A Mind for Murder - Rethinking the Exalted Imagination

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Essay from the year 2007 in the subject Philosophy - Philosophy of the Present, grade: none, Concordia University Montreal, 18 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: "My eyes are cameras. My mind is tuned to more television channels than exist in your world. And it suffers no censorship. Through it, I have a world and the universe as my own. So, save your sympathy and know that only a body is in prison. At my will, I walk your streets and am right out there among you." -Charles Manson (Convicted Cult Leader) Maxine Greene and Kieran Egan, two prominent educational philosophers, have championed the importance of the imagination in education for decades. Greene (1995, 1998, 2001, 2003) essentially claims that the imagination "allows people to think of things as if they could be otherwise, it is the capacity that allows a looking through the windows of the actual towards alternative realities" (2003, p.63). Egan (personal communication, March 11, 2007) believes the imagination to be central to education because "imagination involves the capacity to be liberated from the constraints of literal and conventional thinking, it gives us the power to conceive of new possibilities". As we can see, both Greene and Egan share a closely related understanding of why the imagination is important in education, it frees the mind. In recognition of this shared vision I have partnered these two philosophers and will proceed to examine their thought in tandem insofar as they both project a generally similar view of the benefits of imagination. Not wishing to diminish the very real distinctions in their thought, my examination does centre on where these two scholars converge in relation to their philosophy of imagination. I will refer to their conception as the 'exalted imagination', borrowing the term from Maguire (2006) which denotes a modern, highly positive understanding of the faculty which has also collected various aspects of its ontology from the depths of its annals. That is, the modern exalted imagination is not a notion wholly developed in the modern period, rather a conception assembled mainly in the modern period, drawing from imagination's far-reaching history . This understanding, this exalted imagination, is shared by a number of contemporary scholars (see, for example, Warnock, 1976, White, 1990, Nussbaum, 1995) who have ushered in a modern fascination with the imagination. This, in turn, has lead to a call for more imagination and a claim that imagination is overwhelmingly a good thing. [...]