imagination in modernity. They have been explored by the human mind towards achieving autonomy and detaching from atomization by nature.
Civilization is defined as a way in which the world is patterned. It allows individuals to look at the world as a collection of cultures that guide the decision made by human beings rather than being guided by reason and imagination at the personal level. Therefore, perception is recognized as polymorphic and tied to a system rather than an individual. Culture is being interpreted as a paradigm of perception. Other scholars such as Merleau-Ponty tie rationality to language ad institutions within the society.
Radical imagination The Social Instituting Imaginary by Castoriadis.
According to Castoriadis the concept of imagination has not been given the attention that it deserves by philosophers since it was first discussed by Aristotle. Despite being ignored, it is key in philosophy because it can be used to trace sociological, philosophical and political thought through the ages. In Book Three, Aristotle introduces an phatasia that had never existed before that is referred to by the author as prime imagination. It encompasses the idea of searching for the truth rather than an opinion. Animals are more rational than human beings because they do not do anything in vain. Imagination makes human beings more radical as they try to find meaning and the truth even on what may be considered unnecessary, for instance, the attempts by the human being to discover their origin.
Unlike the pre-modern, modernity is characterized by less information and laws on the meaning of the world. Therefore, it is the responsibility of individuals to formulate their own laws, whether at the personal or institutional level. Radical imagination takes place at both the societal and individual level. Imagination takes two paths: psychoanalytical and philosophical. Imagination allows an individual to represent an object in the intuition in its absence. The action is related to sensitivity. By itself, any being has very simple logical functions that represent sensitivities. These perceptions start becoming complex and adulterated as the ideas and views of other people are shared. Therefore, every human being has an initial world that is simpler before their interaction with the rest of the society. The combination of history, ideas from others and self-creation is what leads to more complex thoughts. Individuals collectively contribute towards establishing what is acceptable but cannot question the aggregate because it becomes mentally inconceivable.
Epilogue: Sublime Theories: Reason and Imagination in Modernity
Roberts appreciates that there is a gap in the Kantian analysis of the sublime between reason and imagination. Kant also fails to effectively relate these two phenomena to nature. A good analysis of the conlink between reason and imagination in the modern culture can help scholars to effectively describe the definition of good and evil as self-created concepts in modernity. Romanticism and Enlightenment draws the attention of philosophers to socialization and naturalization as the two sensibilities that can help in explaining the nature of the human being.
Roberts regards man as an autonomous being that makes his own humanity on the basis of reason. Humanity consists of an effort to alienate oneself from the perception that one is a part of the autonomous universe. They can think for themselves and make rational judgements. The process of denaturalizing is regarded as humanization by exploiting the task of reason.
There are distinctions between autonomy as value and project, and self-finality, which is an inherent aspect of a person who lives among the greater society. Individuals live with a certain selective openness for their surroundings. Kant notes that this construct results from the work of imagination and once the for-self actions are transmuted into the society, they seem like external shocks. However, the freedom of imagination in the modern world has replaced a space that was once filled by religion and culture in the pre-modern. Art is a privilege of the modern freedom of imagination. It is simply a presentation of imagination as aesthetic judgement. Kant portrays communication as procedural rationality that allows production of content through knowledge and norms. Morality, unlike knowledge, is centred. Moral action is regarded as a subject matter in morality. However, there are no such direct links between practical and theoretical reason. This supports preliminary questions on ethical behaviour distract the mind from the movement between their knowledge of ethics and action.
Bibliography
Robinson, Gillian, and John F. Rundell, eds. Rethinking Imagination: culture and creativity. Psychology Press, 1994.
