Abstract
We dwell in the world and the world dwells in us. This happens through a complex meaning-making process that Wittgenstein called “seeing-as”. In this chapter, I try to develop the idea that the contextual and purposeful selection of some features establishes a meaningful relationship with the objects of experience that can then resist our actions and thus become Gegenstand. Directionality and resistance are fundamental parts of any developmental process and characterize such relationships with the phenomenon of Gegenstand. Finally, I argue that imaginative processes are the distinctive features that enable humans to deal with uncertainty and change. Imagination is related to the creation of Gegenstand from non-existing objects. Imagination is also the faculty to go beyond problems in order to solve them. That is the reason why imagination is so dangerous for every dictatorship.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Resistance in Everyday Life : Constructing Cultural Experiences |
| Editors | Nandita Chaudhary, Pernille Hviid, Giuseppina Marsico, Jakob Waag Villadsen |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Publication date | 11 Jul 2017 |
| Pages | 233-245 |
| Chapter | 17 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-981-10-3580-7 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-981-10-3581-4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 11 Jul 2017 |