Abstract
One of the central concerns in Bruner’s psychology is the complex, apparently contradictory nature of human behavior. In his view, the cognitive revolution was meant to grasp the actual experience of people dealing with everyday dilemmas, finding their way in the difficult task of choosing what it is ought to do, rather than an orthodontic of thinking as later it turned to be. In this chapter I try to discuss the relationship between imagination, ambivalence and dilemmatic nature of experience as a theme that transversally crossed Bruner’s thought along his work. Ethic and aesthetic dimensions are fundamental to understand his rich theorizing both in developmental, educational and general psychology.
“Pina Marsico: in your opinion what is to be studied more, to understood more of our human condition, for the future generations? On the basis of your scientific program which is the direction in which we have to go… looking towards the future?
Jerome Bruner: Yeah ((pause)) it’s basically ((pause)) much more concerned with the human dilemmas that are characteristic of the life, that is the sharing of dilemmas I mean”
(Interview with Jerome Bruner, January 26th, 2015, New York, USA)
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Notes
- 1.
Entry: Dilemma. Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/dilemma (accessed May 14, 2015).
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Tateo, L. (2015). Let’s Frankly Play: Ambivalence, Dilemmas and Imagination. In: Marsico, G. (eds) Jerome S. Bruner beyond 100. Cultural Psychology of Education, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25536-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25536-1_3
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