Imagination and Time - Hardcover

Warnock, Mary

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 063119018X ISBN 13: 9780631190189

Publisher: Blackwell Pub, 1994

Synopsis

This volume is concerned with the relation between imagination and the understanding of the world - both the world of science and history, and that of values. By means of imagination, it is possible to grasp shared values that are enduring, and this depends on a sense of continuity with the past and the future. An imaginative realization of belonging not only to the past, but to a future that will continue after the individual is dead has implications which are explored, for religion and morality, as well as for education.

About this title

From the Back Cover

All religion and much philosophy has been concerned with the contrast between the ephemeral and the eternal. Human beings have always sought ways to overcome time, and to prove that death is not the end. This book consists then in an exploration of certain closely related ideas: personal identity, time, history and our commitment to the future, and the role of imagination in life.

Warnock argues in particular that the notion of personal immortality, as it appears in Christian dogma, cannot be taken literally. Nevertheless, as a metaphor, immortality may illuminate both our relation with the past, our understanding of the present and our responsibility for the future. In the course of the argument, philosophical themes of personal identity, of history, and of values, are explored, as well as the cognitive content of the imagination.

About the Author

Mary Warnock was born in Winchester and educated at St Swithun's School and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She was Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St Hugh's College, Oxford for fifteen years, and Headmistress of the Oxford High School for six. She was Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge from 1984 till 1991, and became a Life Peer in 1985. She has chaired various Government committees, and written books on philosophy and on education. She is married to Sir Geoffrey Warnock, and they live in Wiltshire.

Edition details

• Publisher: Blackwell Pub
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 063119018X
• ISBN 13: 9780631190189
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 193