Inventions of the Imagination: Romanticism and Beyond

by Richard T. Gray (Editor), Nicholas Halmi (Editor), Gary J. Handwerk (Editor), Michael A. Rosenthal (Editor), Klaus Vieweg (Editor)

Overview

The dialectic between reason and imagination forms a key element in Romantic and post- Romantic philosophy, science, literature, and art. Inventions of the Imagination explores the diverse theories and assessments of this dialectic in essays by philosophers and literary and cultural critics. By the end of the eighteenth century, reason as the predominant human faculty had run its course, and imagination emerged as another force whose contributions to human intellectual existence and productivity had to be newly calculated and constantly recalibrated. The attempt to establish a universal form of reason alongside a plurality of imaginative capacities describes the ideological program of modernism from the end of the eighteenth century to the present day. This collection chronicles some of the vicissitudes in the conceptualization and evaluation of the imagination across time and in various disciplines.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295801650
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	10/17/2011
Series:	Robert B Heilman Books
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Richard T. Gray is the Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood professor of Germanics at the University of Washington. Nicholas Halmi is University Lecturer in English Literature of the Romantic Period at the University College, Oxford. Gary J. Handwerk is professor of English and comparative literature at the University of Washington. Michael A. Rosenthal is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Washington. Klaus Vieweg is professor of philosophy at Friedrich Shiller University.

Table of Contents

Introduction / Richard T. Gray

1. Imagination on the Move / Wolfgang Welsch

2. The Poetics of Nature: Literature and Constructive Imagination in the History of Geology / Georg Braungart

3. Between Imagination and Reason: Kant and Spinoza on Fictions / Beth Lord

4. Herder on Interpretation and Imagination / Michael N. Forster

5. William Blake: Imagination, Vision, Inspiration, Intellect / Hazard Adams

6. Imaginative Power as Prerequisite for an Aesthetics of Freedom in Friedrich Schiller’s Works / Wilhelm Voskamp

7. The Gentle Force over Pictures: Hegel’s Philosophical Conception of the Imagination / Klaus Vieweg

8. The Status of Literature in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: On the Lives of Concepts / Robert B. Pippin

9. Difficult Freedom: Hegel’s Symbolic Art and Schelling’s Historiography in The Ages of the World (1815) / Tilottama Rajan

10. From Art to History: Schelling’s Modern Mythology and the Coming Community / Richard Block

11. “To impose is not to discover”: A Romantic-Modernist Continuity in Contradiction / Christoph Bode

Biographies of Editors and Contributors

Index

Editorial Reviews

"This is a stimulating collection of papers, foregrounding the role of the imagination at a time when its lack can be almost palpably felt across the educational curriculum and in the political arena."

Journal of European Studies - Paul Bishop

"The collection as a whole provides ample material for thinking about the epistemic role of the imagination. . . . [I]t makes an important contribution not only to the history of philosophy and the study of romanticism, but also to contemporary questions in hermeneutics, theories of knowledge and aesthetics."

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews - Dalia Nassar

The essays in this volume are clearly written and stimulating, jargon-free despite the sometimes complex material, and the volume has made the transition from a collection of conference papers to a set of polished essays in an exemplary way.

Modern Language Review - John Guthrie

"The essays in this volume are clearly written and stimulating, jargon-free despite the sometimes complex material, and the volume has made the transition from a collection of conference papers to a set of polished essays in an exemplary way."—John Guthrie, Modern Language Review

"This is a stimulating collection of papers, foregrounding the role of the imagination at a time when its lack can be almost palpably felt across the educational curriculum and in the political arena."—Paul Bishop, Journal of European Studies, 42 (2) 2012

"The collection as a whole provides ample material for thinking about the epistemic role of the imagination. . . . [I]t makes an important contribution not only to the history of philosophy and the study of romanticism, but also to contemporary questions in hermeneutics, theories of knowledge and aesthetics."—Dalia Nassar, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Vol. 1538-1617 2012

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