Lectures on Imagination

Paul Ricoeur

ISBN 10: 022682053X / ISBN 13: 9780226820538

Published by The University Of Chicago Press Mär 2024, 2024

Neuware - 'When Paul Ricoeur died in 2005, the New York Times described him as 'one of the most eminent philosophers of the twentieth century.' In his lifetime, Ricoeur published influential works on language, memory, identity, and history, creating an innovative blend of hermeneutics and phenomenology. Despite his major interest in the imagination, however, he never wrote a complete text on the topic. The present volume, Lectures on Imagination, fills this gap, providing an indispensable resource for philosophically inclined readers from all backgrounds. Over the course of these lectures, Ricoeur examines classical and contemporary philosophical theories of imagination, ranging from thinkers such as Aristotle, Pascal, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant to Husserl, Wittgenstein, Sartre, and Ryle. He argues that, with few exceptions, Western philosophy has focused on reproductive rather than productive imagination, thus diminishing the creative capacity of the human mind. For Ricoeur, productive imagination is a form of fiction-a new dimension of reality generated by the human mind. His theory has far-reaching implications. In all domains, we are not restricted by existing structures or institutions, because the productive imagination has the power to break through and transform our sense of our own horizons'. Seller Inventory # 9780226820538

Synopsis:

Ricoeur’s theory of productive imagination in previously unpublished lectures.

The eminent philosopher Paul Ricoeur was devoted to the imagination. These previously unpublished lectures offer Ricoeur’s most significant and sustained reflections on creativity as he builds a new theory of imagination through close examination, moving from Aristotle, Pascal, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant to Ryle, Price, Wittgenstein, Husserl, and Sartre. These thinkers, he contends, underestimate humanity’s creative capacity. While the Western tradition generally views imagination as derived from the reproductive example of the image, Ricoeur develops a theory about the mind’s power to produce new realities. Modeled most clearly in fiction, this productive imagination, Ricoeur argues, is available across conceptual domains. His theory provocatively suggests that we are not constrained by existing political, social, and scientific structures. Rather, our imaginations have the power to break through our conceptual horizons and remake the world.

About the Authors: Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) was the John Nuveen Professor in the Divinity School, the Department of Philosophy, and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He was the author of many books, including Memory, History, Forgetting, Oneself as Another, and the three-volume Time and Narrative, all published by the University of Chicago Press.

George Taylor (JD, Harvard University) is Professor Emeritus of Law at University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses on evaluating the methods by which judges and lawyers interpret statutory and constitutional law. His publications include Ricoeur and Law: The Distinctiveness of Legal Hermeneutics, in Ricoeur Across the Disciplines 84-101 (Scott Davidson ed., Continuum, 2010) and Law and Creativity, in Philosophy and American Law (Francis J. Mootz, III ed. March 2009).

Robert W. Sweeny was the Don Shula Chair in Philosophy at John Carroll University.

Jean-Luc Amalric teaches at the CPGE Arts and Design in Nîmes and The Research Center for Arts and Language (CRAL), EHESS, Paris.

Patrick F. Crosby was an independent Ricoeur scholar.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Lectures on Imagination
Publisher: The University Of Chicago Press Mär 2024
Publication Date: 2024
Binding: Buch
Condition: Neu