This thesis investigates the relationship between architecture, Romanticism, American Transcendentalism, myth, and religious mysticism in the ideas of the American architect, Louis Kahn. Part One builds a chronology from Hermeticism and Jewish mysticisms into German Romanticism and how they played a role in the world of Kahn's parents shortly before his birth. The first chapter looks at mysticism and how it resonates with Kahn's descriptions of silence and light. The second chapter outlines the transition from rational aesthetics during the German Enlightenment into German Romanticism. This exposes the beginning of organicism as a way of seeing the world as a growth from a mythic image towards a physical manifestation made by artists and poets. In chapter three, the ideas from Romanticism inspire a philosophical and political movement for independence and cultural expression in the native region of Kahn's parents. Part Two concentrates on the American approach to Romanticism via Transcendentalism and how Transcendentalism influenced Kahn's childhood education in Philadelphia. It shows how the ideas of German Romanticism influenced English literature and criticism, especially Coleridge's theories of organicism and literary criticism. Chapter four presents how the American Transcendentalists correlated the mind and imagination to an organism. In chapter five, we see how Transcendentalism's aesthetic theory influenced the Public Industrial Arts School of Philadelphia's approach to teaching art. Louis Kahn attended this school. The final chapter deciphers Kahn's ideas, such as â form and design,â â material as spent light,â â measurable and unmeasurable,â â law and rule,â â order,â and â nature.â Within the framework of Romanticism and American Transcendentalism, these ideas become intelligible and an enriching approach to understand his architecture. / Master of Science

It began with the question, "What if the Modern Man was successful in his dominion over nature?" By means of Architecture this thesis became a speculation and commentary on the human condition. But, more than that, this is a story that tells the evolution and outcome of a series of questions and inquiries into the relationship between Architecture, art and the mythopoetic-narrative realm. / Master of Architecture

A study of the relationship between playfulness and creativity was conducted with a sample of Japanese children who attended a preschool that emphasized whole-group orientation. Playfulness was assessed using The Child Behaviors Inventory, teacher interviews, and observations. Creativity was measured using The Creativity Thinking-Drawing Production Test (Jellen & Urban, 1986), The Drawing Test (Acharyulu & Yasodhara, 1984), teacher interviews, and observations. Although the statistical data analysis indicated no significant relationship between playfulness and creativity, the qualitative data analysis indicated that such a relationship may exist. However, conclusions must be qualified because analysis of the qualitative data revealed confounding factors in the concepts of playfulness and creativity. Some children who were rated by their teachers as non playful were described as internally playful and this internal playfulness was more evident in a one-to-one interaction and was manifest as joy, sense of humor, and active involvement. The internally playful child was described by the teachers as the child who possesses a lot of imagination inside but may not be able to express it externally in a group situation. Although the study focused on artistic creativity, the teachers in this study discussed a global view of creativity rather than artistic creativity. Thus, the results of qualitative data analysis appeared to contradict those of quantitative analysis. Further research on the relationship between playfulness and creativity is needed to understand such a relationship. / Ph. D.

Our current times are marked by the unprecedented challenges of environmental and social crisis. Transformative changes need to take place and in this study, we explore the role of Gotlandic citizens engaged in sustainability in creating a sustainable future. We follow a recent scholarship focusing on the power of imagination in the context of shaping sustainable futures. Through the theory lens of spaces, we map Gotlandic citizens’ individual experiences of context where they engage with sustainability in different forms of rational and imaginative reflection, alone or together. We conduct qualitative interviews to investigate existing spaces combined with action research where we create a new space of shared imagination in the form of a workshop. An in-depth understanding is gained of the reactions and emotions that our study participants express towards all of these spaces. Going beyond the (k)now, both in the meaning of going beyond traditional forms of knowledge but also in the sense of going into an uncertain future, allowed us to investigate the role of arts-based imagination in the context of an island community. Our findings suggest that spaces for practicing imagination are lacking, but are highly valued when experienced. They provide an alert hopefulness and a gentle way for ordinary citizens to engage with the complex topic of sustainable futures. Another key result of our study is that communities are important spaces where collective visions can grow.

《自由談》是戰後台灣第一本暢銷國內外的民間雜誌，發行時間從1950年4月到1987年11月為止，沒有官方撐腰而能歷經整個戒嚴時期，並取得巨大成功，是來自於雜誌背後所擁有的海派文化資本、商業手腕，以及因地制宜的在地轉化。本論文以《自由談》為中心，首先比較民國上海《旅行雜誌》，踏察海派文學／文化與台灣當代文學／文化的關聯。其次藉由觀光客凝視（The Tourist Gaze）、世界主義（Cosmopolitanism）和美學世界主義（Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism）等理論，分析《自由談》裡最大宗的國內外遊記，說明藏匿在官方論述保護色之下的「世界想像」，有意無意溢出戒嚴臺灣所限制的禁忌究竟為何。最後集中關注《自由談》的小說，一樣先分析海派小說的在地化轉變，說明如何可能成為台派鴛鴦蝴蝶小說；之後再聚焦以國外為主要敘述空間的嚴肅小說，討論這些小說如何區分自我與他者、確認差異（difference）和認同（identity），進而隔海回望，漸漸打造出不同於官方主導文化、嶄新的「台灣想像」。 / The Rambler（《自由談》） was the first private magazine in post-war Taiwan that sold well domestically and internationally. Published from April 1950 to November 1987 without government support, the magazine thrived throughout the entire martial law period because of the combination of the cultural capital of the Shanghai School, effective business tactics, and a local transformation that underpinned its operation. In this study, The Rambler and its predecessor, China Traveler（《旅行雜誌》）, were compared to investigate the relationship between the Shanghai School literature and contemporary Taiwanese literature. Travelogues collected in The Rambler were subsequently analyzed through the perspectives of tourist gaze, cosmopolitanism, and aesthetic cosmopolitanism to illustrate how the world imagination was influenced by the ruling Nationalist Party, which, wittingly or unwittingly, revealed officially stated taboos in Taiwan under martial law. The local transformations in the Shanghai School fiction reflected in The Rambler were also discussed in this study. Finally, fiction in The Rambler with settings that occurred beyond the borders of Taiwan were examined to discuss how characters in these fictions distinguish between the self and the others, perceived their difference, and identified with their identity to create a different imagination of Taiwan from the officially created one.

Le traité De l’âme (DA) et les traités connexes (Parva Naturalia) contiennent les éléments d’une théorie de la phantasia, souvent nommée « imagination », ou « représentation ». Dans ce texte, Aristote affirme à plusieurs reprises qu’il est impossible de penser quoi que ce soit sans phantasia. Le DA contient toutefois peu de précisions quant à la portée de cette affirmation. Ce que cela signifie trouve cependant une élucidation si l’on transfert la théorie de la phantasia à un autre texte, les Seconds Analytiques II, 19, portant sur l’acquisition du premier savoir universel à partir de la perception, et des premiers principes intelligibles. Cette étude se propose d’abord de montrer en quoi la théorie de la phantasia s’applique aux SA, et comment ce texte, lu en regard de la phantasia, peut répondre à la question de savoir ce que cela signifie que l’intellect doit nécessairement s’appuyer sur la phantasia pour penser. / The treaty On the Soul (DA) and the connex treaties (Parva Naturalia) expose a theory of phantasia, often translated as « imagination » or « representation ». In the DA, Aristotle maintains that it is impossible to think without phantasia, yet this text offers little precision on the exact signification of his affirmation. An elucidation may however be found in another text, the Posterior Analytics II, 19, which focuses on the acquisition of knowledge, that is, the first universals implanted by perception and the first intelligible principles. This text, as we will firstly demonstrate, has to be read in the frame of the theory of phantasia, which will show that the acquisition of klowledge depends on phantasia. Thus and secondly, it will be clearer what it means that it is impossible for the intellect to think without phantasia.

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Dans cette thèse en psychologie morale, je m’intéresse au rôle de l’imagination dans la perception morale. Je soutiens que l’imagination y a une fonction épistémique dans la mesure où – en s’accompagnant ou non d’émotions – elle nous révèle des normes, des valeurs ou des vertus morales qui seraient autrement passées inaperçues. En simulant des croyances et des perceptions, l’imagination nous permet d’accéder à ces caractéristiques d’une situation moralement pertinentes, mais perceptuellement non saillantes. J’identifie trois modes de « perception morale imaginative » : 1) la prise de perspective qui consiste à endosser le point de vue d’autrui, 2) le cadrage imaginatif qui désigne le fait de voir un élément d’une situation comme autre qu’il n’est et, 3) la comparaison imaginative qui, grâce à la pensée contrefactuelle, éclaire le monde actuel à partir d’un monde possible imaginé. Chacun de ces modes contribue à enrichir notre connaissance morale, et partant, à améliorer notre délibération morale. J’appuie ma démonstration sur des travaux récents en philosophie de la psychologie, en psychologie cognitive et sociale, en neuropsychologie et, bien évidemment, en psychologie morale. / My thesis focuses on the role of imagination for moral perception. I argue that imagination – whether accompanied by emotion or not - has an epistemic role inasmuch as it can reveal moral norms, values, and virtues that might otherwise go un-noticed. On the simulationist account, belief-like imaginings and perception-like imaginings give us access to the morally relevant but perceptually non-salient features of a situation. I identify three types of “imaginative moral perception”: 1) the perspective taking that consists of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes; 2) the imaginative framing, which refers to seeing an element of a situation as something else; 3) the imaginative comparison, which sheds light on the actual world by using counterfactuals thinking that give us access to a possible world. Each of these types of moral perception contributes to enhancing our moral knowledge hence to improving our moral deliberation. My argument appeals to recent contributions from the fields of philosophy of psychology, cognitive and social psychology, neuropsychology and, of course, moral psychology.

Cette thèse porte sur l’analyse des relations intertextuelles entre des œuvres littéraires et philosophiques allemandes, notamment les textes de Novalis et de Rilke, et le recueil de sonnets de l’écrivain et traducteur chinois moderne Feng Zhi. Le but de cette étude est d’analyser et de discerner dans quelle mesure il est possible d’établir des relations « transtextuelles » entre la littérature primaire, la thèse de doctorat de Feng Zhi, qui a joué un rôle vital dans le développement de sa voix poétique, et son recueil de sonnets. Les textes analysés dans le cadre de cette étude visent à montrer comment certains indices transculturels de la poésie de Feng Zhi définissent la tendance poétique de l’écrivain en tant que postromantique et métaphysique, alors qu’une recherche plus approfondie et d’autres évidences transtextuelles encadrent sa production lyrique parmi les premiers exemples de littérature moderniste chinoise. Les profondes et énigmatiques réflexions contemplatives des sonnets font de Feng Zhi un poète métaphysique. La voix lyrique s'engage avec le monde extérieur et gagne de nouvelles expériences esthétiques à travers l'imagination, la méditation sur l'infini spatial et temporel, la reconnaissance de l'état mutable et permanent de la matière, et une finale réalisation existentielle de l'auto-accomplissement de l'homme à travers son état d'isolement. Cette étude analyse enfin l'idée conceptualisée de l'infini et de la transcendance poétique évoquée par le mysticisme orphique. Cette approche redéfinit la relation du sujet poétique avec le monde extérieur et sa perception constructive finale de sa position au sein de la communauté, de la nature et du cosmos dans son ensemble. / The research conducted in this work focuses on the intertextuality between German literary and philosophical works, notably those of Novalis and Rilke, and the sonnet collection of the modern Chinese scholar and writer Feng Zhi. This study analyses the extent to which transtextual elements travel between the primary literature, the author’s own German doctoral dissertation, which ultimately played a vital role in the development of his lyrical voice, and his sonnets. Moreover, the texts analysed in this study attempt to demonstrate how given transcultural elements in Feng Zhi’s poetry define the writer’s apparent poetic tendency as a post-Romantic and metaphysical lyricist, whereas other closer transtextual investigations place his work among the first examples of Chinese modernist writings. The profound and enigmatic contemplative reflections of the sonnets make Feng Zhi a metaphysical poet. The lyrical self engages with the surrounding world and gains new aesthetic experiences through the power of imagination, the meditation on spatial and temporal infinity, the recognition of the changeable and permanent state of matter, and a final existential realisation of man’s self-completion through his state of isolation. This study finally also analyses the conceptualised idea of infinity and transcendence evoked by Orphic mysticism. This approach redefines the poetic subject’s relationship with the outer world, and the subject’s final perception of his position within the community, nature and the cosmos as a whole.

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