This book is a study of the role of the imagination. It focuses on the imaginative use of language in literature (poetry and narrative prose); but it also touches on some more comprehensive issues, for the questions it discusses are questions regarding the relationship between mind, reality and unreality. The first two chapters survey the thinking about the imagination in the history of philosophy. The main trends and the main problems are discussed, particularly in respect of the (positive or negative) evaluation of imagination. The subsequent chapters investigate the role of the imagination from a closer point of view. How is it that imagination appears in literary art? Central topics of discussion are the nature of narrativity, of fictional discourse and fictional objects, of realistic fiction, of symbolism and metaphor. Moreover, the similarities (both real and imagined) between literature and the other arts are explored. In all chapters attention is paid to the problem of the value of art and literary imagination. The last chapter addresses this issue head-on. In particular, it attempts to define the value of literature in relation to science.

The collection of essays Fictional Realities / Real Fictions. Contemporary Theatre in Search of a New Mimetic Paradigm tackles the problem of fictionality and reality in contemporary theatre practice and playwriting. It approaches this hotly debated issue in a larger context of the theories of theatrical and dramatic mimesis. The volume provides an answer to the most recent developments in performative arts, such as the widespread use of new media technologies, the popularity of site specific productions, and the flourishing of various post-dramatic forms of expression. The phenomena scrutinized in this collection call into question the basic dichotomy between the fictional and the real on which the theory and practice of the Western theatre has been based right from its inception. However, due to their extremely heterogeneous character, they pose a considerable problem for researchers and teachers, who still do not find a widely applicable methodology for the analysis of contemporary performances and texts for the theatre. Fictional Realities / Real Fictions sets the discussion of the onset of new mimetic paradigm in three interrelated contexts: the new perceptual patterns forged by contemporary theatre, the use of media on stage, and the strategies of today’s political theatre. The case studies presented here, in spite of their thematic diversity, are subordinated to a single theoretical framework. Thus they turn out extremely useful both for the scholars investigating the problems of contemporary theatre, and students of theatre and drama. Fictional Realities / Real Fictions offers them a rigid methodological scaffolding, supported by a number of illustrative examples from a variety of cultural context and theatre traditions, which gives them an opportunity to extrapolate from the main argument of the volume to their own research.

Drawing on complex narratives across film, TV, novels and graphic novels, this authoritative critical analysis demonstrates the value of fictional narratives as a tool for understanding, explaining and reducing crime and social harm. McGregor establishes an original theory of the criminological value of fiction.

The Handbook of Philosophy of Management addresses the philosophical foundations of management in theory and practice. It covers established branches of philosophy, such as aesthetics, epistemology, moral philosophy, political and social philosophy, philosophy of education, philosophy of practice, and philosophy of science. The Handbook’s broad scope maps out the field and provides a forum where philosophy can be meaningfully applied to the study of management in all its forms. The original, peer-reviewed research published here sheds new light on the complexities of management theory and practice, beyond what hitherto has been possible with the sole application of the social sciences. As philosophy provides a meta-framework for moving beyond paradigm fragmentation within management research and education, this allows researchers and practitioners to find harmony (and discord) in the perspectives revealed by a philosophical lens.

Explorations of Consciousness in Contemporary Fiction is a collection of essays examining the potential of the contemporary English-language novel to represent and inquire into various aspects of the human mind. Grounded in contemporary literary theory as well as consciousness studies, the essays consider both narrative techniques by means of which writers attempt to render various states of consciousness (such as multimodality in digital fiction or experimental typography in post-traumatic narratives), and novelistic interpretations of issues currently being investigated by neurobiologists, cognitive scientists and philosophers of the mind (such as the adaptive value of consciousness or the process of self-integration by means of self-narration). The volume thus offers critical reflection upon the novel’s cognitive accomplishment in this challenging area. Contributors are: Nathan D. Frank, Judit Friedrich, Justyna Galant, Marta Komsta, Péter Kristóf Makai, Ajitpaul Mangat, Grzegorz Maziarczyk, James McAdams, Daniel Panka, Barbara Puschmann-Nalenz, Joanna Klara Teske, Lloyd Issac Vayo, Dóra Vecsernyés, Sylwia Wilczewska

This study offers a comprehensive overview of Indian writing in English in the 21st century. Through ten exemplary analyses in which canonical authors stand next to less well-known and diasporic ones Christoph Senft provides deep insights into India’s complex literary world and develops an argumentative framework in which narrative texts are interpreted as transmodern re-readings of history, historicity and memory. Reconciling different postmodern and postcolonial theoretical approaches to the interpretation and construction of literature and history, Senft substitutes traditional, Eurocentric and universalistic views on past and present by decolonial and pluralistic practices. He thus helps to better understand the entanglements of colonial politics and cultural production, not only on the subcontinent.

There is a difference between the material objective world and the actual human reality, since the human reality is very vast, formed of this physical objective world, and much more. Since there is a difference between the actual human reality and the current knowledge about the human reality, while by altering the knowledge itself about the human reality, it remains separated into the consensual human reality and the actual, normal, objective human reality. While if you lack awareness of all these, you end up exploited, as a human being, in a human world. Because you cannot study the human reality without comprehending those controlling the knowledge about the human reality and how they do so forcefully, consensually, or through stereotypes set in place since Aristotle and long before, since this is how they end up controlling you, and the entire world. Furthermore, you cannot form an accurate model of the universe if you do not understand yourself, if you do not understand exactly your needs driving you to perform this study, if you do not understand your mind constituting your means of understanding the universe, and if you do not understand Life altogether spanning the universe, actively involved in its structure, shape, behavior and development. At the same time, understanding the world around is the key to understanding yourself, your life, and your meaning in life and in the world, closing this circle of knowledge. Since this is why we consider the most relevant circumstances behind the famous studies of the world, we find true ideas and how they influence the understanding of the world throughout time, we seek to understand how and why people accept consensual, scientific, and ideological models of this world and how this influences their life, interconnectivity, and development, while we discover systematically this entire world. Furthermore, we use this study of the human reality to test all significant knowledge and ideas, including human reasoning, past civilizations, indoctrination, Einstein, astral planes of existence, ideologies, Renaissance, the Brotherhood, ideological control, ages of Earth, cosmogony, social and mind control, Giordano Bruno, consensual interconnectivity, Relativity, human origins and development, Copernicus, the Consensual Matrix, the Big Bang Theory, dreams, ancient wars, stereotypes, Galileo Galilei, conscious reasoning, Schrodinger, his cat, Creationism, alternate realities, and much more, the entire human reality. This book studies systematically the human reality, focusing on accurate truth while discarding beliefs and errors of reasoning, correlating with all relevant knowledge form physics, religion, spirituality, society, education, history, psychology, and more. If you want to learn more about everything surrounding you and everything that you really are, this book is for you.