Imagination: Cross-Cultural Philosophical Analyses

Hans-Georg Moeller is Professor of Philosophy and Subject Convenor for the Philosophy and Religious Studies Programme at the University of Macau, China.Andrew K. Whitehead is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of History and Philosophy at Kennesaw State University, USA.

• Introduction, Andrew K. Whitehead (Kennesaw State University, USA)PART I: Imagination in Chinese and Japanese Philosophies1. Truth and Imagination in China: Opposition and Conciliation in the Tradition, Richard John Lynn, University of Toronto, Canada2. Zhuangzi and the Literary Genre of Fantasy, Nicolas LeJeune, University of Macau, China3. Visual Zen: The Role of Imagination in Shaping a Zen Aesthetics, Rudi Capra, National University of Ireland, Cork, IrelandPART II: Comparative Studies on Imagination 4. The Imaginary and the Real in Zhuangzi and Plato, May Sim, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, USA5. Is There Imagination in Daoism?: Kant, Heidegger, and Classical Daoism: Rethinking Imagination and Thinking in Images, Steven Burik, Singapore Management University, Singapore6. Daoism, Utopian Imagination and Its Discontents, Ellen Y. Zhang, Hong Kong Baptist University, ChinaPART III: Post-Comparative Conceptions of Imagination in World Philosophy7. Imagination Beyond the Western Mind, Julia Jansen, KU Leuven, Belgium8. Time, Habit, and Imagination in Childhood Play, Talia Welsh, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA9. Images of Me in the Roles I Live: An Existentialist Contribution to Confucian Role Ethics, Andrew K. Whitehead, Kennesaw State University, USA10. Imagination, Formation, and Place: An Ontology, John W. M. Krummel, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, USA11. Between Truth and Utopia: Philosophy in North America and the Narrowing of the Social-Political Imagination, Gabriel Soldatenko, Kennesaw State University, USA

Each essay in this volume invites the reader to approach “imagination” from a distinct cultural and philosophical angle, thus establishing the depth and breadth—even ambiguity—of a function that is squarely at the center of what it means to be human. Rather than generate closure, this volume opens new avenues for thinking cross-culturally about how the human imagination operates and how its future possibilities might themselves be imagined.