CARESSING A PLACE “IN-BETWEEN”:THE IMAGINATIVE AND CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT OF KAREL ČAPEK
CARESSING A PLACE “IN-BETWEEN”:THE IMAGINATIVE AND CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT OF KAREL ČAPEK

Summary/Abstract: We face the world in which things are losing their firm contours and areas of life their static divisions. Therefore, we have to deal with the problem of how to re-think anew the relationships between chaos and order, continuity and discontinuity, unity and multiplicity, the relationship between concept and image being among of them. Many contemporary philosophers stress the importance of understanding the place where the mediation between two poles runs through, sometimes called a place “in-between”. The aim of this article is to propose a hypotheses that Karel Čapek, the 20th century Czech writer and philosopher, addressed the problem in question in his literary works and philosophy, and to analyze what kind of solutions he offered. The first part examines two short stories by the Čapek brothers in order to propose the idea that an imagination plays an important role in the connection with the problem in question. The second part is based on the idea that philosophy itself is a place “in-between” conceptual and imaginative thought, and this section is devoted to determining how the imaginative part of Čapek’s work is related to his pragmatic philosophical thoughts. The third part explores the particular linguistic phenomenon—the semi-colon—as an appropriate device to embody Čapek’s world vision Weltanschauung.

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