RESEARCH IN PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION-ABSTRACTS DEVI, S., A
Critical Study of the Concept of Creativity in Philosophy with special
reference to Bergson, Whitehead and Sri Aurobindo, Ph. D. Phil., Kur. U., 1976
The objectives of the study were (i) to find out if
creativity was the general scheme of reality, (ii) to find out if creativity
was linked with different concepts of this universe, that is, with becoming,
cosmic evolution, consciousness, organic evolution and teleology, (iii) to
trace the historical background of creativity both in Indian and in Western
thought, with special reference to the Vedas, Upanishads, Plato and Plotinus,
(iv) to locate the concept of creativity in Bergson's ideas, (v) to investigate
how Whitehead contributed to the concept of creativity, (vi) to identify the
concept of creativity in the ideas of Sri Aurobindo, and (vii) to analyse
various theories of creative evolution developed by S. Alexander, L. Morgan and
James Ward.
The methodology adopted was philosophical,
historical and comparative. The study was philosophical in the sense that ideas
of various personalities were organized, critically analysed and evaluated. It
was historical because the development of the concept of creativity from
various sources had been traced. Further, it was comparative as commonness
between the ideas and theories of various persons on the concept of creativity
had been identified and critically evaluated. Content analysis was used both as
a tool and technique to analyse the educational ideas of Tagore and Whitehead.
Content analysis consisted of documentary analysis and thematic analysis. For
content analysis, primary as well as secondary sources were used. The material
was also examined to find out its suitability for the proposed research by way
of internal and external criticism.
Some of the findings of the study were:
1. Creativity constitutes the very basis of reality.
2. Creativity has been conceived by various thinkers
as an exercise of nonfigurative powers of the whole psyche involving all its
substance, the play of its entire energy. The creative action is more than
cerebral, more than visceral, involving more than mind and heart, intellect and
emotions. It augments the structure of human vision by introducing some new,
vital configuration of ideas or from among those available to organize
experience.
3. Creativity was the power to evolve a pattern that
remained omnipotent insofar as it touched the details of actualization.
Creativity was a widely recognized ideal for every human being.
4. Both east and west emphasized that what was
creative about spiritual experience was not its psychological accompaniments
but the inward change which manifested itself in the fruits of the
spirit-peace, JOY and loving suffering. A new type of life emerged with a
higher correspondence between one's self and the ultimate sources of reality.
New qualities of mind and character were called forth out of ordinary men and
women, qualities which manifested the Divine in them.
5. Bergson's concepts elan-vital had led to a
revolutionary syndical that would restore a purified social life by insisting
that social change in any class of people could be achieved only by the force
of their own associations, through means that would evolve so as to suit their
particular needs. In the theory of science, he had inspired a new `positivism'
that criticized scientific data in a vigorous and original way and showed how
much arbitrariness there was in our methods of measurement of magnitudes.
6. Whitehead introduced an omnibus principle called creativity, which was a sort of universal blanket to cover all logical branches that his philosophy had created. Whitehead's emphasis on the organic character of natural systems and his attempt to bring physics and biology closer together had a good deal in common with the Gestalt approach to mind and nature.
6. Whitehead introduced an omnibus principle called creativity, which was a sort of universal blanket to cover all logical branches that his philosophy had created. Whitehead's emphasis on the organic character of natural systems and his attempt to bring physics and biology closer together had a good deal in common with the Gestalt approach to mind and nature.
7. Some emergentists advocated the theory of levels
according to which evolution proceeded by the method of creative synthesis and
life and mind came of a certain kind of organization of non-living elements.
These new qualities could not be inferred by merely adding together the
qualities of elements taking part in the organization. At each new level of
reality, new powers, new capacities and new qualities emerged. Life appeared at
one of these levels. Along with it emerged a series of new qualities such as
growth, assimilation, irritability, adaptability and reproduction. Mind was the
result of still more highly complex organizations. This was called creative
evolution or emergent evolution whose pioneers were Bergson, Alexander, Morgan
and Ward.
8. Sri Aurobindo's evolution admitted both mechanism
and emergence, determinism and freedom. The creator was the supermind and it
was a power of Sachchidananda. Hence the process of evolution was free,
self-imposed and self-determined by Sachchidananda. The world was not the
result of blind chance but a self-manifestation of the ultimate. Nature's
processes appeared to us to be mechanical merely because the purpose was under
disguise. Nothing was created from outside.
9. Creativity constitutes the very basis or
foundation of reality. It was the creative purpose which steered and guided
cosmic evolution and natural evolution. Creativity in human civilization was
the expression of creation, which was at the root of nature and reality.
10. Man's future is in the hands of two creative
agencies, his biological evolution and his psychological evolution. Genetic and
natural environmental forces continued to influence the development of man.
Psychological control dominates the direction of human evolution. Man's
personal potential is biological, but he is freely And creatively designed. His
future depended upon his understanding and attitudes towards reality. Man would
be creative and free in projecting his future only if he could at one and the
same time realistically immerse himself in the history of his age and culture,
discover trans-historical meaning and affirm divine communication.
11. Bergson,
Sri Aurobindo and Whitehead are quite close to each other as far as the process
of creativity is concerned.
Science v. Religion (in the lead up to my dissertation) – Al
Jazeera interviews Richard Dawkins, and Lawrence’s Krauss thinks he’s special from Footnotes to Plato by Matthew David Segall
Now
that I've completed preparatory research essays on Schelling (The
Re-Emergence of Schelling: Philosophy in a Time of Emergency) and
Whitehead (Physics of the World-Soul: The Relevance of A.N. Whitehead’s
Philosophy of Organism to Contemporary Scientific Cosmology), it’s finally time
to start zeroing in on my dissertation thesis. The title I’m proposing for now
is Imagination Between...
Sri Aurobindo,
the hope of man - Page 309 - Keshavmurti -
1969 - In the beginning Sri Aurobindo did not concern himself much
with the war though he knew that poor leadership in England and France was at
least partly responsible for Hitler's truculent and bellicose ...
Collected
Works: Words of the mother - Page 127 - Mother -
1980 - 1 April 1946 A Declaration Sri Aurobindo withdrew from politics; and, in
his Ashram, a most important rule is that one must abstain from all politics —
not because Sri Aurobindo did not concern himself with the happenings of the
world, but because politics, as it is practised, is a low and ugly thing,
wholly dominated by falsehood, deceit, injustice, misuse of power and violence; ...
The
Political Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo -
Page xv - V.
P. Varma - 1990 - Preview - More
editions Possibly such reconstruction of the political philosophy of Aurobindo might not appeal to some
sections in our country who would regard it as an enterprise in the
profanization of a sacred personality. But we must not forget that Aurobindo
was ...
Quest
- Volumes 93-98 - Page 16 - Indian
Committee for Cultural Freedom - 1975 - Aurobindo might not have had the time or the inclination to
enter into a proper study of the scientific picture of the world. Also, some of
the great discoveries took place after his self-imposed seclusion. However, the
theories of relativity and ... Sri Aurobindo Ghose - Page 581 - Verinder
Grover - 1993
Sri Aurobindo's treatment of Hindu myth -
Page 32 - Jan
Feys - 1983 - But for these queries Aurobindo might not have spoken of it at all. His general
approach to myth also holds good here. Thus, e.g., Radha under the spell of Krishna symbolises "the soul, the psychic, hearing
the call of the Divine". Aurobindo's ...
Sri Aurobindo--the poet - Volume 2, Part 4
- Page 162 - Kaikhushru
Dhunjibhoy Sethna - 1999 - Just as the merits of Savitri were
appreciated to the utmost, whatever seemed a shortcoming no matter how slight
and negligible in the midst of the abundant excellence was pointedly remarked
upon so that Sri Aurobindo might
not overlook... Sri Aurobindo: Savitri; a legend and a
symbol - Page 733 - Aurobindo
Ghose - 1970
The
philosophy of Sri Aurobindo:
his idea of evolution - Page 58 - Joseph
Veliyathil - 1972 - So Aurobindo
might not have felt the necessity of attributing immediacy to the
acquisition of knowledge by the intellectual faculty. This made him limit the
intellectual operation to discursive level only. Now if a comparison may be
made ...
Sri Aurobindo--secularist? or nationalist?
- Page 37 - Ke.
Es Nārāyaṇācārya - 2006 - ... a detail Sri Aurobindo might not have known,
as most savants of 'unity' took it for granted that Islam too was a 'religion'
like any other, without realising its diabolic, predatory nature. Only recent
researches are waking us up all over the world.
Letters
on Savitri - Page 10 - Aurobindo
Ghose, Sri
Aurobindo, Kaikhushru
Dhunjibhoy Sethna - 2000 - Just as the merits of Savitri were
appreciated to the utmost, whatever seemed a shortcoming no matter how slight
and negligible in the midst of the abundant excellence was pointedly remarked
upon so that Sri Aurobindo might
not overlook...
Swami
Vivekananda and Indian Nationalism - Page 91 - Subodh
Chandra Sen Gupta - 1984 - Although Aurobindo might not have known the 'tens of thousands of
young men' beaming with patriotic fervour, he should not have failed to see
that most of them could not have much to do with P. Mitra's Samiti, some
associates and members ...
The
Light at the Center: Context and Pretext of Modern Mysticism - Page 104 - Agehananda
Bharati - 1976 - His writings are different indeed from those of the
older Vivekananda and the younger Sivananda. Aurobindo might not have been a good poet, but he was a poet;
he might not have been a thinker in any professional sense, but he expressed ...
The
oneness/otherness mystery: the synthesis of science and mysticism - Page 508
- Sutapas
Bhattacharya - 1999 - Preview
... of the material order
is held by Aurobindo, Whitehead and
others to be Nature's development of habits (stable patterns of behaviour
emerging from repetition) rather than laws obeyed by Nature. Reality is
fundamentally creative but patterns ...
Sri Aurobindo and Vedānta Philosophy
- Page 71 - Sheojee
Pandey - 1987 - Preview - More
editions Here we have to say that Whitehead's Philosophy of evolution is more close and more
similar to that of Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy
of evolution. Like Whitehead Sri
Aurobindo also believes
that God is the ultimate principle and the evolution ...
Evolutionary,
Spiritual Conceptions of Life - Sri Aurobindo, ... - Page 35 - Michael
Leicht - 2008 - Preview
Here Aurobindo gets
quiet sociological. In the following I want to correct one misunderstanding of
Madhusudan Reddy of Whitehead's
theory: He assumes that Whitehead's philosophy
has no final goal of evolution (Reddy, 2004: 156).
Aurobindo's Philosophy of Brahman -
Page 3 - Stephen
H. Phillips - 1986 - Preview - More
editions I doubt that one could overstate the importance of Aurobindo's mysticism for his
philosophy. How then is he a metaphysician? A.N. Whitehead gives a just characterization of the trade:
"Speculative Philosophy," he says, "is the endeavor to...
The
Eye of Spirit: An Integral Vision for a World Gone Slightly Mad - Page 356
- Ken
Wilber - 2001 - Preview - More
editions Notice that Shankara, Nagarjuna, Aurobindo, Plotinus (and Alexander and Wilber) can pass this test; Whitehead does not. This is not a
secondary issue; it is at the precise heart of the matter, a heart that Whitehead lacks. Thus, the notion
of ...
Cognitive
models and spiritual maps: interdisciplinary ... - Volume 7, Issues 11-12 -
Page 202 - Jensine
Andresen, Robert
K. C. Forman - 2001 - Preview
What Whitehead doesn't
have, something essential to Wilber, is the Great Nest or Chain of Being in
addition to the Great Network of Being. For that, we would need to augment Whitehead with Aurobindo. I agree with Wilber that Whitehead's ...
The
Essential Aurobindo:
Writings of Sri Aurobindo -
Page 23 - Aurobindo
Ghose, Robert
A. McDermott - 2001 - Preview - More
editions In its philosophic comprehensiveness, Sri Aurobindo's philosophy finds its
contemporary Western analogue among the systematic thinkers — Royce, Bergson, Whitehead, and Heidegger; in its
spiritual and autobiographic quality, it more closely resembles Kierkegaard
and Buber, and perhaps Heidegger and Wittgenstein.
Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy of Social
Development - Page 40 - Preview
This is what Sri Aurobindo has
attempted in his metaphysics of evolution. And it is here that the theories of
Darwin, Lamarck, Herbert Spencer, S. Alexander, Whitehead, Lloyd Morgan, Bergson, Hegel and Croce have stopped
short of the ...
Integral
Psychology - Page 84 - Ken
Wilber - 2000 - Preview
Maslow. Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) is well known enough that I will only make a
few passing comments. Like all truly great integral thinkers— from Aurobindo to Gebser to Whitehead to Baldwin
to Habermas—he was a developmentalist.
Faith
possesses understanding: a suggestion for a new direction in ... - Page 220
- Jehangir
Nasserwanji Chubb - 1983 - Preview - More
editions It can be said of Sri Aurobindo what
Eckhart said of God : 'In him there is no denial except the denial of all
denials.' Upanishadic paradox, 216 Whitehead,
A.N., 182 Upanishads, 16, 60, 210. See my article The Logic of the Infinite
in the ...
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