Does Imagination Play a Role in Philosophy?
Of course there's the classic analytic vs. continental dichotomy. Maybe it's not a total analogue to my question, though. Another way of saying it would be: does imagination play a role in the process of seeking after the truth? Then a clarifying question would be: can philosophy be considered "seeking after the truth", or no?
Comments (83)
Imagination seems to me to be the dynamic medium in which and along which all of our other facilities flow, how we synthesize reason & experience.
So yes.
If thought is referential, then all thought is at the very least a capacity to think of something else, and to think of something else is to imagine it.
For example, a thought of infinity might not just be the use of the word but also an evoked experience, by which infinity is imagined as something without a beginning and without an end. In this sense, I think, imagination plays a major role in thought, including philosophy and a search for truth.
What is an example of thought in which imagination does not play a major role? I'd say obscure thought or expression tends to inhibit the possibility to imagine and arrive at conclusions. It pushes you to blindly invent your own interpretations, or comply to what some alleged expert tells you to think. Some continental "theory" is covertly authoritarian in this way.
Quoting Noble Dust Also the nature of philosophy is a philosophical question, e.g. whether it is the search after the truth, therapeutic contemplation, or love of wisdom. I believe that the latter is the generally accepted definition.
Quoting jkop
In ancient philosophy 'seeking after the truth' was one of the first definitions, so it has attained rather more prominence than it should now. Philosophical truth in the current era is rather formally defined as the property of a statement--or derived from a statement--or a natural quality that is necessarily inherent in a statement-- or some other association to a statement, depending on one's epistemology. I just wrote something on this yesterday, defining three basic forms of truth, and the consequences, as follows. I apologize for its laxity, I only just formulated it.
{1}Tautological truths within formal systems, such as mathematical equations. These are established by syntactic consistency with core axioms. The core axioms themselves describe the formal systems, and so truths at this level are necessarily true, in accordance with first-order formal logic. These systems can be extended to create propositional logic, which defines rules of deduction and inference without introducing meaningfulness and causality.
{2}Empirical truths, which are determined via ratification by observation of material states and events, as long as the propositions describing material states and events are logically coherent. If the observation verifies the proposition, then the RESULT of the observation is factually true, but the proposition itself without empirical ratification remains a proposition that is neither true nor false, and is simply a statement. The specific and exact nature of truth itself depends not on facts, but on the epistemological factors relating the proposition to the material world in different metaphysical systems, most predominantly in the theories that define the relation of subject and predicate to objects, states, and events in the physical world. These theories add semantics (the meanings of words) to the syntactic relationships described in first-order logic.
{3}Causal truths, which again first must be consistent within first-order formal logic, and secondly must not contain any causal fallacies as defined in second-order formal logic. These are the most complicated forms of truth, and the basis of science. They are the most complicated because causal relationships cannot ever be proven necessarily true. They can only be proven not to be false. That distinction remains one of the least understood aspects of truth in the current world, because causality is so often claimed yet logical errors in statements of causal truth are so frequent. The metaphysical factors of causality are better understood if they are known to exist, but only a small number of people even know that there are metaphysical factors involved. Those who do know the metaphysical factors understand that the relation of the subject and predicate's in the cause, to the subject and predicate of the result, is an abstraction that can be very complex.
While these are the *basic* forms of truth, the truth of many statements rely on combining two or more these forms together. For example, most commonly believe they know that the sun will rise tomorrow. This is based on empirical observations of many prior days where the sun did rise, leading to the simple second-order deduction that it will rise again tomorrow. Logically, one cannot know whether the belief is true that the sun will rise tomorrow until after the event has occurred. But in most cases, when sufficient empirical validation of many prior similar events has occurred, it is loosely assumed true that the same future event will occur again in the same circumstance. This 'axiom of probabilistic certainty' is the foundation of prediction in much scientific theory.
Beyond that, there are some other very specific forms of truth in philosophy. For example, there are 'self-generating' truths in linguistics, such as promises, statements of intent, contracts, and some statements of belief, which all become existent by their own statement. One should be aware these kinds of truth have limitations. For example, after making promises, it becomes true that promises were made, but the truth of the promise itself remains an indirect proposition, and still must be determined within the rules for the three basic forms of truth described above.
I'd say 'Of course'. We use imagination to generate examples, concoct problem cases, conduct thought-experiments, invent novel arguments and probably in of most of the things philosophers do.
https://books.google.com/books?id=b-g_yf7kVeIC
That's an interesting definition (it sparks my imagination), but it's not the way I would describe it. I see that as one function among others that imagination performs. I think of the imagination of children; the ability to be ridiculous. The artist Makoto Fujimura, who's painting "Walking On Water" is in my avatar, says that imagination and creativity are gratuitous. He's willfully repurposing that word here (repurposing being an action that artists regularly perform; philosophers seem to dread it). In other words, imagination serves no utilitarian purpose. I would amend that to say that imagination is not confined by a utilitarian purpose, and as such is free to serve any purpose, including the ones you describe. But fundamentally, it's completely free and not bound by anything.
Quoting jkop
What's an example?
Quoting jkop
That's just the literal etymology of the word, though. It's prosaic to assume that that's what it has to mean now. The meanings of words change, which is beautiful and an important thing to embrace.
Quoting ernestm
Can you explain your reasoning here? Are you saying that the fact that it was one of the first definitions means it shouldn't be such a prominent way to define it now? If so, you'll need to explain why that is.
Quoting ernestm
This makes no sense.
I also see no need to go into such detail on what exactly truth is, and the perceived many shades of it. Nikolai Berdyaev says "pure undistorted truth burns up the world". Your thoughts on truth aren't burning up the world.
Quoting yazata
True, but I've seen so many horrible straw mans and uselessly unrealistic theoretical scenarios dreamed up by philosopher types. It seems to me a gross misuse of a stunted imagination when I see it. And this is an example:
Quoting andrewk
I would say so, but it's important to understand the meaning of 'imagination' appropriately. Not as merely a kind of day-dreaming or imagining scenes or stories, but of dwelling within a realm of ideas. Some of those ideas can be represented pictorially but others can only be intuited and depicted symbolically.
I read the collective biography of The Inklings last year, the group which included Tolkien and C S Lewis. Surely both The Lord of the Rings and Narnia are imaginative masterpieces. But both authors were deeply immersed in the 'imaginaire' of the realms they were creating, through life-long immersion in the languages, tropes and mythic lore of Europe. Tolkien was a lectured in old Icelandic, Middle English, and many other subjects - his workload was tremendous. But more than that, he was able to intuitively create an entire kingdom replete with its own languages, creatures, and histories.
Of course Lord of the Rings was not philosophy; but Tolkien wouldn't have wanted anything to do with what was taught as 'philosophy' at Oxford and Cambridge where he lived and taught. He disdained the modern world and the state of Western culture; indeed I read the other day that the all-seeing eye of Sauron is a metaphor for today's scientific materialism.
So to craft his story Tolkien had to create imaginary worlds, but, like the great myths, these imaginary realms convey ideas which can't be communicated in quotidian and analytical terms; 'myths truer than history', I have heard it said.
I think that is why so much of what is called philosophy nowadays is a specialist lexicon which is comprehensible only to those who are admitted into its professional ranks. Because the conception of truth has shrunken to the merely utilitarian or technical, then there is no requirement for any kind of imaginative leap, only the kinds of technical linguistic skills employed by professionals such as scientists and accountants, albeit with no external reference beyond what the peer group validates as appropriate to the discipline.
Whereas I think the last of the idealist philosophers, Hegel and Schopenhauer were tremendously imaginative in their respective ways, as their philosophy demanded re-imagining the nature of what we think we know about life - which after all was the real purpose of philosophy at the outset.
But I think the fancy of daydreaming or imagining stories is the very basis for all artistic work, or at least all pure artistic work. Artistic creation involves that gratuitousness that I mentioned earlier via Fujimura. The distinction though, and maybe the distinction you're making, is that that fanciful element isn't the end but merely a means. The childlike quality of imagination becomes a problem when we stay there and refuse to apply it further (in short: refuse to continue to use our imaginations). A childlike imagination should never be an excuse to tune out the harsh realities of the real world. But the untested courage of the child, the assumed trust of the good and of right action of the child, is something that we often lose when we reach adulthood, and therefore something that we should strive to regain or reimagine within the context of adulthood.
Quoting Wayfarer
I haven't read it (which book?), but I'm very familiar with the lives and works of Tolkien, Lewis, Barfield, Williams, and to a lesser extent Sayers. I can't remember who else was occasionally a member, off the top of my head.
Quoting Wayfarer
Indeed, Tolkien more than anyone else in the group took this approach. It's an interesting topic at hand, as I'm just finishing up a re-reading of The Lord of the Rings. I'm currently slogging through the over-long ending.
Quoting Wayfarer
Do you have a link? My impression of Tolkien is that he eschewed all attempts at allegory or direct metaphor in his work. I guess, if my impression is in fact accurate, you can take it with a grain of salt, as you should with the words of any artist.
Quoting Wayfarer
Right. On a more technical level, though, my understanding is that Tolkien was responding to the lack of a fleshed out "myth" of the English people, as opposed to the especially Greek, and somewhat the Roman myths with all of their detail and narrative. So, apparently the entire world he created was a pet project of sorts to imagine what a mythical English prehistory would be. Which comes full circle to my admonishment that fantastical, childlike forms of creativity can be valuable. I can't think of a more anti-utilitarian form of creativity than making up an entire world of English mythology simply because it doesn't actually exist in reality.
Quoting Wayfarer
I agree completely.
My reticence about 'day dreaming' is probably more a reflection on the unending series of CGI-based 'superhero' movies from Hollywood which are generally devoid of meaning - science fantasy. They're not always so - I think to give credit where it's due, Star Wars has tried to incorporate proper mythological ideas, as is well known, Lucus drew heavily on Hero with a Thousand Faces for the initial story. There are some great sci-fi movies, but also a lot of empty ones.
I can't recall where I read that idea about Sauron, but I'll trawl through my internet history when I get home. Oh, I remember now - it was in a Catholic essay on the evils of modernity. I'll find it somewhere.
Thanks for the link.
Quoting Wayfarer
i would view that type of fantasy as a watered down form of the likes of Tolkien, et al. Not to keep tooting the Tolkien horn, but my understanding is that he was more or less one of the first to bring a fantastical fantasy world into the mainstream, and especially with such precision. After him, I'm not really aware of anyone who's topped his vision. Not that it's a competition. But so far, other works have been fairly derivative, it seems. It's also slightly ironic, because Tolkien is not a great writer. He has flashes of brilliance in his writing craft, but it's clear when reading LotR what his academic focus was (all his intense research into myth and linguistics). But he also seems to have had the natural poetic genius about him; it was just less exercised.
Quoting Wayfarer
Right, when it comes to fantasy and sci-fi, these are very new genres of fiction and cinema that pretty much are a product of the last 100 years or so. But childlike imagination is different from these artistic genres, I think. There may be analogues, but the seemingly limitless imagination of a child is more in line with the best of adult artists, regardless of genre, I think. There's an element in artistic creation that involves the ridiculous, the unheard-of, and the seemingly impossible. And to tie it back to my discussion topic, how might these aspects of artistic creation apply to a philosophical perspective? Or do they even need to?
Andrew, I was only the other day thinking the very same. Of course the notion has been taken up by logicians, who would require any given world to be defined in some way, and literalists, who can't make the leap into an imagined world without deciding it has to be there.
That's exactly what the book I mentioned said. What a labour, though - took him 40 years to write it.
Quoting Noble Dust
I think in classical culture, there was relationship between art, literature, and philosophy, but that since Nietszche (not simply because of Nietszche, he was in some ways simply a bellwether), the idea sounds hopelessly nostalgic and out of date. Our age is wrestling with the whole issue of meaning and its lack, the possibility that the Universe is really just fluke; so that myths have that meaning that the flatland of modernity grants them, an edifying absence of reality.
Nietszche, God and Doomsday, Henry Bayman.
I'm definitely seeking after wisdom, of which 'the truth' may or may not form an important part.
On the Uni course I'm currently on I attended a lecture course on 'Imagination' for pleasure. In the analytic world this rather surprisingly means examining the artistic/creative imagination and puzzling over fictionality and aesthetics.
I'm interested in the notion (which I think would be Continental but there you go) that there are different *kinds* of imaginative world, overlapping, but broadly understandable in their divisions. Then the sort of thing that Wayfarer is arguing against would be the result of philosophers becoming preoccupied with 'the scientific imagination', and mistaking the ideas in that imaginative sphere for the totality of ideas, or at least for an unthought-through predominance.
I think then one could postulate 'the religious imagination', 'the artistic imagination', 'the historical imagination' and 'the political imagination' (in the way that Landru in our old forum would describe various 'discourses'), together with whatever others one desires to discourse about, without insisting that a scientific view predominates. I trust that Streetlight and Pierre-Normand can explain that various French people have been thinking this way for some time :)
Earlier I posted a book by Sartre, who also accepted such definitions, and who believed that imagination is the basis of phenomenological knowledge. Note that it is knowledge, not truth, that Sartre was talking about. Truth is the result of evaluating the validity of a proposition, and the sum of known propositions by any one person constitutes their knowledge.
Truth may be the result of evaluation, but back at logic, that would be quite different from validity. One can make a valid argument and end with up with false conclusions; to be valid and true, you need soundness, the successful transmission of the truth-value you hope you started with.
It seems at least apparently on one level that you are looking at kinds of imagination, not imagination itself. The "imagination of children", the "imagination and creativity" of the artist. Yes, I think these are related and that they share aspects of what is meant by having an imagination. Whether or not our imagination has a purpose or not, I think is closer to question of what constitutes the imagination.
I look at Makoto Fujimua's "Walking On Water" and I think how watercolors behave. If you put pigment on a brush and then brush it on to very wet paper, the pigments 'explodes' on the surface the way it does on Fujimua's work. The explosion of color, creates what we see, it has a sudden quality to itself, reminds me of how a film's latent image 'magically' appears when you put it in a tray of developer.
Imagination brings sense and intellect together, it is the 'medium' of our interaction with the senses. The imprint of a sense experience on the memory is recalled, how pigment behaves on wet paper, along with its 'explosive' behavior is recalled and reimagined. There is no reason why the paint walks on water the way it does, similarly a work of art does not have a reason beyond itself, a purpose beyond what it is.
The recollection and re-imagining of our experiences is basic to how we experience and make sense of the world. Imagination does not have a reason, it is a functional part of what it means to reason, it expresses the movement from sensing to understanding, it is movement of thought regardless of its truth or falsity, its utility or gratuity, its seriousness or its "ability to be ridiculous".
That is a very good observation and an excellent post.
Yes, name an abstract concept that is not a bodily feeling or sense that can even be postulated without making use of the imagination. The term "reason" itself is a case in point. Philosophically, the imagination is primary not derivative.
Thank you, I think that's a good correction.
Can you explain further? How could wisdom and truth be so far apart that one might not necessarily be connected to the other? What makes wisdom wise if not truth? What makes truth true if not wisdom?
Quoting mcdoodle
Yup...
Quoting mcdoodle
Yes, I'm very interested in this too. This gets very close to the heart of what I'm trying to understand. But, I don't think of it in terms of overlapping divisions. That to me is just an abstraction that makes the confusing aspects of imagination convenient. Imagination is primary. So, a "scientific imagination", as you say, is a derivation of imagination generally.
Quoting mcdoodle
I appreciate your last sentence here about not insisting that a scientific view needs dominate; but in relation to what I just said, I don't see these different "forms" of imagination as being necessary. They sound to me like theoretical postulations that don't have any grounding in the real imagination as experienced. The imagination as experienced is absolutely fluid. It's not categorical at all. Assigning categories to imagination is just a function of human reason trying to give meaning to the imaginative experience. So it's an interpretation, not an actual accurate expression of the experience. The real experience of imagination is an experience of generation, of creation; so by definition, it doesn't avail itself to any invented categories.
And this goes back to my critique of . So, within the context of truth, imagination is not a subsidiary of truth, rather, imagination gives birth to truth, because imagination is primary. And so these categories of truth that have been concocted by humans are not a primary form of truth, but just an abstraction based on an inability to grasp imagination as a primary function that gives birth to primal truth.
Would philosophers bat it around back and forth like a proud cat who captured and killed a mouse?
Would we leave it on the porch and go seeking after more?
Can you imagine?
Imagination is absolutely necessary in philosophy. It's necessary for thought too I reckon... Otherwise we would just exhibit basic reactions to basic stimulus, like so many uninteresting animals...
Right, this ties in to the problem of specialization. The way thought is moving right now is towards more and more precise splinterization of specific disinclines. This leads to deeper and deeper isolation between not only professional disciplines, but ways of thinking about the world. And ways of thinking about the simplest concepts, like "truth".
Quoting ernestm
I do appreciate you listing your definitions, and I'm sorry if it came off otherwise. Any contribution is welcome. But, first of all, this thread is primarily about imagination. Second of all, when it comes to the concept of truth, I take a less philosophical and more a religious perspective. I can't think of a plainer way to describe it, and I'm having trouble thinking of adequate ways of describing my thoughts on truth to you in general (partially because it's 4am). I think truth is intuitive, and tied up with imagination in that way; in other words, in the way that imagination is primary in our thinking, so too truth is tied up with that primacy. Imagination, the human ability to see within the mind, and then bring the thing seen into reality...this, in a sense, is real truth. What is truth if not a form of reality solely dependent on the human mind itself? And what is the primary function of the human mind? The imagination.
So no, I don't want to find your expression of truth to be wrong, I just intuit it as insufficient.
Wait, but that's exactly what I was making an argument against. I'm making an argument against kinds of imagination. When I talk about functions of imagination, I'm talking about, for instance, things I can do with my hand. I can pick up, I can throw, I can hold, I can drop. But all with my hand. My hand is imagination; the various actions I perform with my hand are the kinds, as you're calling them. But they're all things that the hand does. All things that the imagination does. So, the imagination of the artist or the child, these are all functions or actions, not kinds. The reason I have a problem with kinds is that it suggests an actual difference; a real difference.
Quoting Cavacava
I can see this in my mind and entertain the possibility, but I never think of imagination as a "medium", and this is something I see on philosophy forums in general, and I can't reconcile it. A medium is something in which something else is passed. But imagination is the something that needs being passed. Or rather, the idea that imagination brings into being is the something. So in that sense, maybe it is a medium. But not the same medium you're describing.
Quoting Cavacava
I disagree. See my problems with the discussion here on truth. If a work of art truly does not have a meaning beyond itself, then it is, necessarily, meaningless.
Quoting Cavacava
Now here I tentatively agree; I make the distinction between art and imagination. I tie imagination back to Berdyaev's concept of freedom, which is utterly boundless, similar to Bohme's ungrund. Imagination is almost...a function of freedom. Don't quote me on that. But there is a connection there. Thanks for your thoughts, Cavacava, they're very stimulating.
Quoting Baden
Yes.
Your question seems to suggest that no one has. I disagree with that assumption.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
No, they wouldn't know it if it batted them in the eye.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Again, the philosophical perspective seems to subjugate imagination to reason. And I've already said, as have others in this thread, but I guess this is where I need to make it clear: I think imagination is primary. Imagination is not a tool for philosophers to use when convenient. Imagination is the genesis of philosophical thought.
I guess I'm causing a slight distortion in my discussion of this topic. I've seen in the past the attempt to subjugate imagination to various philosophical schools, as happens to be convenient. So I do agree with you, then, that it's the genesis of all thought. But even here (and this is where I've neglected until now to make the distinction), I'm cautious, because it still seems to me that you're labeling imagination as the genesis, but only the genesis. Perhaps I'm wrong? I still get the sense that imagination is primary, but only a seed, if you will, that gives birth, necessarily, to something else ("reason", for instance). And this is where I disagree. I see imagination as not only the genesis of all thought, or as "primary", but as continually that genesis, through all other forms of thought, up until the realization of "Truth". Imagination, actually, is tied to Eternity. It's not a part of evolution, or a part of how we perceive time, but rather a constant throughout any process.
I do feel minimalist or 'deflationary' about this truth business. We are what we do, so wisdom for me is something to do with right action. After recent personal explorations of Aristotle I'd say this can come in (a) a practical form, phronesis or practical reason being about right action, and (b) a thoughtful form, sophia or contemplative wisdom being about right thinking. This 'rightness' is not an ethic I would press upon others, it's right for me, though I might recommend the process of arriving at it to others.
I don't feel this relates to 'truth' in anything more than an ordinary language fashion, in my own imagination.
Quoting Noble Dust
I am thinking about different aspects of the imagination as having different aspects because they are different language-games in which different things matter and we think differently.
Example one. I've been wondering about the basis of the philosophy of language lately, with a view to a serious project, and why there is such a gulf between mainstream philosophy of language and speech act theory. It might be, on my model, that where people think of language as related to logic, formality and truth-conditions they are talking about language as it relates to the 'scientific image', and where people think of language as related to dialogue and speech acts they are talking about language as it relates to the 'manifest image'. (To use Sellars' terminology)
This gives us two 'images' to 'imagine', to start with. Then - having been a struggling artist most of my life - I would certainly like to add artistic imagination. I am struck by how poorly critical analytic language relates to the practice of art. Clever practitioners can bridge the gap, but often critics of art and explicators of art-practice seem to be talking different languages.
These are the lines I'm thinking on!
So, wisdom has to do with actuality then? And truth has nothing to do with actuality?
I disagree with Aristotle here; why should contemplative wisdom only be "about" right thinking? What's the point of contemplative wisdom if it doesn't apply to action? We are what we do, as you say. So, in that case, what we "are" only applies to our practical reason, using Aristotle's concepts. Wisdom necessarily plays no role in action in this scenario. This is totally unnecessary and foolish.
Quoting mcdoodle
What does this even mean?
Quoting mcdoodle
Now here I'm with you, as a fellow struggling artist. This is a topic I was addressing somewhat in earlier posts. And I don't think you need to feel like you would "certainly like to add artistic imagination" to the scenario. I would encourage you to embrace your experience as an artist as primary in understanding imagination itself. Trust yourself. As an artist, your imagination is the primary mode of your thinking. Embrace that, instead of sabotaging yourself into thinking you need to come up with some other way of thinking in order to understand that very part of yourself that is so primary.
I didn't say it had 'nothing to do with actuality', no. The wisest way to act in actuality is with the best possible knowledge, related to context. I will use the word 'true' in talking to people as much as the next person, I should think. But I don't use the word 'truth' as having a Capital Letter implicit in it, if that's what you mean.
Well, to be fair to Aristotle, I think he does think contemplative wisdom just *is* right thinking, though its nature is obscure: my recent tutor suggested that the gods discussed quadratic equations all day, for Ari's gods haven't got Platonic perfection to discuss, so what on earth can they talk about?
Quoting Noble Dust
I don't respond well to questions like that, but indeed, such a remark demonstrates that even in talking about 'truth' none of us can resist a rhetorical trick or two. What I meant was, I don't try and proselytize about my personal ethics. I do, however, in the political arena, campaign as a Green, because I think an ecological approach would be a better way forward than either the course we're on, or the other options on offer.
I was mostly a playwright, and I think this has greatly contributed to a pluralism of view at the heart of me. I distrust the effort to unify ideas that don't look unifiable to me. Sometimes a scientific approach is best; sometimes an artistic approach is best; sometimes a political one. Univocalism emerged, to my mind, from monotheism, and as I'm a hardline (though pro-religious) atheist, I don't see the need for it. Chasing after a theory of everything, for instance, feels like building pointless castles in the air to me. Trying to unify ways of thinking which I find it useful to separate doesn't help me, I'm afraid. I like having different aspects of me :)
I really don't see what capitalization of the word 'truth' has to do with the questions I asked. I was responding to the passage below as a whole and I probably should have made that more clear:
Quoting mcdoodle
You say wisdom has to do with "right action". What for you, then, does "rightness" consist in? Are you perhaps recommending a pragmatic account? The same question applies as to what is "right" in relation to thinking; what does the rightness that constitutes contemplative wisdom consist in. I don't yet see how you can be sensibly "deflationary" about this; a deflated rightness seems on the face of it as though it would be no better than a deflated truth, or a deflated tyre that will not roll smoothly.
Or, again, in the earlier quoted passage. you say that the "wisest way to act in actuality is with the best possible knowledge, related to context". What exactly qualifies some knowledge as "the best possible knowledge"? I take it you are not saying that it is any kind of true knowledge, defined as knowledge which is in accordance with actuality?
So, if you are recommending deflationism in relation to truth (and presumably hence also "rightness" and actuality); what exactly do you understand to be the state of inflation that you are thinking it must be wise to deflate? Do you want to deflate any old 'correspondence' notion or are you having a go at bigger fish like religious fundamentalism, or what?
You say you don't want to press your ethics on others; does this mean that you recommend subjectivism?
I apologize for asking so many questions, but it just is not at all clear to me what you are wanting to say.
We can imagine things both true and untrue, or good and evil. Imagination is simply the production of images or patterns. It has no value in itself, so I don't think it can be right to say that it is prior to reason or truth (where "prior" is taken, not in the temporal sense, but in the sense of significance or importance). Without reason imagination is a purely passive, receptive faculty.
I can't agree that imagination gives birth to truth. There is truth and then there is knowing truth. I would say that truth simply is; it is like actuality. Knowing truth is not always an activity of certainty; we may know a truth without knowing that we know it, at least when it comes to empirical matters. Reason is always involved in knowing truth; and is thus more important than imagination. I say this because imagination is basic; like digestion. If your digestive system is not functioning you will not be able to employ reason and know truth any more than you will if your imagination is not functioning.
When it comes to poetic truth the case is not essentially different. Poetic truths cannot be known without reason; and that's why poems must be read carefully and contemplatively. Of course the exercise of reason is in a somewhat different mode when it comes to the arts than it is with the sciences, but it is no less essential.
What's happened with Aristotle and Greek philosophy, generally, is that there is a subtext behind it, which is what we would now categorise as 'religious' - with a caveat. It is not like Biblical religiosity in the OT tradition of prophecy, but more a form of philosophical spirituality. But when Platonists talk of 'contemplation', I think they're referring to something which we nowadays would categorise as being on the religious end of the spectrum; when they say they are contemplating the 'ideas in the divine Intellect', they're doing that in a way which is nowadays quite foreign to us, I suspect.
But the difficulty is, writing in the post-Enlightenment world, such views are no longer part of the assumed background of the culture. Much of that sensibility has been redacted out of Plato and Aristotle by secular interpretations - not so much by the neo-scholastics, as they maintain a generally religious type of sensibility. But they are generally nowadays always viewed through the lenses of politics and science rather than the kind of mystical theurgy that categorised much philosophical thinking in those times (as explicated at length by Pierre Hadot.)
Actually an interesting word to reflect on in this context is 'sapience'. Sapience and 'the sapiential tradition' is that aspect of philosophy that is concerned with timeless truths - capital T truth. You won't find much reference to it in the modern academy, however, outside comparative religion departments.
Once you get outside a very strict realm- say the realm of simple mathematics- logic doesn't immediately supply or infer an answer...I would say it plays 'gatekeeper' for possible answers. Take as an example the kind of modal realism subscribed to by Lewis. In formulating this theory of modality, philosophers started with the problem of what modal terms REFER to, which I think is a much more complicated answer than what "red", for example, refers to. They had to come up with a picture of existence that answers their problem and is also logically consistent with other premises or methodological approaches (such as Occam's theorem). The result- that all possible worlds are equally 'real', that the world we are in is not the only 'actual' one (though it might be from our point of view), etc. was a result of imagination constrained by reason.
Logic, inference, consistency, etc. act as bounds of imagination in cases such as this but don't supply 'answers'. It can, put very simply, tell us what is wrong but cannot tell us what is right. In a sense, consistency is imagination's editor but doesn't really have any output in the realm of metaphysics especially.
I tend to agree with Spinoza that we know things in different ways via three faculties; which, in order of importance are: imagination, reason and intuition. So, the kind of contemplative knowledge you are referring to would be intuition I think.
I don't think the ancient ways of knowing via rational intuition can really be "foreign to us": if they were we would not be able to conceive of them. It is true that modern conceptions of knowing are mostly confined to thinking of it in terms of just imagination (empirical knowledge) and reason (rational knowledge) and that intuition is undervalued, and often conflated with mere imagination or feeling. I think it's also true that the three 'faculties' are not separate from, or independent of, one another. Without reason, for example, intuition just is imagination, and believing in images without adequate reason leads to naive superstitions and fundamentalism.
"Sapient" is usually defined as 'possessing wisdom' or 'being of sound judgement'. We think of ourselves as Homo sapiens insofar as we think we possess capacities for wisdom or judgement that other hominids do not. Aren't we lucky? >:)
I honestly believe that the definitional status of 'sapience' is undermined by materialism. Materialism says we're not 'sapient' - because there is no sapience possible, it has no subject matter. According to them, we're 'homo faber', 'man who makes'.
Similar point is made, from a completely different perspective, by Max Horkheimer.
To be honest I'm not too much concerned about materialism unless you mean the belief that the good life consists in owning material things, which I think is certainly a pernicious and greatly mistaken idea. If 'sapience' is coterminous with 'wisdom', as I think it is generally believed to be; then can it make sense for materialists to deny that there can be different degrees of wisdom manifested by different people? I would be highly skeptical about that being the case.
I tend to agree with Spinoza that reason is self-sufficient when it comes to metaphysics. Reason reveals what our ideas (if they are coherent and consistent) tell us about reality; being, substance, or whatever you want to call it. I can't see how there can be anything else to be said about metaphysics beyond what our most consistent and coherent reasoning tell us. I think Spinoza is right to count intellectual intuition (knowing things "under the aspect of eternity") as the highest form of reason. For me this consists simply in knowing the most coherent logical meanings of ideas.
I also think that our ideas about 'how things in the broadest sense are and how they hang together' is rightly informed (but definitely not prescribed or proscribed) by scientific understanding of nature, including human nature. The understanding of human nature I think should also be informed by the arts and religion (mostly in a phenomenological sense only, though, except where surpassing sublimity might convince us that divine revelation is at work). I do think it's right to acknowledge the limits of reason and to take some things on faith.
Hmm, I think more what I mean to say is that creativity gives birth to truth. So the distinction being that creativity is the act of creating, whereas imagination is a passive faculty, as you said. The idea is that God began the process of creation, and that truth is born out of that divine process. Not something handed from on high, and not something beholden to strict logical rules, but something generative. Everything is generative. Now as human persons with consciousness, we're developing the divine faculty of creation. I was inboxing Augustino on this; he brought up that Nietzsche saw two "movements" in philosophy (not as in schools, but as in literal movements, as an analogy). The first is purgation, ascetics, morals, seeking truth. Most philosophy stays here, but the second movement is participation in creation. Berdyaev, similarly, describes three epochs, that each correspond with a member of the Trinity. The first is the Law (The Father; Old Testament). The Second is the Redemption (Jesus; New Testament). The third is Creativity (The Spirit; our world now). According to Christian tradition, this also coincides with which person of the Trinity was present here on earth. But the point Berdyaev makes is that these Epochs overlap; Christianity is still living very much in the first Epoch of the Law, and somewhat in the Epoch of the Redemption. Berdyaev says, similarly to Nietzsche, that God awaits a revelation from Man. The creative act is Man's revelation to God. So I interpret the Death of God as only the Silence of God. God awaits Man's revelation.
Hence something like imagination plays an extremely important role: it can give us totally new approaches to the question, totally new ideas. You can imagine something first, then start to reason it.
I don't really agree with this, although I do see that sort of imaginative thinking as theoretically having some limited use. But I think it also leads to a lot of bad philosophical ideas. P-zombies, for instance, are a misuse of imagination (using it to "give us totally new approaches to [a] question"). It's a bad argument against physicalism, but I'm not so much worried about that as I am worried that it's a misuse of imagination. Imagination is not a mental tool in the same way that logic is. But with possible world arguments, for instance, it seems that philosophers are assuming they can use imagination in the same way. It's an attempt to harness creativity and subdue it within the constrains of a logical argument. But creativity (the act that imagination performs) is generative; when we use imagination in philosophy we generate new ideas. So in a sense, when I come up with a new possible world scenario, I actually create that world within this one; the world now exists in the form of an idea. But the problem is it's a bad idea. It leads to incorrect thinking. And thinking itself determines our perception of reality, which determines how we live within the world. So our thinking literally alters reality. So when we use creativity to form ideas about the world, we are using our creativity to shape reality. And so creativity is generative. We don't fully seem to realize the power of imagination; the world of ideas with all of it's complexities and disagreements, especially within academia, is so often a product of unwieldy attempts to harness imagination to generate theoretical ideas that will take care of existing philosophical problems. But if creativity is generative, then those problems were originally creatively generated themselves, and now we're attempting to correct them by just generating more philosophical problems. We're like toddlers playing with fire. What makes it worse is that this misuse of creativity is often not even something philosophers are conscious of. All of this points to the immense potency of creativity, and the pervasive misuse of it within the world of ideas.
Oh, I totally agree with you – bad philosophical ideas should be outlawed. We should have a committee to approve and discard ideas. Let’s see – who will be on the committee? We will make it democratic; so it will be run by the government. I vote for me to be editor-in-chief. And now that I am chief – I am taking away your “fire” because you scare me. ;)
I didn't say that, I made an argument for why I think a certain type of philosophical way of thinking is bad. You haven't addressed that argument.
Quoting woodart
The rest of this doesn't follow since it's based on the erroneous assumption that I want to outlaw bad philosophical ideas.
I'm about to go on holiday, for a little contemplation, so I can't go into all your questions. What I still can't pick out of what you're asking is how 'truth' should, as you see it. enter into these questions. Your questions imply a position but you don't state one.
I would certainly *recommend", if pressed, a form of virtue ethics. There are certain values that I weigh when I am acting, or when I am expecting good standards of behaviour of others, both people and organisations. The best judgment as to how to act, or to think, is based on certain values weighed in the balance, and deliberation based on valid and sound reasoning.
I know Wayfarer, whom I regard as an online friend even though we disagree about many things, is keen on Truth (indeed with a capital T). My improved knowledge of the ancients in the last few years has not made me feel any clearer about how they are supposed to be talking about 'truth', which is for instance a poor translation of aletheia - hence the attempts by Heidegger in particular to reintroduce terms related to 'disclosing' and 'unhiding' to reach back to the originals. (His terminology does not of course lead to greater clarity, rather the reverse)
This feels like it belongs in a thread devoted to something other than 'imagination', to me. I'd be happy to engage in one, but won't be here much for ten days or so while I soak up the sun :)
Ever since reading Steiner in more depth recently in response to Barfield's enthusiastic belief in his surpassing greatness, I am wary of evolutionary models of human spiritual growth. Such models tend to imagine objectified and pre-determined processes of development. It's the thing I found I could not swallow in Aurobindo many years ago and, more recently, in Hegel. So I am likewise a little skeptical of Berdyaev's notion of the stages of Christianity. The idea certainly has some symbolic spiritual significance, I just can't accept it as constituting an historical telos.
Having said that I have long thought that there may be a kind of immanent telos in dialectical unfoldings; an internal logic that determines, or at least mediates, the historical trajectories of ideas, whether they be visual, musical, poetical or philosophical ideas. So, Hegel, if interpreted that way, is more acceptable to my way of thinking. I tend to see any ideas of God as desiring, planning, waiting, and so on as examples of human projections, but on the other hand I don't deny the profundity of some mystical experiences that find him that way, either. I think Berdyaev has said that God needs humanity as much as humanity needs God (or perhaps I am thinking of Meister Eckhardt or Boehme).
In any case it is on account of the importance I attribute to the internal logics of creative activities and human activities in general, that I think logos is first and foremost, and that without it, imaginatio will only produce trivialities. It is only in the critical fire of logos that imaginatio becomes significantly creative, and that the Word may become Flesh.
Enjoy your holidays, mcdoodle; these questions of the nature of truth are indeed interesting and nuanced, and I will be happy to take them up in another thread when you return. :)
You know I am not quite sure what you are saying. Although I think that may be part of your intention – I do not know. In the little I have read of you in this thread, I see a person who can focus keenly, but veers off on tangents with references to other thinkers and methodologies that may or may not pertain to the question at hand – imagination. I am not sure if you are trying to impress yourself – an audience – or both. I would like to parse the role of imagination in philosophy. I think you have something to say. I would like to hear what you have to say. If your idea is strong, you do not need to use a pedantic vocabulary or compact your concepts so close together and/or reference a lot of other thinkers. Any idea can be expressed clearly. What I have noticed with many philosophers – is they make ideas more complex because they are not quite sure what they think. I know this from experience. I always find it beneficial to admit my uncertainty and lack of knowledge to myself first and in a place like this – to you. In the final analysis it strengthens my argument - I wish the same for you.
No doubt Barfield was a bit too keen on Steiner; Anthroposophy has a cult-like feel, although I don't think it can really be classified as one. There does seem to be room for independent critical thinking within it, at least. It seems like Steiner was a very charismatic person, and the sorts of ideas he was espousing were definitely en vogue at the time in Europe. I've only read Steiner's The Philosophy of Freedom, and I remember there being some pretty solid philosophy of mind in the first half, but then he just jumps off the deep end into his theosophical ideas.
Quoting John
That's fair; I personally don't hold a view of spiritual evolution that has a pre-determined process. And I'm still toying with the idea at all. But I also believe in the primacy of freedom. I think humans, invited by God to participate in creation itself have the floor to enact spiritual evolution in an un-determined way. But any pre-determined content would be, for instance, morality. I'm still working through the concepts, which is why I occasionally post threads like this one.
Quoting John
I'm not sure if those are projections; I suppose they might be, but if so, I don't see them as particularly harmful. The harmful type of projection I think is more specific concepts applied to God that create a much more concrete image in our minds which then leads us astray. The Angry Judge, for instance. But the assigning of the simply passive action of waiting to God I don't think distorts our ideas of God too badly. If that's the game, then we can't really say anything about God. Which is also a perfectly valid argument to carry out, you'd just have to do so.
Quoting John
That's Berdyaev, yeah. I tend to agree with him there.
Quoting John
Can you elaborate on why? I think you might have somewhere else, sorry. To me, even just the idea of Christ being the Word (logos) suggests something more than simply logic or reason being the primary faculty. And if we're dealing with that intro to John passage...it's a wirey one. It reads as poetry to me. I'm not completely sure how to interpret it. There's an aspect of it that's almost a re-writing or rephrasing of Genesis 1, which I think was intentional.
Of course I may be bored by the heat and people lying around the pool all day and find there's good wifi :)
Much of this depends for me on what one thinks about 'knowledge' or whatever it is one bases one's action on. The little academic course I've been on for two years included access to colloquia with talks by quite well-known people. The very first was by an Italian Leibniz scholar who are argued that the 'justified true belief' account of knowledge is pretty much a 20th century invention. She proposed that a profounder tradition going back to Plato has knowledge and belief as separate sorts of beast. And almost the most recent talk was by Timothy Williamson, who argues very analytically for a 'knowledge first' epistemology, that 'knowing' is sui generis.
Anyway, more anon perhaps.
I think a lot of modern epistemology holds the same. Wittgenstein also liked Leibniz, but I haven't read him and I don't know what he says about knowledge in detail.
I would agree that a lot of presumed knowledge is imagined. It goes into the problems with causality. Many people believe they know something because of causes that are not possible to prove in absolute terms. But to the person believing they know something, there is no distinction in their minds as to what they know which is true, and what they know which is questionable.
There are many great philosophers that have come before us and live with us now. However, in my estimation, the best thinkers, both past and present, still struggle, bitterly, with the hard questions. I think the best thinkers admit their struggle and uncertainty. However, not always. Many time’s we disguise our uncertainty with bravado and arrogance. So, I think it is appropriate to ask here – what is a disguise? It is a mask, a projection of who we want to be – an avatar. It is more than what we think we are – in other words it is dishonest in varying degrees. Now, do I think it is wrong to want to be a super hero, a savior, or just a really good person? No. However, if I say I am a really good person and I don’t hurt anybody. I don’t think I have examined myself close enough. If I project myself as really smart, smarter than most, does that mean it is not so? No, I may be the smartest person in the room, campus, state or planet. Let’s just say for argument sake, I am the smartest person on the planet, today. Whew, I am glad we got that established. How smart does that make me? Let’s see, humans, in their present format, have been around for 200,000 years. In terms of evolution, by my calculation, that puts us about six weeks out of the cave. Do you think humans in 10,000 generations will be reading what any of us write today? What about a million generations? We have no idea how far we can evolve. Perhaps in the future we will not read at all. Maybe we will absorb knowledge and communicate by some sort of mind meld. I certainly hope so.
So what is my main point? We are insecure – all of us – particularly philosophers. Because we know, that we do not know, very much! And the more we know, we find out there is more to know. So, we cover up our insecurity, dress it up – put on a disguise. Use a lot of difficult language, references and complexity. We play hide and seek with each other. But most importantly, we play hide and seek with ourselves. I do not find this behavior particularly courageous; as a matter of fact I find it cowardly. Many thinkers, especially in the ivory tower and churches, are guilty of this sin. In addition many of these sinners are intentionally a bully. Sometimes the intention is to bully passively. Like a man 6 foot 6 with bulging biceps with a tattoo – BORN TO KILL. This is a use of imagination in a very negative way.
I do not wish to offend anyone – nor do I wish to be offended. I wish to communicate. Very few of us will have even one significant original idea in our lifetime. To make a real contribution to human knowledge is not that easy. Therefore, a little humility is in order along with our clarity.
I was specifically responding to Noble Dust, and I was confident from previous conversations that he is familiar with the thinkers I referenced. I referenced them to establish a context that I believed he would understand. If you have any specific questions concerning uncertainties you may have about anything i said there I will be happy to answer them, but I don't have any interest in unwarranted and more or less vague speculations about my psychological motives. Thanks for you kind, even if somewhat presumptuous and condescending thoughts and wishes, in any case.
Actually, I wasn't thinking specifically of the idea of Christ as logos, but of the more general idea of the world (flesh) being a symbolic representation or expression of the spirit (word). I'm sure I have encountered that idea in Berdyaev somewhere, but it is also prominent in Hegel. For Hegel the world is, moreover, a rational expression of the spirit. So, I have in mind the most all-inclusive definitions of logic and reason here.
On this interpretation, poetry is a matter of reason as much as mathematics is. I take it for granted that the imagination has a great role to play in both mathematics and poetry, although of course it is quite different in each. But it is the logic of a discipline which allows the deliverances of imagination within it to possess significance, or you could even go further to say that logic allows the deliverances of imagination to even come to be at all.
I think what you say here really amounts to saying that projections are harmful only when they are not recognized as such. We have no choice but to project; that is what the human mind does. Our projections (which constitute all of the arts and religion, and arguably even much of science and the everyday world) simply make up our lives, and ideally should make our lives ever richer.
Unrecognized projections, which become reified as objectifications, make our lives ever poorer, I beleive.
Well, you know, there are sources of boredom, and then there are sources of boredom. ;)
I'd be interested to hear more about what you are hinting at here.
I also think knowledge is not the same thing at all as any form of belief, whether justified, true or otherwise. It is only the most extreme and artificial forms of skepticism that deflate knowledge completely into belief, and I think that from within that perspective, no re-inflation is possible. I've been reading a fair bit of Spinoza lately; and I think it is interesting and pertinent that it is in regard to this point precisely wherein lies the great difference between him and Descartes. Descartes is all 'How can you know, know that you know, know that you know that you know', and so on. Spinoza says instead ' Before you can know that you know that you know, you must first be able to know'.
As you mentioned him earlier, I want to say that I believe Heidegger denies the possibility of a correspondence theory of truth. In fact I think he denies the possibility any theory of truth at all. As I understand it the idea of truth as aletheia is really the idea of actuality-as-truth. Heidegger acknowledges that the ordinary propositional idea of truth consists in a correspondence account (it is not a theory) of truth. Aristotle expresses this common account or definition of truth (which cannot be reduced further to a theory):
“To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true”
I think Aristotle's statement expresses exactly what truth and falsity, or being true and being false, mean to us. I also believe these meanings are fundamental, irreducible, unanalyzable and indispensable; there can be no meaningful discourse at all without presuming them
Is a scientific discovery a projection? Is a religious revelation a projection? I can see how projections are ubiquitous in culture, but I don't think they're the be-all and end-all. There is an entire genre of Buddhist literature on 'nonconceptual wisdom', and it's hard to see that in terms of projections.
Where I do agree is where scientific or religious ideas are generalised, or mythologised, and then said to form the basis of some general truth about life. They are often projections, but again, I don't think everything is a projection.
Quoting woodart
Agree. There is an Alan Watts book, The Wisdom of Insecurity, which enlarges on that very point. You also see it in Socrates 'All I know, is that I know nothing', and the Tao, 'He that knows it, knows it not'.
I quite understand you were engaged with noble dust. I have no problem with anything you said. That is your right on a public forum.
It is also my right on a public forum to comment on what you and noble dust articulates. And to add additional comments to the subject matter at hand; along with my commentary about philosophy in general. The subject matter is imagination and philosophy – a pretty board area – no?
So some of my questions and/or critiques are:
Are philosophers more insecure than people in general?
Is insecurity covered, many times, by arrogance and obfuscation?
Is arrogance and obfuscation a mask purposely worn and is it dishonest?
Do the best philosophers know they are insecure and admit they do not know very much?
Are some philosophers bullies?
Is it hard to make a significant contribution to human knowledge?
I do not think these are “vague speculations” about philosophy and/or psychology. Nor do I think these are presumptuous and condescending questions to ask. These are honest questions about how philosophers use their imagination. It is not easy to be a philosopher – we ask hard questions.
I did say "much of science and everyday life" not "all of it". Perhaps the same should be said of the arts. Of course we cannot but take it for granted there is always something real going on with all these things. But we cannot get hold of the real in our discourses except in terms of our projections, that is what I really wanted to say.
I never questioned your right to comment; I don't know where you got that idea.
I made that statement as a prologue to my questions. Do you care to answer any of them?
What do your questions have to do with imagination? They're also leading questions. I think you could easily re-frame them as statements.
Maybe it's my autodidactic tendencies, but I'm not even sure what this sort of definition of logic and (or?) reason is. Maybe you could elaborate further on that. So anything I might have to say about your following paragraph would depend on a more detailed definition of what you mean here.
Quoting John
Yeah I suppose that's the same gist.
Quoting John
Yeah, but even more than objectifications, they become ways of thinking about the world. I'm still trying to tear the idea of God as Angry Judge out of how I view reality. I didn't just objectify a way of thinking about God, I almost ratified the image in my mind, in a way. It becomes part of the thinking process. I think any unconscious or misplaced projection does this.
To answer this either in the affirmative or the negative would be to make an unjustified generalization.
No doubt, sometimes people hide their insecurities by arrogance or obfuscation.
I suppose it could be sometimes.
Tell me who you think are the best philosophers, and then I'll tell you whether I know them well enough to answer that question.
Possibly. Probably. Fucked if I'd know.
It is probably hard or even impossible for most people. It might be easy for some, who knows?
These questions are only possible to answer, if at all, when they are referred to specific individuals, as far as I can tell. So, their vagueness consists in the fact that they are generalizations. Condescension consists in voicing unjustified assumptions about, or speaking from unjustified assumptions to, people you don't actually know.
I think one of the most unproductive uses of the imagination consists in imagining that you have sufficient knowledge to make presumptuous generalizations about people; whether they are philosophers or otherwise.
Beyond that it's not obvious to me what relevance to the OP your "questions and critiques" have. I think the first step would consist in being honest about how you use your own imagination, before beginning to generalize about how others use theirs.
Think about music for example; there is a logic to, which is to say a reasoning inherent in, melodic and rhythmic movements and harmonic progressions, without a firm grasp of which no amount of brilliant imagination could produce music worth listening to.
Or think about poetry, and the logic or reasoning that lies behind the complex webs of allusion and metaphor that make for good work. In my view much of the best creative work consists in problem solving; that is in, through processes of highly structured reasoning, imagining a problem or asking a question, and then solving the problem or answering the question. I don't think philosophy or religion are any different. All of philosophy and religion arises from the existential problems we find ourselves faced with. These problems have their own deep and subtle logics and cannot be adequately and subtly understood without solid and extensive reasoning.
I'm not sure I fully agree; there is a logic or a reasoning inherent in many forms of music, but part of how music evolves is that the reasoning changes. Compare Mozart with Schoenburg. Each may have used a reasoning faculty to arrive at their music, but they certainly weren't thinking with the same reason per se; the dissonance of Schoenburg would have been completely un-musical to Mozart. Then with Duchamp invading the art world with his "4th dimension" (the idea that an idea can be art), you have artists in general beginning with an idea and letting that be the guiding principle or logic behind the piece. A completely different way of thinking; rather than saying "there's a correct set and an incorrect set of pitches to use here". Chance music, for instance, or Musique Concrete.
Quoting John
Do you mean that artists consciously try to problem solve, and that that's what making art is? I don't find that to be the case in my own artistic work. For me, conceptual problems come afterwards, mostly. I find the initial process of creation to be kinetic, which I think I mentioned earlier in a different context. This is part of what makes me think of imagination as primary, because for me, I begin with a kinetic connection to an instrument, then through creativity I start constructing a piece, and then towards the end of the process I'll beginning thinking more abstractly about the problems in the piece, and I'll try to "solve" those problems. Sometimes it takes a few hours, sometimes a year or two.
Quoting John
This helps clarify my position I think. I agree that philosophy, religion, art, even science, at their deepest cores, are interfacing with the same problems, as it were. But I differ, because I think they fundamentally approach the problems with a different set of tools. I guess I use that as a metaphor to say that they use a different mix of the human faculties; not the same mix. I think philosophy is a much more conscious approach, for instance, whereas religion or mysticism are much more "immediate" or immanent approaches; approaches of devotion. Art I consider to be a kinetic approach, at it's best. At the same time, though, I think creativity has a mystical significance. That's why I'm always bringing it up.
Yes, I agree there is no permanently fixed logic in music, and it is the part of imagination to create new forms. But usually this proceeds on the basis of a deep understanding of existing conventional forms. I don't rule out the possibility that some modern forms of music, art and poetry, in the absence of such traditional understandings, may be pretty vacuous, either.
Quoting Noble Dust
I can certainly relate to that; but wouldn't you say that kinetic familiarity with a musical instrument is possible only on the foundation of understanding the logic inherent in its structure? I am not denying that some people can do this more or less 'naturally'. I have known good musicians who cannot even read musical notation. They seems to be able to know what to play without knowing why they are playing it. But I would still count that as a kind of implicit somatic or kinetic grasp of the logic of the instrument. I certainly don't confine the ambit of logic to 'dry' processes of reasoning. When I speak of logic or reasoning I am not thinking of predicate calculus or syllogistic logic here!
Quoting Noble Dust
I do agree that there is more rigorous reasoning involved in philosophy (or should be) than religion. I think this is because ideas in philosophy have come to signify very specific things, or range over strictly limited domains. The same is probably true, I would imagine, in theology, though.
Even the non-theologically-minded, yet serious religious devotee, or any important mystic, must be very familiar with the body of ideas that make up their religions. It's not as though they can just imagine whatever they like about their experiences, and communicate that, and expect others to be interested in, or even understand, their imaginings.
Some of my comments are statements – some are questions. Imagination is the brush that paints the picture of our ideas. An idea is an image in our minds eye. A mask is traditionally part of a costume, but it can also be a disguise of ones persona. We all use imagination to project our persona, which is like a mask. When I get up in the morning I put on my clothes – my costume. I also put on my persona, my mask for the different “things” I will do throughout the day. I have many hats that I wear. One of the hats that I wear, today, is that of philosopher. I use my imagination when I put it on – don’t we all? Imagination and philosophy are like brother and sister – don’t you agree?
One of the things I notice about philosophers is that they are insecure. I wonder if you agree? I also see arrogance and obfuscation – do you? I think some philosophers use great imagination to construct a mask that obfuscates. What do you think about this idea? A mask or argument that confuses ones companion is dishonest. It lacks honor – don’t you agree?
I think the questions we ask ourselves in philosophy take great imagination and stamina. We ask the hard questions and they are not easy to understand or formulate. The answers are even more difficult – sometimes impossible. It takes courage to be a philosopher and great imagination. I don’t want to make my task harder by confusing myself or someone else. I want to be clear in what I think and say. What do you think?
Well, in a way; I guess I'm just getting held up by the word "logic". I would say that a kinetic familiarity is based on past kinetic connections, and the resulting ephemeral experience of the music or art which was a positive experience as an artist/listener. So initial kinetic connections that lead to exciting musical possibilities build on themselves, which lead to more and more. So, if you mean that one must rigorously study an art form before becoming a master, then no, I don't agree. I've also known artists of various disciplines that seemed to be "naturals", as cliche as it is. I've also had friends who tried to learn an instrument, because the rest of us were doing it...and they just couldn't keep up. This sort of basic observation is another reason I tend to think of the importance of imagination or creativity. There do seem to be some of us who naturally have it. Why that might be is still a total mystery to me, and not something I try to do philosophy about, at least for now. As for myself, I find myself somewhere in between. I have some formal training, but it seems that that training laid the groundwork for me to be able to not think about it ever again, for the most part. I only use the technical aspects of my training (transcribing notation, identifying complex chord names) when I absolutely have to, which is usually when my band asks me for those things. So as a result, I'm quite slow at completing those tasks.
Quoting John
This is an important point which I neglected. However, there are still more factors than that. In our modern world, there's the collision of heretofore unconnected musical cultures, where a totally different way of thinking about music cuts through the norm, creating new norms. Steve Reich spent time in Africa, and as a trained drummer, he ingested a wealth of African drumming patterns, which had a profound influence on the "minimalist", modern classical music he wrote and continues to write. Now that hypnotic, rhythmic approach influences even popular music down to the most derivative degree.
Quoting John
I agree that those forms are vacuous in a classical sense, which tends to be the sense I agree with generally. But I'm also trying to figure out what the significance of those forms of art is for humanity in general. Even though I don't like the art, there's something so astounding about the emergence of an entire new way of doing art. Tying this strictly back to philosophy, I think there are some very important, prescient truths to be gleaned from this development, even if I don't happen to like the art itself. And I don't think it's so simple as a critique of post-modernism, or nihilism.
Quoting John
So what is it you're thinking of?? You don't seem to quite define it. But I do feel I'm on the periphery of getting the idea.
Quoting John
Like philosophy, I suppose, there seems to be so much unnecessary theology. I think theology should bridge the gap between philosophy and religious experience. It's more of an intermediary.
Quoting John
I'm not so sure this is the case. Certainly some of the mystics were not well read. "Serious religious devotion" is often based on an immediate or immanent experience, like I mentioned. Earlier in life, my more intense religious experiences were exactly that. Now as I become more well-read, those experiences become more rare. This is also partially because I don't have a regular devotion or practice anymore.
Quoting John
I'm not so sure this covers the breadth of the mystics. But I need to research more of them.
John, I should also mention that another reason I focus on the importance of creativity over craft (or logic, or whatever), is that I find that, especially with art, the innocent experience of a piece of art is the most pure. I can think back to when I encountered new pieces of music that were utterly foreign to me; I didn't have the chops or the understanding to know what was happening, but the immediate, visceral experience of the piece was profound and life changing. The same goes for when I encounter new pieces of art in disciplines that I'm not a practitioner of, like visual art. When I saw Picasso's sculpture exhibit at MoMA, I felt like a child. I felt like I was encountering a new form of reality. I just looked at the colors and the shapes; I was seduced by the whole spectacle of his work. And I have little to no training in understanding visual art. I'm always trying to get back to this innocent state of experiencing and creating art. This experience of art almost shares something with the religious or mystical experience; it's immediate and immanent; it's childlike.
But I was referring to your list of questions. They all had question marks after them, but they were leading questions, which means you weren't really asking a question ("how are you today?"), but making an implicit statement ("don't you feel good today?"). A real question leaves room for the responder to answer honestly ("I'm feeling down today"). A leading question suggests an answer that the responder should give ("yes, I do feel good today"). Leading questions are manipulative.
Quoting woodart
I like that metaphor.
Quoting woodart
Also a good analogy.
Quoting woodart
I disagree with this analogy - it depends on the philosopher. Russell doesn't exactly fit this description. Perhaps Nietzsche fits it better? It depends. But if you mean the discipline of philosophy itself, regardless of the varying degrees of use of imagination from philosopher to philosopher...like John said, this is a generalization, and hard to say. I even have trouble making a statement about how much imagination "should" be used in philosophy, because of the wide range of thinking that goes into the discipline. For my part, I'm interested in a way or mode of thinking that places creativity as primary, or secondary at the very most. So can this even be called philosophy? This is something I wrestle with; I'm not even sure if I'm a philosopher.
Quoting woodart
I see this in politics and the arts and science as much as anywhere else. I see this anywhere where power and influence are at play. I don't see it more in philosophy than anywhere else. Hell, I see this just as much in the several workplaces I work in.
Quoting woodart
I think you're right about this, and that these are some wise thoughts. I'm reading "Dynamics of Faith" by the theologian Paul Tillich right now. He describes "faith" as "ultimate concern". With this definition, everyone necessarily has an ultimate concern; everyone has faith. Unfortunately, all forms of ultimate concern are idolatrous, except the one ultimate concern: God, or the divine. And what's more, ultimate concern for something requires courage, because ultimate concern necessarily involves doubt, of the most appropriate kind. So, if a philosopher finds himself afraid, it's because of his doubt, and his doubt is what gives him courage.
There's a teaching in Zen called 'great doubt' - 'to follow the Way requires great doubt, great faith and great determination'. I think it's doubt in the sense of throwing everything we think we know into question.
A conscious throwing of everything we know into question, or an experience of it? My experience of doubt (and so, for better or for worse), my interpretation of Tillich is more a sense of existential dread; the fear that nothing is as it seems, and the whole structure is wrong.
Naturally that imagination has to be in the end logical and use reason in order to be useful to philosophy and not all that one can imagine is useful to philosophy. Yet it gives us a method to break from the usual way of looking at things. Something that when successfull we call creativity.
For example with science, there is the great example of science fiction and it's role in technological advances and science itself. Now one can be obstinate here and take the approach that science or technological advance has absolutely nothing to do with science fiction, just look at the scientific experiments, published theories etc. and you will have no reference to science fiction or imagination. Or that usually science fiction writers just use the science and tech they are aware of and fill in the blanks with cool sounding machines.
Yet when you look at the historical events from a broader perspective, there is an evident role.
(Y) pardon my chronic need to clarify unnecessary details.
Sure. To me, the possibility of a computer creating a more sublime piece of art than a human person ever could is exactly an example of the purest form of nihilism. So, if that's our road, then our road is nothing short of meaningless and total tom-foolery. And sure, this could very well be the case.
Quoting ssu
Right, and I gave an example (p-zombies) of a creative idea that is not useful to philosophy. But what do you mean that "imagination has to be in the end logical and use reason in order to be useful to philosophy"? Imagination is the basis of the action of creativity; creativity as an action is parallel with logic and reason.
Quoting ssu
Yes, this is an interesting topic of which i'm somewhat aware. How much did science fiction influence the decisions of actual scientists? How much did the creative imagination of fiction writers influence the scientific principles that were later discovered?
Science is science fiction – or at least it should be considered that way. What is science for? It is a bridge to tomorrow. We are not satisfied with today. Why – because we want something better. Ask yourself – what is the first scientific instrument? It is a club or rock used as a basher. I can’t forget the movie – Quest for Fire – in the beginning an Ape throws a club up in the air. He sees for the first time he can use an object outside of his body to do something. That’s what science is - seeing a connection. It doesn’t have to be real or right – it is an experiment.
Well, why aren’t we satisfied with today? Because, as I am sitting under a banana tree with my buddy, feeling full and happy – he points and says - what’s that? I say – I don’t know, but someone told me it’s a mountain. What’s a mountain? Imagination – it’s actually a drug like heroin. Some addictions are better than others.
Science is our quest for fire. My motto is – beam me up Scotty, I am tired of this planet.
Or watch tv.
Apologies for my delayed response; I've been somewhat preoccupied with other things.
Yes, I think modern forms are often "vacuous in a classical sense", at least insofar as they embody a rejection of classical forms. But I didn't mean to suggest that I think that if they reject classical forms they are therefore necessarily vacuous per se.
I actually think that there is a great deal of creatively and spiritually rich modern art, literature and music, which has not been developed "under the aegis of tutelage". Such works are not beholden to any religious tradition, and are none the poorer for all that, in my opinion. Personally, as much as I admire the great classical artists, poets and composers, I respond more to modern works. I think the "important truths' to be found in great modern works are existential and phenomenological truths, rather than purportedly metaphysical or ontological truths. I follow Kant in thinking that much of the great ancient, and classical, philosophy is naive, insofar as it is pre-critical.
If works are nihilistic, then they are still labouring under the influence (as a negative reaction) of the very traditions they might purport to be free from. So I certainly agree with you that it's not "so simple as a critique of post-modernism, or nihilism".
I'm late for the discussion, but here is my two cents anyways.
The 'test of imagination', as Chesterton calls it, is useful for determining if a thing or event is logically possible or not: If you can imagine it, then it is logically possible; if not, then not. E.g. I can imagine a unicorn; I cannot imagine a triangle with four sides.