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dc.contributor.authorVaris, Essi
dc.date.accessioned2022-12-02T08:03:00Z
dc.date.available2022-12-02T08:03:00Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.identifier.citationVaris, E. (2022). Strange Tools and Dark Materials : Speculating Beyond Narratives with Philosophical Instruments. <i>Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas</i>, <i>20</i>(2), 253-276. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/pan.2022.0015" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1353/pan.2022.0015</a>
dc.identifier.otherCONVID_150905892
dc.identifier.urihttps://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/84199
dc.description.abstractAlthough Alva Noë’s Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature (2015) makes no direct reference to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy (1995–2000), these otherwise dissimilar works share an astonishingly similar and current view of the mind: both Noë and Pullman construe cognition as embodied action that extends and reflects on its own possibilities through various instruments and technologies. For Noë, the key technology aiding this reaching of the mind is art; making and engaging with art is a self-reflexive endeavor that makes our activities available for closer examination and evaluation. By extension, works of speculative fiction could be read as illustrations of or investigations into speculative, imaginative cognition. In case of Pullman’s trilogy, this is certainly true as it incorporates several explicit commentaries on John Keats’ notion of negative capability, which is closely linked to imagination and creative cognition. Moreover, Pullman illustrates his characters’ negative capabilities through very particular ”strange tools”: the Golden Compass, the Subtle Knife, and the Amber Spyglass. These imaginary instruments serve the dual purpose of, first, modifying affordances, i.e. the ways the characters can respond to their changing situations, and second, making these speculative cognitive processes more visible to the readers. Ultimately, the analysis of the trilogy suggests that skillful speculation entails at least two subskills: first, the ability to see as full a range of actionable possibilities as possible and, second, the ability to choose and act on the most suitable one. In the 4E framework, which views the mind as embodied, extended and action-oriented, speculation and imagination could thus be defined as especially extensive and flexible use of affordances. As such, speculation is something that always oveflows the limits of narrative. Like other forms of art, narrative is merely a tool for modifying and highlighting the affordances at its disposal.en
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherJohns Hopkins University Press
dc.relation.ispartofseriesPartial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas
dc.rightsIn Copyright
dc.subject.otherNoë, Alva
dc.subject.otherPullman, Philip
dc.subject.otherUniversumien tomu
dc.subject.otherHis Dark Materials
dc.titleStrange Tools and Dark Materials : Speculating Beyond Narratives with Philosophical Instruments
dc.typearticle
dc.identifier.urnURN:NBN:fi:jyu-202212025465
dc.contributor.laitosMusiikin, taiteen ja kulttuurin tutkimuksen laitosfi
dc.contributor.laitosDepartment of Music, Art and Culture Studiesen
dc.contributor.oppiaineKirjallisuusfi
dc.contributor.oppiaineLiteratureen
dc.type.urihttp://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle
dc.type.coarhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_2df8fbb1
dc.description.reviewstatuspeerReviewed
dc.format.pagerange253-276
dc.relation.issn1565-3668
dc.relation.numberinseries2
dc.relation.volume20
dc.type.versionacceptedVersion
dc.rights.copyright© 2022 Johns Hopkins University Press
dc.rights.accesslevelopenAccessfi
dc.subject.ysokognitio
dc.subject.ysotaide
dc.subject.ysoteknologia
dc.subject.ysospekulatiivinen fiktio
dc.subject.ysometakognitio
dc.subject.ysoluovuus
dc.subject.ysoinstrumentit
dc.subject.ysoreflektio
dc.subject.ysotaidefilosofia
dc.subject.ysofiktiiviset hahmot
dc.subject.ysospekulaatio (filosofia)
dc.subject.ysokirjallisuudentutkimus
dc.subject.ysokerronta
dc.subject.ysomielikuvitus
dc.format.contentfulltext
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dc.rights.urlhttp://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en
dc.relation.doi10.1353/pan.2022.0015
dc.type.okmA1


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