Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[JackDaydream]

This question is one which I think of frequently as I have a strong interest in the arts, including both visual arts and literature. I have been thinking about it in relation to John Higgs' ' William Blake Vs the World' (2021). In this book Higgs looks at the idea of imagination in the widest sense, in relation to the way in which William Blake draws upon imagination in the widest sense. He says, 'we take imagination for granted, we rarely stop to imagine what a strange phenomenon it is...It is the realm of daydreams when we sleep, or daydreams when we are bored, and those fantasies and nightmares are frequently little help in paying the mortgage. Imagination, as intellectuals claim, can appear to be a lesser thing than intelligence or reason. Yet when you examine those higher, more celebrated forms of cognition, you realise that they too are dependent on imagination.

It could be said that Blake as a visionary poet and painter was at the extreme end of the spectrum in drawing upon the creative imagination in the arts. He was a visionary but may be considered in relation to the movement of romanticism, which incorporated a love of nature, as expressed in the writings of Wordsworth and Coleridge.

Within the arts, it seems that the philosophy of realism has had a large impact, as well as the movement of postmodernism in understanding the construction of symbolic reality. I wonder where this leaves the art of fiction and visual art. It may be that fiction has gone more in the direction of psychological narratives, but aspects or exploration in magical realism, as well as fantasy, cyberpunk and steampunk may show the importance of symbolism, similarly to movements such as surrealism.

One key aspect which I see is are the arts are about the imitation of nature or something more? Realism in the form of the arts may be about imitation, with photography as one technical representation. However, it may be that the artistic portrayal of truth goes much deeper, incorporating aspects of psychological and mythical understanding. How may realism, based on the external world or romanticism, which incorporates the human imagination, be considered philosophically in relation to 'truth' and human meaning?
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[JackDaydream]

I am just reading through what I have written and as I can't edit on the site, I simply wish to say that the quote from HIggs ends at the end of the first paragraph, although he does consider the romantic movement in the arts in relation to that of realism within his book, saying 'A mental model of the real world can extremely useful. It allows us to make predictions and help us decide how to act' So, it is not about seeing the imaginary as an alternative to the everyday 'real', but more about seeing aspects beyond the physical and naturalistic representations.

[JackDaydream]

I just wish to add Higgs' description of imagination as a starting point for considering the artistic approach to reality,
' For Coleridge, there was an important difference between imagination and simple fantasy. Most people in the twentieth- first century assume that "imagination " means simply making stuff up. This is not what Coleridge meant when he talked of the imagination, although he would have thought this was a fair description of fantasy. For Coleridge, fantasy was essentially a form of mental collage that took existing ideas and put them together, in a way that was unrelated to the real world of time and space.'

So, in this way the idea of imagination is about greater levels of awareness than everyday awareness. It may be that the arts facilitate an awareness of such perspectives as an alternative, but possibly complementary understanding picture of truth, revealing subjectivity and deeper layers of the self and the subconscious aspects of human understanding.

[stevie]

This question is ...

... whether you are suffering from restlessness ... considering the regularity you start new threads.

[JackDaydream]

This question is ...

... whether you are suffering from restlessness ... considering the regularity you start new threads.

I start a lot of threads and I am sure it is related to something missing in my life. However, part of the reason I started this thread today was my fascination with the poetry of William Blake and, in doing so, I was hoping to start a thread which may be a little different from some of the areas of philosophy which are being discussed repeatedly in so many threads. However, it is likely that no one will be interested in my discussion of Blake and the imagination. Eventually, I will probably give up posting on the forum if no one is interested in the areas which interest me, and go back to reading and thinking about philosophical alone, and leave the people who think that they are the 'experts' to carry on here.

[JackDaydream]

This question is ...

... whether you are suffering from restlessness ... considering the regularity you start new threads.

I start a lot of threads and I am sure it is related to something missing in my life. However, part of the reason I started this thread today was my fascination with the poetry of William Blake and, in doing so, I was hoping to start a thread which may be a little different from some of the areas of philosophy which are being discussed repeatedly in so many threads. However, it is likely that no one will be interested in my discussion of Blake and the imagination. Eventually, I will probably give up posting on the forum if no one is interested in the areas which interest me, and go back to reading and thinking about philosophical alone, and leave the people who think that they are the 'experts' to carry on here.

Just out of interest, I know that you see science and commonsense thinking as the only ones worth considering. On this basis, I wonder if you see imagination and the arts, including visual arts, fictional literature and music, as having any value at all, especially in relation to understanding the nature of 'truth'.

[stevie]

This question is ...

... whether you are suffering from restlessness ... considering the regularity you start new threads.

I start a lot of threads and I am sure it is related to something missing in my life. However, part of the reason I started this thread today was my fascination with the poetry of William Blake and, in doing so, I was hoping to start a thread which may be a little different from some of the areas of philosophy which are being discussed repeatedly in so many threads. However, it is likely that no one will be interested in my discussion of Blake and the imagination. Eventually, I will probably give up posting on the forum if no one is interested in the areas which interest me, and go back to reading and thinking about philosophical alone, and leave the people who think that they are the 'experts' to carry on here.

Just out of interest, I know that you see science and commonsense thinking as the only ones worth considering.

If you understand "considering" as "public talk about" then yes, I "see science and commonsense thinking as the only ones worth considering" but if you understand "considering" as "thinking about privately" then no, because I use to think about non-scientific and non-commonsense verbal expressions of others, too.

On this basis, I wonder if you see imagination and the arts, including visual arts, fictional literature and music, as having any value at all, especially in relation to understanding the nature of 'truth'.

"imagination and the arts, including visual arts, fictional literature and music" certainly don't have any bearing on "truth", since "truth" is an epistemological category.

[JackDaydream]

... whether you are suffering from restlessness ... considering the regularity you start new threads.

I start a lot of threads and I am sure it is related to something missing in my life. However, part of the reason I started this thread today was my fascination with the poetry of William Blake and, in doing so, I was hoping to start a thread which may be a little different from some of the areas of philosophy which are being discussed repeatedly in so many threads. However, it is likely that no one will be interested in my discussion of Blake and the imagination. Eventually, I will probably give up posting on the forum if no one is interested in the areas which interest me, and go back to reading and thinking about philosophical alone, and leave the people who think that they are the 'experts' to carry on here.

Just out of interest, I know that you see science and commonsense thinking as the only ones worth considering.

If you understand "considering" as "public talk about" then yes, I "see science and commonsense thinking as the only ones worth considering" but if you understand "considering" as "thinking about privately" then no, because I use to think about non-scientific and non-commonsense verbal expressions of others, too.

On this basis, I wonder if you see imagination and the arts, including visual arts, fictional literature and music, as having any value at all, especially in relation to understanding the nature of 'truth'.

"imagination and the arts, including visual arts, fictional literature and music" certainly don't have any bearing on "truth", since "truth" is an epistemological category.

I come from an entirely different angle and see the arts as an essential aspect of 'truth'. However, it is not as if I wish to disregard the sciences, because they are about the basis of reason as a source of explanation. It may be complementary to the emotional and imagination as connecting understanding. Surely, the sciences have value but understanding without any understanding of the senses, and the inner aspects of human life is an extremely flat picture of the universe and reality. It is likely that a writer, like Blake, or artists such as Dali, are at the extreme end of the spectrum of creating symbolic universes, but if the arts and imagination are removed from the picture of philosophy entirely, what may be left is a very flat worldview.

[JackDaydream]

I just wish to steer my thread back.on track because I would imagine that it is unlikely that most people on the forum would disregard imagination and the arts completely in seeing 'truths'. Therefore, I will say that Higgins, in his critique of Blake, understood imagination in the following way,
'The French poet Charles Baudelaire called it "the queen of the faculties" and insisted that , 'Imagination created the world. " Pablo Picasso told us that , " Everything you imagine is real".'

I am not wishing to undervalue science, but it may be that philosophy is going in the direction of seeing the descriptions of science in an extremely concrete way. That is not to say that they are not important, in establishing explanations on the basis of reason. However, certain aspects of the 'truths' of human life may be bound up in metaphors and stories. In thinking about one's own narrative life stories, a lot of it is grounded in what happened literally, or what is constructed of this in memories and imagination, as a starting point for depictions of 'truth' as realised by each person. Even those who see 'truth' as an epistemological reality, depending on science, may do so on the basis of interpretation of experience. Whether one becomes a visionary dreamer like Blake, or someone who sees the world in the barest structure of realism is a perceptual mode, and, even the most materialist scientific picture contains a certain amount of artistic imagination, even if those who formulate such models wish to deny any artistry of description. Words and theories may be important, but images, which have a basis in the sensory aspects of perception, are unlikely to be superseded entirely as human beings have sense organs, as a basic feature of sentience.