Materie oder Geist? Überlegungen zur Überwindung dualistischer Erkenntniskonzepte aus der Perspektive einer Pragmatischen Geographie

Abstract

The construction and dynamics of creative spaces are increasingly subject to studies in Human Geography in the last few years. Studies investigating creative spaces are often build on action theory approaches. Unfortunately, most action theories are not adequately able to explain the emergence of creativity, innovation and intended change, since they conceptualize change theory immanently as a result of unintended outcomes of action or of external shocks. How-ever, such an understanding of change seems to be inappropriate in cases, in which actors do intentionally and successfully look for creative solutions and construct thereby new Geogra-phies of creative spaces. Against this background, the paper presents a pragmatist model of creative action, which is based on the work of John Dewey and which has been further devel-oped by Hans Joas. The change of the epistemological perspective allows for a reconceptual-ization of the target orientation of action as problem solving. In such an action perspectives, actors do act in order to find new solutions for a problematic situation, which are abductively invented and tested within the process of action. This concept allows for interpreting and in-vestigating change as result of an active process of intended and situated invention. Therefore, a theory of creative action perspective implies specific advantages for researching the dynam-ics of creative spaces and offers a fruitful alternative to already established action theories in Human Geography.