Freeing Up the Mind
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Michael Corballis
Abstract
Psychology has generally had a rather stunted view of the mind. In the behaviorist era it essentially denied the existence of mind altogether, and even the cognitive revolution seemed to promote a rigid view of the mind as tied to specific inputs. This began to change when Endel Tulving proposed episodic memory as the conscious replaying of past events-a conception that was later broadened into the more general concept of mental time travel: the ability to travel mentally backward and forward in time, a basic component of imagination. The two books under review, both informed by evolutionary science, illustrate involvement of the humanities in further expanding our understanding of the imagination- the mental capacity that enables us to transcend time and space, voyage into fantasy, and cultivate the creative arts. The historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto goes so far as to suggest that human imagination expanded at the expense of memory, and was even the basis of language. The volume edited by Carroll, Clasen, and Jonsson, all literary scholars, takes us on a wider tour of the fruits of imagination-religion, music, the arts, literature. These books may help place human creativity and imagination in an evolutionary context, and enlarge our understanding of evolution itself. They may also help overcome poststructuralist attitudes that threaten the integrity of the humanities themselves.
© 2022 by Academic Studies Press
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelei
- Table of Contents
- Target Article
- Social Functions of Emotions in Life and Imaginative Culture
- Responses to Target Article
- Emotions in Science and Imaginative Culture
- Demons of Emotion
- Social Emotions, Diversity, and Universality
- Musical Enculturation in the Social Coevolution of Emotions
- Social Situations Shape Social Emotions That Benefit Genes
- Back to Arnold? Three Problems for the Social Functional Theory of Emotion
- Neo-Vitalism in Affective Science
- The Development of Emotions in Sociocultural Context in Childhood and Adolescence
- On the Social Functions of Emotions in Visual Art
- Emotions Can Cause Antisocial Behavior
- Comparative, Developmental, and Physiological Evidence for Discrete Emotions Theory
- Rejoinder
- Challenges and Promises of a Social Functional Approach: Response to Commentaries
- Review Essay
- Freeing Up the Mind
- Book Reviews
- Philip Ball. The Modern Myths: Adventures in the Machinery of the Popular Imagination
- Bannan, Nicholas. 2019. Every Child a Composer: Music Education in an Evolutionary Perspective
- Bloom, Paul. 2021. The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning
- Gluckman, Peter, and Mark Hanson. 2017. Ingenious: The Unintended Consequences of Human Innovation
- Harden, Kathryn Paige. 2021. The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality
- Hawkins, Jeff. 2021. A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence
- Riggio, Heidi R. 2021. Sex and Gender: A Biopsychological Approach
- Slingerland, Edward. 2021. Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization New York: Little, Brown Spark
- Article Reviews
- Neuroaesthetics
- Imagination
- Law
- Life Narratives
- Literature
- Music
- Paleoaesthetics
- Popular Culture
- Rhetoric
- Letters
- Clare Hanson Clare Hanson’s response to Emelie Jonsson’s review of Hanson’s Genetics and the Literary Imagination (Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture 5 (1) [2021])
- Emelie Jonsson’s Response to Clare Hanson
- Contributors
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelei
- Table of Contents
- Target Article
- Social Functions of Emotions in Life and Imaginative Culture
- Responses to Target Article
- Emotions in Science and Imaginative Culture
- Demons of Emotion
- Social Emotions, Diversity, and Universality
- Musical Enculturation in the Social Coevolution of Emotions
- Social Situations Shape Social Emotions That Benefit Genes
- Back to Arnold? Three Problems for the Social Functional Theory of Emotion
- Neo-Vitalism in Affective Science
- The Development of Emotions in Sociocultural Context in Childhood and Adolescence
- On the Social Functions of Emotions in Visual Art
- Emotions Can Cause Antisocial Behavior
- Comparative, Developmental, and Physiological Evidence for Discrete Emotions Theory
- Rejoinder
- Challenges and Promises of a Social Functional Approach: Response to Commentaries
- Review Essay
- Freeing Up the Mind
- Book Reviews
- Philip Ball. The Modern Myths: Adventures in the Machinery of the Popular Imagination
- Bannan, Nicholas. 2019. Every Child a Composer: Music Education in an Evolutionary Perspective
- Bloom, Paul. 2021. The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning
- Gluckman, Peter, and Mark Hanson. 2017. Ingenious: The Unintended Consequences of Human Innovation
- Harden, Kathryn Paige. 2021. The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality
- Hawkins, Jeff. 2021. A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence
- Riggio, Heidi R. 2021. Sex and Gender: A Biopsychological Approach
- Slingerland, Edward. 2021. Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization New York: Little, Brown Spark
- Article Reviews
- Neuroaesthetics
- Imagination
- Law
- Life Narratives
- Literature
- Music
- Paleoaesthetics
- Popular Culture
- Rhetoric
- Letters
- Clare Hanson Clare Hanson’s response to Emelie Jonsson’s review of Hanson’s Genetics and the Literary Imagination (Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture 5 (1) [2021])
- Emelie Jonsson’s Response to Clare Hanson
- Contributors
