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Anton Hardy received his doctorate in psychology from Clark University. Concerned about the path psychology was taking with its focus on "behavior," he searched for the cause of this direction in the discipline's philosophical assumptions. These stemmed from the paradigm of "Realism," he found, a system that denigrated everything that was mental. Looking for a paradigm that would be friendlier to psychology's human subject, he adopted the symbol philosophy of Ernst Cassirer. He applied this paradigm to psychology in his book Psychology and the Critical Revolution, and is elaborating its implications further in the present book. The author introduces the little-known symbol philosophy of Ernst Cassirer and demonstrates how it opens the door to mental life. In clear and readable prose, he shows how symbol philosophy enables us to understand "consciousness" and "creativity," two subjects that have long been resistant to explanation. He explores such matters as the nature of our perceiving, the way in which our concepts are formed, and the role that language plays in our seeing and thinking. Overcoming traditional divisions between "objective" and "subjective," "I" and "world," and "mind" and "body," he refers frequently to our everyday experience to validate his ideas. Not since Suzanne Langer's Philosophy in a New Key has such a vigorous effort been made to bring Cassirer's seminal ideas before the public. The result is a breath of fresh air for a psychology that is made shallow by a narrow scientism and a philosophy that is in danger of becoming irrelevant. The author writes for the general reader rather than the professional scholar, and his prose is highly engaging and readable.
"This book explores an eminently human phenomenon: our capacity to engage with the possible, to go beyond what is present, visible or given in our existence. Possibility studies are today an emerging field of research including topics as diverse as creativity, imagination, innovation, anticipation, counterfactual thinking, wondering, the future, social change, hope, agency and utopia. The present contribution to this wide field is represented by a sociocultural and pragmatist account of the possible grounded in the notions of difference, position, perspective, dialogue, action and culture. Put simply, this theory proposes that our explorations of the possible are enabled by the human capacity to relate to the world from more than one position and perspective and understand that any perspective we hold is, at all times, one among many. Such an account transcends the long-standing dichotomy between the possible and the real, a sterile separation that ends up portraying possibility as separate from and even opposed to reality. On the contrary, the theory of the possible advanced here goes back to this notion's etymological roots (the Latin possibilis "that can be done", from posse "to be able") and considers it as both a precondition and outcome of human action and interaction. Exploring the possible doesn't take place outside of or in addition to our experience of the world; rather, it infiltrates it from the start, infuses it with new meanings and ends up transforming it altogether. This book aims to offer conceptual, methodological and practical tools for all those interested in studying human possibility and cultivating it in education, at the workplace, in everyday life and in society"--
This book examines research on creative thinking, both current and historical. It explores two dimensions of human thought (time and space) and two modes of thinking (conscious and unconscious) as well as both left and right brain functions and artistic and scientific creative activities. The book proposes a "Double Circulation” model of creative thinking and argues that imagery thinking, intuitive thinking and logical thinking are main parts of creative thinking and that dialectical thinking and horizontal-vertical thinking are the guides for highly complex problem-solving thoughts and strategies.The book focuses on education and psychology and also covers how to use ICT to promote students’ creative thinking skills. Researchers will benefit from the "Double Circulation" model, which provides a new perspective on conducting creative thinking research. The book is also a valuable resource for graduate students in the fields of educational technology and psychology and for all readers who are interested in creative thinking.
“Although the benefits of this study to scholars are obvious, this thought-provoking mixture of scholarly and colloquial will enlighten inquisitive general readers, too.” — Library Journal (starred review) The classic study of the creative process from the bestselling author of Flow. Creativity is about capturing those moments that make life worth living. Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (“The leading researcher into ‘flow states.’” — Newsweek) reveals what leads to these moments—be it the excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in the lab—so that this knowledge can be used to enrich people's lives. Drawing on nearly one hundred interviews with exceptional people, from biologists and physicists, to politicians and business leaders, to poets and artists, as well as his thirty years of research on the subject, Csikszentmihalyi uses his famous flow theory to explore the creative process. He discusses such ideas as why creative individuals are often seen as selfish and arrogant, and why the "tortured genius" is largely a myth. Most important, he explains why creativity needs to be cultivated and is necessary for the future of our country, if not the world.
What is creativity, and where does it come from? Creativity and Development explores the fascinating connections and tensions between creativity research and developmental psychology, two fields that have largely progressed independently of each other-until now. In this book, scholars influential in both fields explore the emergence of new ideas, and the development of the people and situations that bring them to fruition. The uniquely collaborative nature of Oxford's Counterpoints series allows them to engage in a dialogue, addressing the key issues and potential benefits of exploring the connections between creativity and development. Creativity and Development is based on the observation that both creativity and development are processes that occur in complex systems, in which later stages or changes emerge from the prior state of the system. In the 1970s and 1980s, creativity researchers shifted their focus from personality traits to cognitive and social processes, and the co-authors of this volume are some of the most influential figures in this shift. The central focus on system processes results in three related volume themes: how the outcomes of creativity and development emerge from dynamical processes, the interrelation between individual processes and social processes, and the role of mediating artifacts and domains in developmental and creative processes. The chapters touch on a wide range of important topics, with the authors drawing on their decades of research into creativity and development. Readers will learn about the creativity of children's play, the creative aspects of children's thinking, the creative processes of scientists, the role of education and teaching in creative development, and the role of multiple intelligences in both creativity and development. The final chapter is an important dialogue between the authors, who engage in a roundtable discussion and explore key questions facing contemporary researchers, such as: Does society suppress children's creativity? Are creativity and development specific to an intelligence or a domain? What role do social and cultural contexts play in creativity and development? Creativity and Development presents a powerful argument that both creativity scholars and developmental psychologists will benefit by becoming more familiar with each other's work.
In The Symbol Theory, Norbert Elias draws together three central themes. At the first level the book is concerned with symbols in relation to language, knowing and thinking. Secondly, Elias stresses that symbols are also tangible sound-patterns of human communication, made possible by the evolutionary biological precondition of human vocal apparatus. At a third level, the book addresses theoretical issues about the ontological status of knowledge, moving beyond traditional philosophical dualisms such as subject//object and idealism//materialism. The bulk of The Symbol Theory was published in Vol 6, issues 2, 3 and 4 of Theory, Culture & Society.
Explaining Creativity is a comprehensive and authoritative overview of scientific studies on creativity and innovation. Sawyer discusses not only arts like painting and writing, but also science, stage performance, business innovation, and creativity in everyday life. Sawyer's approach is interdisciplinary. In addition to examining psychological studies on creativity, he draws on anthropologists' research on creativity in non-Western cultures, sociologists' research on the situations, contexts, and networks of creative activity, and cognitive neuroscientists' studies of the brain.