Abstract
This essay is divided into two parts. In the first one it aims at showing the relationship that exists between narrative mind, performativity and creativity. The core issues are: in what sense and how does the literary mind express its own creativity, that is, what does it mean for a literary mind to be creative? When is it possible to maintain that a literary mind is creative in a sense that is considered as positive? Usually, when attempting to answer these questions, only the isolated and finished product of the creative act is taken into consideration. Contrariwise, we will here maintain that a literary mind’s creativity, or creativity more generally, should be evaluated by considering also the experiential fulfillment of the aesthetic production, and hence narration as bound not to the intentional transparency of cognitive acts but to their material components. From this standpoint, creativity results as a radically aesthetic competence in its performativity, if not even the very basis of that mind’s extension that is typical at least of human beings.
What will hence be introduced in the second part of this essay is a particular paradigm of aesthetic experience. The basic reasons for this proposal will be explained through a paradox that we believe thrives in our present conception of the aesthetic. The general coordinates of the paradigm at issue will then be provided by attempting to highlight, at least in principle, its specific connection with the extended mind model.
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Notes
- 1.
It is noteworthy that Elster quotes neither of them.
- 2.
In this context it is not possible to adequately discuss the intentionally technical meaning given to the extension of the narrative mind by means of the reconsideration of narration that has been explained here. We will hence limit ourselves to dogmatically state that: narration follows the “coupling argument” since the interaction between narrative act, narrated matter and narrative material is to say the least intrinsic; the processes which are external to the narrative act integrate non-accidentally narration as such, in a tight complementarity relationship; the narrative external support can work as (a component of) the internal narrative act as regards both the reader and the author him/herself.
- 3.
- 4.
See Prinz (2002, 150): “If concepts are proxytypes, thinking is a simulation process [Barsalou 1999]. Tokening a proxytype is generally tantamount to entering a perceptual state of the kind one would be in if one were to experience the thing it represents. One can simulate the manipulation of real objects by manipulating proxytypes of them in their absence. The term ‘proxytype’ conveys the idea that perceptually derived representations function as proxies in such simulations. They are like the scale models that stand in for objects during courtroom reenactments. They allow us to reexperience past events or anticipate future events. Possessing a concept, on this view, involves having an ability to engage in such a simulation, what Barsalou calls a ‘simulation competence.’”
- 5.
I am deeply indebted to Gioia Laura Iannilli for her suggestions on the final version of the manuscript.
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Matteucci, G. (2020). Implications of Creativity: A New Experiential Paradigm for an Aesthetics of the Extended Mind?. In: Pennisi, A., Falzone, A. (eds) The Extended Theory of Cognitive Creativity. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 23. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22090-7_11
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