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Imagination and Invention

Series: Univocal
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Imagination and Invention presents Gilbert Simondon's groundbreaking theory on the mental image and the processes of imagination and invention. Drawing on diverse mid-twentieth-century thought, including psychology, cybernetics, ethology, and phenomenology, Simondon explores how mental images evolve through four distinct phases from motor anticipation to the creation of technical objects. This work offers a profound new perspective on psychical individuation and the dynamic nature of creative thought.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book is ideal for readers interested in philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science, especially those keen on the theoretical frameworks underpinning imagination and invention.

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Based on a course given by Simondon at the the Sorbonne, 1965-1966 in the Institute of Psychology at the Rue Serpente.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

A radical rethinking of the theory and the experience of mental images

Here, in English translation for the first time, is Gilbert Simondon's fundamental reconception of the mental image and the theory of imagination and invention. Drawing on a vast range of mid-twentieth-century theoretical resources—from experimental psychology, cybernetics, and ethology to the phenomenological reflections of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty—Imagination and Invention provides a comprehensive account of the mental image and adds a vital new dimension to the theory of psychical individuation in Simondon's earlier, highly influential work.

Simondon traces the development of the mental image through four phases: first a bundle of motor anticipations, the image becomes a cognitive system that mediates the organism's relation to its milieu, then a symbolic and abstract integration of motor and affective experience to, finally, invention, a solution to a problem of life that requires the externalization of the mental image and the creation of a technical object. An image cannot be understood from the perspective of one phase alone, he argues, but only within the trajectory of its progressive metamorphosis.

Series: Univocal

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    A radical rethinking of the theory and the experience of mental images Here, in English translation for the first time, is Gilbert Simondon's fundamental reconception of the mental image and the theory of imagination and invention. Drawing on a vast range of mid-twentieth-century theoretical resources—from experimental psychology, cybernetics, and ethology to the phenomenological reflections of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty—Imagination and Invention...
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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781517914455

Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 17 January 2023

Country: United States

Imprint: University of Minnesota Press

Contributors:

  • Translated by Joe Hughes
  • Translated by Christophe Wall-Romana

Audience: General / adult, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 25.0mm

Width: 140.0mm

Height: 216.0mm

Weight: 227g

Pages: 248

About the Author

Gilbert Simondon (19241989) was a French philosopher of technology whose work continues to attract new interest within a variety of academic fields. His books in English translation include Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, Volumes 1 and 2, and On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (all from Minnesota).

Christophe Wall-Romana is professor and Samuel Russell Chair in the Humanities at the University of Minnesota.

Joe Hughes is senior lecturer in English and Theater Studies at the University of Melbourne.

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