Essay on the Creative Imagination

Théodule-Armand Ribot (1839 - 1916)
Translated by Albert H. N. Baron (1883 - )

"It is quite generally recognized that psychology has remained in the semi-mythological, semi-scholastic period longer than most attempts at scientific formulization. For a long time it has been the "spook science" per se, and the imagination, now analyzed by M. Ribot in such a masterly manner, has been one of the most persistent, apparently real, though very indefinite, of psychological spooks. Whereas people have been accustomed to speak of the imagination as an entity sui generis, as a lofty something found only in long-haired, wild-eyed "geniuses," constituting indeed the center of a cult, our author, Prometheus-like, has brought it down from the heavens, and has clearly shown that imagination is a function of mind common to all men in some degree, and that it is shown in as highly developed form in commercial leaders and practical inventors as in the most bizarre of romantic idealists. The only difference is that the manifestation is not the same." - Albert H. N. Baron, in translator's preface to Essai sur l'imagination créatrice

Genre(s): *Non-fiction, Philosophy, Psychology

Language: English

Section Chapter Reader Time
Play 00 00 - Translator's and Author's Prefaces and Introduction - The Motor Nature of the Constructive Imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:21:00
Play 01 Part 1: Analysis of the Imagination - Chapter 1 - The Intellectual Factor J. M. Smallheer
00:23:35
Play 02 Part 1: Analysis of the Imagination - Chapter 2 - The Emotional Factor J. M. Smallheer
00:29:14
Play 03 Part 1: Analysis of the Imagination - Chapter 3 - The Unconscious Factor J. M. Smallheer
00:21:43
Play 04 Part 1: Analysis of the Imagination - Chapter 4 - The Organic Conditions of the Imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:20:18
Play 05 Part 1: Analysis of the Imagination - Chapter 5 - The Principle of Unity J. M. Smallheer
00:17:42
Play 06 Part 2: The Development of the Imagination - Chapter 1 - Imagination in Animals J. M. Smallheer
00:13:30
Play 07 Part 2: The Development of the Imagination - Chapter 2 - Imagination in the Child J. M. Smallheer
00:22:55
Play 08 Part 2: The Development of the Imagination - Chapter 3 - Primitive Man and the Creation of Myths J. M. Smallheer
00:32:30
Play 09 Part 2: The Development of the Imagination - Chapter 4 - The Higher Forms of Invention J. M. Smallheer
00:41:03
Play 10 Part 2: The Development of the Imagination - Chapter 5 - Law of the Development of the Imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:13:32
Play 11 Part 3: The Principal Types of Imagination - Preliminary J. M. Smallheer
00:06:56
Play 12 Part 3: The Principal Types of Imagination - Chapter 1 - The Plastic Imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:16:47
Play 13 Part 3: The Principal Types of Imagination - Chapter 2 - The Diffluent Imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:39:24
Play 14 Part 3: The Principal Types of Imagination - Chapter 3 - The Mystic Imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:22:38
Play 15 Part 3: The Principal Types of Imagination - Chapter 4 - The Scientific Imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:28:49
Play 16 Part 3: The Principal Types of Imagination - Chapter 5 - The Practical and Mechanical Imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:36:26
Play 17 Part 3: The Principal Types of Imagination - Chapter 6 - The Commercial Imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:27:45
Play 18 Part 3: The Principal Types of Imagination - Chapter 7- The Utopian Imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:16:14
Play 19 Conclusion: I - The foundations of the creative imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:11:49
Play 20 Conclusion: II - The imaginative type J. M. Smallheer
00:18:03
Play 21 Appendix A - The various forms of inspiration J. M. Smallheer
00:03:03
Play 22 Appendix B - On the nature of the unconscious factor J. M. Smallheer
00:10:32
Play 23 Appendix C - Cosmic and human imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:04:25
Play 24 Appendix D - Evidence in regard to musical imagination J. M. Smallheer
00:04:11
Play 25 Appendix E - The imaginative type and association of ideas J. M. Smallheer
00:09:16