Phillip Romero has written about art but he is trained as a medical doctor and practices child and family psychiatry. Such a profession entails intensive training in western scientific method. This proceeds from the premise that logic and inductive reasoning based on empirical observation are the basic way in which doctors arrive at the conclusion that inform their work. .
It appears that the doctor, author and teacher is able to reconcile what must be regarded as conflicting impulses, practices and theories. As a scientist he must be interested in activities that have practical outcomes such as cures. Scientists often see practical outcomes as the motivation for doing things. Artists, however, seem to be motivated by different needs that cannot easily be explained in terms of concrete outcomes.
Romero is one scientist who has squarely faced the indisputable fact that art has been a reality in the survival and evolution life on the planet since the earliest times. The motivation behind the creative impulse seems to account for a reality in the human psyche and yet it cannot be accounted for in the same way that scientific endeavor is. Scientists work towards measurable and concrete outcomes but artists do not seem to have the same motivation. A drawing on a cave wall may have beauty as an outcome but this is ethereal and immeasurable.
The word 'consilience' was apparently first used in the nineteenth century but it has never threatened to become a buzz word, perhaps because it denotes a difficult concept. The idea that the same conclusion can be arrived at by different means tends not to be popular among academic disciplines where discrete ways of working are jealously guarded. For example, sports people and dancers may come to the same conclusions about human movement but keep their disciplines distinct.
Rat races exist in the academic world where prestige and reputation are built up in various narrow disciplines. The success of scientists can depend on how many papers are published in reputable journals. Things that disrupt the race to be uppermost in particular field can be viciously attacked. Students are taught to use specific methods and specific registers of words. If they depart from the language of the discipline they can face relegation.
One of the greatest benefits of the Internet is that it has diminished to the ability of academics to hide in ivory towers, shooting arrows at intruders who have not been through the accepted initiation rites. Freedom of information and the facilities to browse freely through wide fields of knowledge has pushed consilient approaches forward.
One of the theories that plays a part in Romero's consilient approach is the theory of attachment first put forward by John Bowlby, a development psychologist. He postulated that an infant is in need of a significant relationship in order to pass through a significant phase in intellectual development. This might seem like common sense to many people but in academia the truth is rarely simple or briefly articulated.
In his quest to explain how the passion for art is an imperative of human survival Phillip Romero employs a a consilient approach. He draws on various disciplines including psychiatric medicine, biology and art history to develop a theory that the artistic instinct is an essential attribute in human survival.
It appears that the doctor, author and teacher is able to reconcile what must be regarded as conflicting impulses, practices and theories. As a scientist he must be interested in activities that have practical outcomes such as cures. Scientists often see practical outcomes as the motivation for doing things. Artists, however, seem to be motivated by different needs that cannot easily be explained in terms of concrete outcomes.
Romero is one scientist who has squarely faced the indisputable fact that art has been a reality in the survival and evolution life on the planet since the earliest times. The motivation behind the creative impulse seems to account for a reality in the human psyche and yet it cannot be accounted for in the same way that scientific endeavor is. Scientists work towards measurable and concrete outcomes but artists do not seem to have the same motivation. A drawing on a cave wall may have beauty as an outcome but this is ethereal and immeasurable.
The word 'consilience' was apparently first used in the nineteenth century but it has never threatened to become a buzz word, perhaps because it denotes a difficult concept. The idea that the same conclusion can be arrived at by different means tends not to be popular among academic disciplines where discrete ways of working are jealously guarded. For example, sports people and dancers may come to the same conclusions about human movement but keep their disciplines distinct.
Rat races exist in the academic world where prestige and reputation are built up in various narrow disciplines. The success of scientists can depend on how many papers are published in reputable journals. Things that disrupt the race to be uppermost in particular field can be viciously attacked. Students are taught to use specific methods and specific registers of words. If they depart from the language of the discipline they can face relegation.
One of the greatest benefits of the Internet is that it has diminished to the ability of academics to hide in ivory towers, shooting arrows at intruders who have not been through the accepted initiation rites. Freedom of information and the facilities to browse freely through wide fields of knowledge has pushed consilient approaches forward.
One of the theories that plays a part in Romero's consilient approach is the theory of attachment first put forward by John Bowlby, a development psychologist. He postulated that an infant is in need of a significant relationship in order to pass through a significant phase in intellectual development. This might seem like common sense to many people but in academia the truth is rarely simple or briefly articulated.
In his quest to explain how the passion for art is an imperative of human survival Phillip Romero employs a a consilient approach. He draws on various disciplines including psychiatric medicine, biology and art history to develop a theory that the artistic instinct is an essential attribute in human survival.
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Check out www.artimperativequest.com for a review of the reasons why you should read The Art Imperative: The Secret Power of Art, now. You can also get more information about the author Phillip Romero at http://www.artimperativequest.com today.
