1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910824993303321

Autore

Kaag John <1979->

Titolo

Thinking through the imagination : aesthetics in human cognition / / John Kaag

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, New York : , : Fordham University Press, , 2014

©2014

ISBN

0-8232-5494-1

0-8232-5495-X

0-8232-6151-4

0-8232-5496-8

Edizione

[First edition.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (272 p.)

Collana

American Philosophy

Disciplina

111/.85

Soggetti

Imagination (Philosophy)

Aesthetics

Cognition

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 The Cultivation of the Imagination -- 2 Enlightening Thought: Kant and the Imagination -- 3 C. S. Peirce and the Growth of the Imagination -- 4 Abduction: Inference and Instinct -- 5 Imagining Nature -- 6 Ontology and Imagination: Peirce on Necessity and Agency -- 7 The Evolution of the Imagination -- 8 Emergence, Complexity, and Creativity -- 9 Be Imaginative! Suggestion and Imperative -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Use your imagination! The demand is as important as it is confusing. What is the imagination? What is its value? Where does it come from? And where is it going in a time when even the obscene seems overdone and passé? This book takes up these questions and argues for the centrality of imagination in human cognition. It traces the development of the imagination in Kant’s critical philosophy (particularly the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment) and claims that the insights of Kantian aesthetic theory, especially concerning the nature of creativity, common sense, and genius, influenced the development of nineteenth-century



American philosophy. The book identifies the central role of the imagination in the philosophy of Peirce, a role often overlooked in analytic treatments of his thought. The final chapters pursue the observation made by Kant and Peirce that imaginative genius is a type of natural gift (ingenium) and must in some way be continuous with the creative force of nature. It makes this final turn by way of contemporary studies of metaphor, embodied cognition, and cognitive neuroscience.