Literary notes about involution (AI summary)
The term "involution" in literature has been used with a variety of nuanced meanings. In James Joyce's Ulysses, it denotes a sense of diminishing or contracting vastness in contemplation [1]. Immanuel Kant employs the term to reframe theories of individual preformations, suggesting that involution can capture the essence of inherent limits within developmental processes [2]. George Santayana further advances the idea by positioning involution as a precursor to evolution—a necessary contraction before the manifestation of an innate ideal—while also using it to illustrate mutual and reciprocal internal processes within nature and life [3, 4, 5].