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Final Thesis Copy CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by University of Essex Research Repository 1 Making Chance Meaningful: Exploring Links with Creativity and its Culturally Subversive Application Marie-Louise Mederer A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies University of Essex October 2015 2 Dedicated to my mother Claudia and my grandmothers Eva (1935-2012) and Eva Maria (Momo) (1929) 3 Abstract Throughout history the study of chance has largely been either neglected or dismissed as futile. This changed around the end of the 19th century and since then interest in chance phenomena has exponentially grown up to this day. This thesis addresses the question what influenced this increase in interest occurring around the turn of the last century. The approach is interdisciplinary and takes three main theories of chance from the subject areas of philosophy, analytical psychology and avant-garde art, mainly literature, as its starting point. The theories are Charles Sanders Peirce's tychism, Carl Gustav Jung's synchronicity and André Breton's objective chance. From these theories it can be deduced that the growing interest in chance arose as an expression of the ‘epistemological uncertainty’ marking the age. Besides the exploration of what chance in itself could be, all three were also keen to investigate its impact on man. Furthermore, by acknowledging the significance of the irregular and unpredictable they, in their own ways, employed chance as a tool of cultural subversion, namely to counteract the dominance of rationality prevailing since the Enlightenment. As part of the analysis of chance’s impact on man, it emerged that they all either explicitly or implicitly deal with the relationship of chance and creativity and how chance can affect the creation of the new and original. 4 Table of Contents Introduction .......................................................................... 8 Part I: Introductory Exploration of Creativity and Chance 1. Chance ............................................................................. 13 1.1. Early, Characterising Theories: Chance in Western Philosophy .......................... 13 1.2. Defining Chance through Key Concepts .............................................................. 20 1.2.1. Chance .......................................................................................................... 20 1.2.2. Coincidence ................................................................................................... 21 1.2.3. Contingency .................................................................................................. 22 1.2.4. Probability .................................................................................................... 23 1.2.5. Accident and Hazard .................................................................................... 24 1.2.6. Fortuity and Serendipity ............................................................................... 25 2. Creativity .......................................................................... 27 2.1. A Philosophical Exploration of Creativity ............................................................ 27 2.1. Definitions of Creativity ....................................................................................... 32 2.2. Defining Creativity through more Key Concepts ................................................. 33 2.2.1. Genius and Talent ......................................................................................... 33 2.2.2. Imagination, Play and Fantasy ..................................................................... 34 2.2.3. Inspiration, Insight and Intuition .................................................................. 36 2.2.4. Novelty and Originality ................................................................................. 38 2.2.5. Invention and Discovery ............................................................................... 38 3. The Role of Chance in Creativity ....................................... 40 3.1. Creation Myths: Revealing the Underlying Struggle of Chaos and Order ........... 43 3.2. Contemporary Views ........................................................................................... 47 3.2.1. Serendipity .................................................................................................... 50 3.1.2. Aleatoricism .................................................................................................. 53 Conclusion ........................................................................... 54 Part II. Tychism: the Philosophy of Chance and Creativity 1. The Metaphysics of Chance .............................................. 57 1.1. Making a Case against Determinism ................................................................... 58 1.2. Defining Tychism ................................................................................................. 62 1.3. Tyche in Peirce’s Cosmogony and Evolutionary Theory ...................................... 68 2. Chance in Human Affairs .................................................. 71 2.1. Free Will, Habit and Developmental Teleology ................................................... 71 5 2.2. Aesthetics and Pure Play ..................................................................................... 74 2.3. Abduction and Musement ................................................................................... 78 3. Chance’s Involvement in the Creative Process .................. 85 3.1. The Relation of Chance to Purpose in Invention .................................................. 86 3.2. The Attitude of the Experiencer in Relation to Chance ....................................... 88 3.3. More on the Interplay between Chance and Purpose ........................................ 91 4. Using Peircean Theory to Explain Artistic Creativity .......... 94 4.1. Applying Peirce’s Scientific Method to Artistic Creativity ................................... 95 4.2. The Interplay of Chance, Telos and Imagination in Artistic Creativity ................. 98 Conclusion ......................................................................... 100 Part III. The Creative Psyche and Synchronicity: Examining the Unconscious Aspect 1. The Creative Psyche ........................................................ 102 1.1. Jung’s Model of the Psyche ............................................................................... 103 1.2. Personality ......................................................................................................... 107 1.2.1. Intuition as Primary Function ..................................................................... 109 1.3. Fantasy and Imagination ................................................................................... 111 1.3.1. Active and Passive Fantasy ......................................................................... 113 1.4. Two Kinds of Thinking ....................................................................................... 116 1.5. Types of Artistic Creation .................................................................................. 120 2. Chance in the Form of Meaningful Coincidence .............. 123 2.1. Definitions and Types of Synchronicity ............................................................. 123 2.2. Jung’s Metaphysical Basis: Causality, Teleology and Acausality ....................... 126 2.2.1. Acausal Orderedness, Tychism and Synchronicity ...................................... 128 2.3. Further Characteristics of Synchronicity ........................................................... 130 2.3.1. Time and Simultaneity ................................................................................ 131 2.3.2. Compensation and Meaning ...................................................................... 132 3. Exploring Links between the Unconscious, Creativity and Synchronicity ..................................................................... 136 3.1. Two States of Mind ........................................................................................... 137 3.2. Archetypes, Time, the Psychoid and the Unus Mundus .................................... 140 3.3. Images, Symbols and the Autonomous Creative Drive: Are there More Inherent Links between Synchronicity and Creativity? ........................................................... 145 3.4. Synchronicity and Art ........................................................................................ 149 Conclusion ......................................................................... 151 6 Part IV. Dada and Surrealism: Seizing Chance for Artistic Purposes 1. Mallarmé and Dada: the Beginnings of Chance in Modern Art ...................................................................................... 152 1.1. Mallarmé and A Throw of the Dice .................................................................... 152 1.2. Zürich Dada ....................................................................................................... 156 1.3. Tristan Tzara: Honouring the Purely Chaotic ..................................................... 158 1.4. Hans Arp: Seeking Renewal out of Destruction ................................................. 159 1.5. Hans Richter: the Secret Purpose of Regaining the Numinous ......................... 163 2. The Surrealism of André Breton ...................................... 166 2.1. Establishing
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