The world itself dreams For Plato and many medieval philosophers, imagination was construed primarily as a mimetic act of mirroring, representing, copying. This approach was often associated with deceit and illusion, with confounding original realities with secondary substitutes. By contrast, for Kant and the romantics—including German idealists and existentialists like Sartre—imagination was hailed as a productive force in its own right, the source of all true meaning and value. Bachelard resisted both extremes. For him, imagination was at once receptive and creative—an acoustic of listening and an art of participation. The two functions, passive and active, were inseparable. The world itself dreams, he said, and we help give it voice. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space imaginationcreativity
Music and Imagination A Book by Aaron Copland www.goodreads.com The Gifted Listener: Composer Aaron Copland on Honing Your Talent for Listening to Music musicimagination
Candide A Novel by Voltaire Things cannot be other than as they areWe must cultivate our garden Your new electronic microscope
Things cannot be other than as they are “It is demonstrably true that things cannot be other than as they are. For, everything having been made for a purpose, everything is necessarily for the best purpose.” — Professor Pangloss purposemeaning
We must cultivate our garden ‘You must have a vast and magnificent estate,’ said Candide to the turk. ‘I have only twenty acres,’ replied the old man; ‘I and my children cultivate them; and our labour preserves us from three great evils: weariness, vice, and want.’ Candide, on his way home, reflected deeply on what the old man had said. ‘This honest Turk,’ he said to Pangloss and Martin, ‘seems to be in a far better place than kings…. I also know,’ said Candide, ‘that we must cultivate our garden.’ lifegardens