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Boris Kacarov

(A doctoral student in Philosophy taught in English)

A summary of the book Rethinking Imagination

To:
Professor Alexander Gungov
Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridsky

Gyorgy Markus A society of culture: the constitution of modernity


Gyorgy Markus wrote the first chapter A society of culture: the
constitution of modernity; he insists is that reason and imagination are

connected to modernity through more than mere influence. Moreover, we


need to mean the opposition between reason and imagination as a result
of cultural modernity(generally they are not so opposed). He cites Hegel to
show how the concept of culture is for Hegel the ground on which the
opposition mentioned above can become erected with a force of its
own.
Markus decides to use a simple definition for modernity: its the
way people live and act and understand the world as a
constituting form of culture, it also possesses self-reflexive
consciousness. This consciousness is also ambiguous, because it
combines two utterly different concepts the fixed human behaviour and
history expressed as set of human practices. The author says - the
anthropological notion of culture began in the Enlightenment, when formal
reason was elevated to a cult. Markus sketches the

negative features of the Enlightenment


ending in what he calls the nonsensical name of modernity1.
Modern 1. meant now or contemporary in opposition to the
antique, then 2. it obtained a meaning of up-to-date in opposition
to traditional or such which cannot keep with the progress of time.
3.The Enlightenment makes change something secure and stable,
unlike the previous epochs which faced change as something
unforeseeable and uncontrollable, and all this thanks to reason.
The same way the Enlightenment tried to turn cultivation into high
culture by means of selectivity which required innovativeness,
dematerialization and autonomy.
Markus says
important element of high culture is creativity
in two senses: something productive and something which is not only
new, but also enlarging the scope of human possibilities . But the
author also claims that creativity needs the embodiment of spirit , it has
to be somehow dematerialized. Next Markus sais about
autonomy
in terms of characteristic as evaluation of activities valuable in and
for themselves. Despite this descriptions belonging the classic
understanding of praxis, during the Enlightenment it gained a new sense
emancipation which guarantees the freedom that activities need to
follow their own logic.

Kant
specified that
high culture is a kind of cultivation
of human capacity to realize purposes in general and is also the factor
that prepares man for a sovereignty in which reason alone is to
dominate2.

1 P.17

Sciences are opposed to Art the way the objectivity of knowledge is


opposed to the subjectivity of feeling;
the way the collective is opposed to the individual, the way the empirical
laws are opposed to the creation of the arts-man which satisfied specific
human need; the way the rational is opposed to the intellectual.
According to Kant(Markus says) the opposition between intellect and
imagination ends in a new dualism, because that is what the autonomy
of the aesthetic experience does it unites theoretical and practical
reason.
Markus sees that theres some discrepancy in Kants theory first he
doesnt admit religion to the realm of higher culture and thus he
undermines the meaning ascribed to a higher culture by the
Enlightenment and second he is too preoccupied and pessimistic about
the spread of the Enlightenment. Kant also gave contradictory answers to
the problem of the
possibility of a moral cultivation through history.
Then Markus describes few phenomena connected to modernity, the
first desobjectivation and dematerialization. The first means the empting
from material through giving in symbolic value, while the second means
empting from the sense in order to give purely referential function. Markus
talks again about autonomy, emphasizing one more time how the activity
is valuable in itself.
At the end Markus makes the usual comparisons between the sciences
as representatives of the rational and the high culture, attempting to
oppose the rational, depersonalized ideology of the Enlightenment. The
author concludes that modern art is something more than a mixture of
characteristics. It is more than a heterogenous multitude, because its
fundamental aim is to challenge our habitual sensibility and feel the way
the Other would. Moreover, we shouldnt fight so violently against the
idead of the Enlightenment any success in this will deorive our culture
from its critical vitality one of its most significant features.

The second chapter is called The apocalyptic imagination and


the inability to mourn
the author Martin Jay starts directly by talking about the fantasies of
destruction and rebirth which go to the end of the 20th century . Jay is
interested in the apocalyptic tradition, fused with centenary and millennial
fantasies.
But, the ambitious aim of the author is dubious, since he cites
contemporary philosophers and events, among which stands the name of
Kant. Anyway, some of Jays thoughts are: we associate the scientific
spirit with a certain optimism about the progressive amelioration of
human condition, but there has always been an undercurrent of anxiety
about consequences of dominating nature and brutally revealing her
secrets3. Jay cunny shows how science about nature, religion and politics
2 P.21

are enmeshed in an apocalyptic discourse, holding also a moral tone. He


even involved sexual diseases in order to defend his thesis.
Among the dark prophets Jay enlists Baudrillard, Derrida, Lyotard and
even Heidegger. Beliefs about catastrophic events are enhanced by
postmodernist rejection of redemptive hope, a new terms arise
posthistoire it produces (as Scherpe says) not apocalypse now, but
apocalypse forever. Derrida believes that
Kant was too preoccupied with death and life, missing any revelatory
powers except knowing what is only thinkable and thus unleashed a kind
of apocalyptic thinking.
Jay is very broad about Derrida: when it comes to apocalyptic events,
Derrida tends to offer a cure (pharmakon) which is both poison and cure.
Apocalypse can also be seen in Derrdas destruction represented by
coinage of terms suggesting the impossibility of messages ever reaching
their assigned destinations4. Baudrillard talks about the positive outcome
of deconstruction final totalization. Lyotard talked about free floating
manic hysteria produced by melancholy, which also brings instability and
loss of meaning.
Then Jay continues figuring on Freud and his essay Mourning and
Melancholia, for to give a more psychological view on these terms. Both
of them are linked to bad events in an individuals life, like the loss of a
beloved person or another kind of grief and Jay connects the split in the
ego with the Freudian term mania which on its sake leads to failure to
unconnect the own self from another person, due to the split mentioned
above. Jay uses these terms to talk about apocalyptic imaginary, because
melancholy, the way it is described by Freud, is very close to apocalyptic
thinking: deep and painful sadness(dejection), paralysis of will, and
radical sinking of self-esteem accompanied by fantasies of punishment for
assumed moral transgressions5
Jay likens the similarities just described to the religious version of
apocalypse with its divine revenge for sins. Scientific apocalyptic thinking
tries to explain phenomena in its reasonable, as Jay calls it enlightened
language, providing rationality for such irrational beliefs. Despite that
the language of revenge is not so fashionable anymore, thoughts about
retribution(payback) for the destruction of nature are (we are given
example with nuclear war and Judgment Day). Postmodernists also take
advantage of the melancholic tone and the manic component when
apocalypse is concerned.
Mourning differs from melancholia because it is conscious of the object
lost, while melancholia isnt. Jay asks: what is the object whose loss
cannot be confronted by apocalyptic thinking and why? He cites authors
who believe that psychologically the messianic rescue leads the individual
3 P.31, 32
4 P.35
5 P.37

to his mothers womb. The inability to grief(mourn) is linked with the death
of the mother, or the Thing which Julia Kristeva talks about its a kind
of
more
fundamental
and
more
indefinable(elusive)
symbolic
representation of the object of melancholy. Still, Kristeva also mentions the
mother and the separation with her, but as an act of achieving psychic
maturity. Then Jay describes Kristevas explanations about the roles of the
mother and the father and the way they are linked to melancholy and
apocalyptic thinking through semiotic and symbolic language. It has to be
acknowledged though, that the mother has a more primordial and
influential role in the history of apocalyptic imaginary.
What Jay accomplishes(concludes) is that we cannot mourn about the
loss of an object belonging to the real world. Neither passing of time, nor
realization can achieve consolation, as we have invested (feelings) and
thus the object hasnt fully disappeared. Another explanation the author
suggests is that after all, mourning itself is a utopian myth , or
melancholia is not so much an illness to be overcome, but a permanent
dimension of human condition6. However, the healing of mourning will
lead to the extermination of melancholy and apocalyptic fantasies.

Agnes Heller has chosen the simple title The elementary ethics of
everyday life
But she begins in a quite complicated way by mentioning Levinas,
Weber, Habermas and by outlining the three approaches in Levinass work
that made philosophers suspicious. First modern culture is decentered
which means that morality concerns all spheres of ethics, second
knowledge may change but this doesnt mean that there is an
approximation or a centerepoint of knowledge. And third, because of the
second, true knowledge and right norms should be established and since
all kinds of discourse ethics are occupied with it, moral intuitions are
treated as if they are pre-scientific knowledge.
Then Heller examines the position of the Other since Plato, Aristotle, the
Christian tradition and Kant, for whom knowledge became decentered
while morality empathically well-centered. Kant also insisted on the
moral center.
represented by the categorical imperative and according to his theory the
difference between ethics and knowledge is not the difference between
two kinds of discourses, because when they are differed, morality
becomes reduced to a kind of knowledge.
Heller believes that practical discourse must remain silent about virtues
(especially about the other) and about the very source of morals, because
they cant become subject-matter of discourse, they are prior to
discourse.7 Heller shows some common question, which people believe to
be moral, but they arent. The real moral questions aim at the center of
the person who asks them, and this center is his responsibility.
6 P.42
7 P.50

The author believes that there are either well-centered morals, or none,
and if such a center is lost, then laws would entirely replace morals.
Philosophers began to decentre morals with the passing of modern history.
They wondered if these morals should be treated as remnants, already
marked for self-destruction, if those traditional and irrational ways of
centring morals should be swept away and if it is worth to speak about
them philosophically. Hellers conclusion is that no matter theories, morals
begin in everyday life that we all share.
At the center of the moral practical discourse stands the gesture, the
first gesture of ones acceptance to be moral and it has a transcendent,
absolute character by means of which it protects morals from being
colonized be sheer cognitive claims. The absoluteness of the initial moral
gesture lies in the resolve of each individual to be a good person and the
existential choice of goodness is the gesture of taking responsibility, which
is one of the fundamental moral concepts. Then Heller explains what
means to be responsible and how we face the others. The conclusion here
is that by taking responsibility for ones actions one takes responsibility for
the others too.
The kind of responsibility Heller talks about does not concern the
retrospect (what we have done) but the prospective being in charge,
which is always responsibility for others. The gesture of taking
responsibility can be seen as a respond to a question. Heller describes
what a decent person is and cites Dostoevsky and his Paradise on Earth.
He, similarly to other philosophers, cancels ethics, because he also
imposes a cognitive discourse upon morals and is ignorant to the fact that
despite moral responsibility is engendered by a gesture, however, it
doesnt remain such.
Heller talks about the inconsistency(discrepancy) in the situations of
everyday life and in borderline situations whichever we fail to be moral
in, means immorality.
It is interesting to note that moral phronesis requires constant practice,
rather than moral attitude. The universal orientative principle of morals is
care for other human beings, which can be interpreted as love, practicing
charity or taking responsibility.
Heller also counts(enumerates) a few orientative principles concerning
the others vulnerability, autonomy, morality and suffering. These
principles are nothing but interpretations or explications of the universal
orientative principle. Then the author talks about reciprocity what it
means (to give and to receive), its two kinds (symmetric and
asymmetric), its practices and the way it is related to culture and to
freedom. The author talks about the master principle (arche) of morals
which become evident by what is forbidden in reciprocity and this
precisely is:
instrumentalization of reciprocity; to do someone good in order to receive
a favour back; to ask a favour from someone you hate; or to ask relevant
feelings for doing good (gratitude for example).
Heller continues with Max Weber and his diagnosis of modernity, then
she discusses values which are regarded as old-fashioned and concludes

that the difficulties come up when virtues are to be practiced. Heller once
again proves (as she does during the whole essay) that the
right moral question is not Why should I be moral? but What is the right
thing for me to do?.
Despite that contemporary morals have become relativized, morality is
absolute and this fact cannot be changed and philosophys job is to
supervise whether human practice is to follow the example of decent
persons.

In chapter four European rationality the author Niklas Luhmann


starts directly by stating boldly that it was precisely Europe that formed
culture and everything modern in present-day society. Despite the illusory
contradiction of uniformity which reveals nothing but differences, Luhmann
believes that the real unifying factor in Europe is its rationality. This
ratironality is characteristic with its inner distinctions, as well as the fact
that it helps observing and describing the difference between the
European and the world semantics.
From the Aristotelian-thomistic doctrine, trough the Middle Ages, until
Weber and Habermas, the history of European rationality is a history of the
dissolution of the rationality continuum. The author talks about different
kinds of disticnctions (physics, philosophy, politics and so on) and the final
result of their development undermining the concept of a reason which
could guarantee the unity and certainty of the world view and the neglect
towards the person who distinguishes (the observer, the narrator, etc.).
Other consequences of the process described above are: the turning of the
world into the same for all observers, thriving of the philosophy of
immediacy, the so-called pluralism and last but not least the observer
being distinguished from everything else (everything he observes).
Luhmann emphasizes the maybe most fundamental dualistic distinction
between being and non-being. Still, for him the observer holds a central
place in this tradition of distinctions he asks whether it is possible to act
rationally, if one is being observed. The theory of relativism is related to
the process of observation, as well as Luhmanns conclusion that
Psychoanalysis has never been recognized as a theory of knowledge,
permittimg this same theory to regard certain phenomena as deviant.
Then the authors express the opinion about some epistemic obstacles
(which, by the way dont look like obstacle the way Luhmann exposed
them) which become corrupt because of the social aggregation of the
individual. For the author it is important to examine what is the place of
the observer in two dualistic relations: thought and being; and action and
nature. There are also other dualistic oppositions like sign and signified in
semiotics, which face similar problems like the oppositions mentioned
above: first which one of them should be privileged and second they
have to distinguish themselves from themselves.
In order to find a solution for the problem of distinguishing one thing
from another, which appears to be the biggest problem in European
rationality because of the re-entry of the form in the form8, Luhmann
8 P.72

examines in short humanism and then suddenly turns to mathematics. He


does so, in order to use the mark, as Spencer Brown uses it, to see how
different kinds of distinction work for example in holistic theories which
look for distinction between the whole and the part. Another important
distinction is the one between self and external, in which there is an
external observer and the self as a second observer. Here appears the
paradox that observation observes the operation of observation it
observes itself as an object and as a distinction at the same time.
After that Luhmann proceeds on to talk about a theory of difference.
Here a system excludes itself operatively from the environment and
includes itself in it by means of observation. The system of difference,
however, leads to a state of indifference another paradox. The author
compares European to Chinese and Indian traditions (political, historical)
just to come to some more ambiguities and contradictions. He notices that
some of the sciences have become second-order observers, who observe
themselves, this leading again to rationalism and at the same time is only
a theory of society. To depart from rationality and second-order
observation means to arrive at a distinction which leaves the whole
question open.

In his work Creativity and Judgement: Kant on reason and


imagination John Rundell
states that Kants importance is revealed in his middle position in the
dispute between moderns and postmoderns. With his theories about
reason, imagination and unsociable sociability, Kant opens up a new
issue through the political-ethical and the aesthetic he comes to the
inference that imagination is an indispensable dimension of the human
soul9.
Rundell explains that Critique of Pure Reasin is concerned with what is
knowledge and what is reason. For Kant it is important to set not how
knowledge is attained but how it is constructed. Kants requiry has an
anthropological intent and for him human freedom is linked to the capacity
to reflect and judge. Kant claims that knowledge shouldnt be seen in the
light of empirical conditions (because this reduces knowledge to
intuitions), but in the light of conditions and criteria established by the
human capacity itself. The faculty of understanding for him is what brings
together the diversity of appearances unified according to rules, not just
mediate inferences in the form of logical connections.
For Kant epistemology based on intuition or appearances fails. The task
of understanding is to make the concepts of time and space and this
happens through analytic or synthetic judgements. Judgement is very
important for Kant he believes that all acts of understanding can be
reduced to judgements, divided into quantity, quality, relation and
modality. Kant makes an interesting differentiation between pragmatic
judgement (a result from trial and error) and trenscendentally grounded
synthetic judgement (anthropological principle of the universality of
reason). Universality is of great significance for judgements, so that
9 P.87

objects are in harmony with concepts, and this harmonizationn is possible


thanks to rules.
Then Kant talks about mathematical and dynamical synthesis. In the
first intuition plays a significant role, because here concepts are
constructed without empirical data, while in the second knowledge of the
world of physical appearances, as well as philosophical knowledge are
established. Reciprocal interaction and co-existence of substances in
space is characteristic for the dynamic synthesis.
Rundell claims that Kants aim is not just a division between two kinds
of synthetic judgements, but an analysis of the comparison between
substances and elements that co-exist together. For Kant critical reflection
is a comparison between representations, not between empirical objects.
Kant goes beyond empiricism, hes interested in the transcendental
condition of reason. Kants ultimate goal is to provide the conditions
derived from reason which are valid for the empirical world, for morals and
ethics, for taste. Kant marks the unkown in the dynamic synthetic
judgements with X and tries to find out what it is. Rundell infers that X
is a synthesis of reason and imagination, and imaginaton is for Kant the
prefigurative dimension in the formation of knowledge, it is a function of
the soul without which there is no knowledge.
Rundell asks how Kant constructs imagination and its relation to
reason. He then explains the different forms into which Kant divides
imagination and how the synthetic formation of knowledge is related to
the reproductive faculty of imagination. This kind of imagination endures
and continues over time, it guarantees relations between past and
present, but also forms patterns and associations with other knowledge 10
For Kant the reproductive (or associative) imagination is transcendetal, it
functions according to a priori principles (which are very important for the
empirical imagination too). The productive imagination is the objective
ground of synthesis which is also a priori and antecendent to all empirical
laws of imagination. Kants X is the transcendental function of the
imagination.
Rundell repeats once again that transcendental synthesis occurs in two
ways concepts are constructed according to their actual content
(dynamical synthesis) or without the assistance of empirical data
(mathematical synthesis). Then Rundell cites Rudolf Makkreel, who claims
that figurative synthesis (the functional dimension of imagination) and
schematism are very closely related. Still Rundell emphasizes that
figurative imagination has remained quite problematic for Kant, while he
links chematism to mathematical relational forms. Makkreel says that
schemata are a pripori products of the imagination that mediate between
concepts and empirical appearances11. They translate the rules implicit in
the categories into a temporally ordered act of instructions, so schemata
have a basic transcendental synthetic function.
10 P.92
11 P.94

Whats important, is that schematism also alludes to a creative power


of the imagination, Kant says that images can only be conceptualized
when connected to schemata, he also says imagination is the faculty of
representing in intuition an object, that is not present 12. Then Rundell
compares Castoriadis points on productive imagination to Makreels
hermeneutic reading for Castoriadis knowledge is constituted only
through a process of imaginary creation, which is not reduced to
representational formation. Where Kant faces difficulties is the tension
emerging between the imagination as a creative force and a source of
reflexivity and as constitutuve to understanding. Kants weakness lies in
the reducing the nature of imagination to that of cognition, and his
impossibility to bridge reason and imagination.
Then Rundell talks about the harmony and dissonance of the third
Critique. The Critique of Judgment is occupied with the world of
aesthetics and Kants main concerns are the aesthetic sensibilty and the
aesthetic creation. Here knowledge is created in terms of aesthetics.
However, Rundell states that this work of Kant is unsatisfactory and the
two issues mentioned above separate and go their own way, because Kant
describes creation and sensibilities as different aesthetical factors.
In order to proceed to the aesthetic judgment, Kant starts by marking
the change from an objective to a subjective relation to judgments, then
explains what a reflective judgment is it stands on transcendental ground
and it contains harmony between the object and the subject. Then Kant
comes to sensation, which is fundamental for the aesthetic judgment,
which on its behalf contains two cognitive powers united in harmony:
imagination and understanding. Here Kant talks again about space and
time they are factors for finding or naming something beautiful.
For Kant aesthetic ideas are presentations of the imagination that
cannot be brought under a concept. Rundell thinks that a flaw in Kants
theory is the following contradiction: first Kant claims that imagination and
understanding are related in a free play, but then he says that the link is
not only spontaneous, but also lawful. Precisely this Kantian lawfulness
without a law or free lawfulness of understanding is what Rundell finds
peculiar.
As far as the sublime is concerned, there is a kind of dissonance it is
experienced between imagination and reason, which are oriented either to
cognition or to desire. The first constructs mathematical sublimity, the
second dynamical one. In the mathematical sublime reason constructs
the ideal of the infinite through which nature is fictionalized. The
imagination can only expand in order to pursue infinity, and yet it can
never reach it13. As a result there is a feeling of pleasure and displeasure
and imaginations sense of inadequacy. Sublimity is the state where
reason and imagination co-exist and pleasure and displeasure are
simultaneously expressed. Mathematics and esthetics point to the
imaginations power to expand beyond its natural limits. Creativity is
12 Ibid
13 P.104

defined as the free play of the imagination and the sublimity of creation
is presented or received through an aesthetic idea.
Kant relates aesthetic ideas to reflective judgment which happens via
the harmony between the understanding and the imagination. There are
two directions in Kants work reflective teleology, revealed in the use of
human reason and a construction of human self-image, with which Kant
tries to fill the gap between reason and imagination. Then Rundell explains
freedom and friendship. Opinion, belief and of course knowledge also lie
in the basis of truth to which Kant claims one can get both subjectively
and objectively. Kant describes friendship as mutual love and respect,
but what is actually important for the self-image is that it is projected
phantasy or utopia in which reason or imagination are viewed
metaphorically as predominant in any cultural tradition. The human selfimages become home of reason and imagination, a place where they
happen.

Paul Ricoeur starts his work Imagination in discourse and in


action
by asking if imagination can be expanded outside the sphere of discourse,
and intends to proceed from the theoretical to the practical. Ricoeur briefly
explains how he will develop his essay: first he will work within the theory
of metaphor; then he will investigate fiction in terms of redescribing
action, belonging to a plan of action and creating the very field of
intersubjective action; and finally establishing the terms ideology and
utopia in the notion of the social imaginary, which is a cornerstone of
imagination.
Ricoeur clarifies some difficulties, connected to imagination like the
term image which is misused in the empiricist theory of knowledge. He
explains the various doubts different philosophies hold about imagination
and asks if imagination designates a single, coherent phenomenon, or a
collection of experiences only distantly related 14. Ricoeur outlines for uses
of the term: arbitrary evocation of things which are absent, but which
exist; designation of physical existence (paintings for example) stretching
the meaning to non-existent things; application to the domain of illusion.
In the first use the image corresponds to two opposing theories: the
image is referred to perception and the image is thought of essentially in
relation to absence. The second axis is occupied with the difference
between the imagination and the real. Then Ricouer explains how
metaphor offers a new approach to the phenomenon of imagination
through a semantic innovation. We usually make two mistakes concerning
image it is a scene on the stage of a mental theatre for an internal
spectator and this mental stuff constructs our abstract ideas.
An interesting statement that Ricoeur makes is that we should speak of
metaphorical utterance instead of names used metaphorically, because
metaphor uses unusual predicates. Ricoeur also views metaphors function
within the whole sentence and the way it influences the individual word.
According to him metaphor offers a new face to discourse through
14 P.119

imagination, which happens thanks to the use of the unusual predicates,


and the process was described as early as Aristotle. Resemblance is also
important, it bridges the gap between the logically distanced semantic
fields.
Then Ricoeur cites Kantian schematism as a method for giving an
image to a concept. Ricoeur asks why imagination is a method and not a
content and says that imaginations work is to schematize metaphorical
attribution, like the Kantian schema and image is an emerging meaning
before we grasp it as a faded perception. But what Ricoeur actually
believes is that the ultimate role of image is to enter the dimension of
unreality and to hold meaning in the element of fiction. Imagination is a
state of uninvolvement in which we try out new ideas of being in the
world.15
Imagination has two functions a neutralizing one with respect to the
thesis of the world (a negative condition) and an ordinary language
reference, which is very important for Ricoeur, as it enables controlling
and manipulating. The theory of imagination concerns the transition from
the sense to reference in fiction, bearing in mind that fiction designates
non-place in relation to reality. There is an opposition concerning images in
the philosophical tradition the image as faded perception, as a shadow of
reality, opposed to recreated reality at a higher level of realism.
Ricoeur says that the first transition from the theoretical to the
practical happens with the mere fiction, because of its representation of
reality. But this first step is limited because fiction is restricted to numeric
activity. Imagination itself is very important, because without it there is no
action. The schema of the pragma (literally thing, Ricoeur calls it
noematic content of the project) is closely related to all processes
happening within imagination its narrative play, its function of the
project turned towards the future, its motivation and the milieu it provides.
The final result is a progression from the simple schematization of the
project through the figurability of desires of imagination.
When Ricoeur talks about intersubjectivity he introduces historical
experience as the unifying factor between temporal fields. The principles
of individual actions are revealed in the categories of common actions and
what we call history is the inner connection belonging to this allencompassing flux constituted by temporal fields and actions. Ricoeur
examines the fields which are analogus they are such because of the
principle of analogy concerning the initial act in diverse temporal fields
present, past future. Another kind of analogy is the resemblance between
the behavior of the others and our own experience.
Ricoeur uses the analogus principle influenced by Husserl and Kant.
This principle contains imaginative transfer, Ricouer even mentions
empathy. The core of his reflections lies in the statement The
imagination is the schematism belonging to the constitution of
intersubjectivity in analogical apperception16. The primordial element is
15 P.123
16 P.128

the analogy of the ego, because it permits the subject to transfer his
self on the others and that is how intersubjectivity is achieved.
In the subchapter Social imaginary Ricoeur examines imaginative
practices like ideology and utopia. Both of them are antagonistic, there is
a twofold ambiguity resulting from this polarity and only a critique of such
antagonistic figures can help the productive imagination restore itself.
Ricoeur examines historically the polarity between ideology and utopia
and discusses the levels of meaning which form of ideology. He defines
social action as a radical level which constitutes ideology and its primitive
level is the social imaginary. Ricouer cites Levi-Strauss, who says that
society is an effect of symbolism and this symbolic constitution is closely
related to authority whose function is to monitor the ideological
representations. After all, the author concludes that utopia and ideology
are not only intertwined, but also mutually dependent, and all this makes
it sometimes difficult to discern the one from the other.
Ricoeur finishes by saying some words about ideologys reflective
function and utopias dysfunction. Still, he doesnt confirm ideologys
superiority to utopia, neither that it is a cure, because as he says, the
disease is often at the same time a remedy (or the other way round).

chapter seven Cornelius Castoriadis,


Castoriadis explains that he is interested in radical imagination because it

never won the place it deserved as soul and second, social imaginary
was also ignored by the history of philosophical, sociological and political
thought. He says that he will not come into details about souls history, but
for him it is important to note two remarks about Aristotles De Anima,
as well as to discuss Kant.
Phantasia for Aristotle covers two completely different ideas
secondary imagination (imitative, reproductive or combinatory) and
primary imagination the one that possibly precedes any thought.
Castoriadis states that the primary imagination roughly corresponds to his
radical imagination. Castoriadis clarifies that for Aristotle there is no
relation between phantasia and poiesis, because the second is for
Aristotle a technique imitating nature, Whats more, while for Aristotle
man is an animal with reason (logos), for Castoriadis animals are more
rational than humans and it is language which entails radical imagination
and human reason.
Then Castoriadis follows the history of language the way it was formed
by Plato and Aristotle and the way it remained with no consequence for
philosophy. He explains the term imagination as connected to images
and invention (or creation), the term radical as opposed to secondary
imagination and as an emphasis that the radical imagination is before the
distinction between real and fictitious and the term social imaginary as
creating images not in the usual, but in general sense (emblems, flags,
etc.). Radical imagination is the singular human being, more specifically
its psyche.
For Castoriadis the radical imagination can be elucidated in two ways
philosophical and psychoanalytical. For the first he uses Kant and his
imagination is the power to represent in the intuition an object even

without its presence17, or his statement that imagination is the power to


make appear representations. Kant opposes the reciprocity of
impressions to the spontaneity of concept and here Castoriadis explains
that the impressions just mentioned are nothing more than a philosophical
or physchological artifact. Castoriadis then says what perception is and
what a pure creation imagination in its most elementary manifestation.
The author gives some rather mechanistic example to explain
primary and secondary qualities, which are creation of the living body
(number, size, taste, sound, etc.). According to Castoriadis neither Husserl,
nor Descartes himself (cited by Husserl) find a solution to the problem of
the first (or intentional) person stance, because it is contradictory in it
are intertwined force and illusory phenomena. The phenomenological (first
person) stance is an attempt to present my own experience as the only
authentic one. If the individual moves from the personal to the life-world
(phenomenological) point of view, one moves from the egocentric to sociocentric point of view, which is a solipcism on a larger scales.
One of the significant statements Castoriadis makes is that we never
deal with impressions, but with perceptions, which are a class of
representations. The radical imagination, as a source of the perceptual,
makes possible for any being-for-itself (including humans) to create for
itself an own world within which it posits itself. 18 In this very world the
indescribable becomes definite and specific. The first aspect of the radical
imagination is perceptual, coming from the outside and the second is
psychical which creates a singular own world.
According to Castoriadis the flaw in Kants theory is that if
transcendental imagination started to imagine anything, the world, as
constructed by Kant, would collapse. Kants conception os imagination is
schematism mediating between categories and sensory data. Castoriadis
believes that Kant maybe hasnt recognized what creative is and he
ascribes it to a genius who works like nature. But to detach the
representation of an object from the biological need, defunctionalization is
needed. Genericity and categoricality are intrinsic and immanent to this
representation.
As far as the psychoanalytical side of the issue is concerned,
Castoriadis starts by Freud. Here the essential is that Freud doesnt
thematize imagination and among some of its indications he points out
effective omnipotence of thought, the fact that there is no distinction in
the unconscious between a strongly cathected representation and actual
perception, as well as the fact that the soul abandons its solipcism through
socialization. What is interesting is that Freud remains a dualist because
for him soul and body remain essentially distinct with all consequences of
that.
Castoriadis elucidates the question of society by outlining a few points:
first, society is a creation of itself, it creates its own components and
institutions and so it does with its social imaginary. Societys creations are
17 P.139
18 P.143

creations under constraints: external (imposed by the natural stratum),


internal (relative to the material out of which society creates itself),
historical (there is always a past and a tradition) and intrinsic constraints,
which Castoriadis regards as the most interesting ones. Castoriadis also
says that institutions and social imaginary significations have to be
complete, which means that they must be able to solve any problem or
question within their own borders, with no help from the outside, or they
have to be self-sufficient. The author clarifies that under social imaginary
signification he doesnt apply any mentalistic sense, they are
representations of a society and its world.
Castoriadis finishes by summarizing a few points about society, its
relation with history and tradition and the way we place ourselves in it.

The last chapter is called Reason, imagination, interpretation


the author Johann Arnason examines reason and imagination from a
hermeneutical point of view. The author believes that the hermeneutical
transformation (to relate reason and imagination to meaning) would
entail a revision of dominant preconceptions: reason as the ability to
justify, imagination to grasp and generate images.
The author says that the relationship between the concepts of reason
and imagination can only be understood if placed in a broader cultural
context, as they are key aspects of the development of modern Western
culture. He also says that reason and imagination must be put on equal
footing, so that the structural or developmental parallels between them
are specified. Arnason also says that imagination is central to Romanticism
the way reason is to the Enlightenment and this is the basis for alternative
definitions and conflicting interpretations.
Then the author shows the distinction between substantive and
procedural reason, the second being a part of the division between
theoretical and practical reason; as well as some other oppositions
(subjective intersubjective performance, Ricoeurs productive
reproductive imagination which can be also imitative creative, etc.). All
the phenomena described are an immanent part of the traditional and
modern perspectives and Arnason completes the situation he exposed by
adding one more type of imagination the symbolic one, which aims at
the indirect representation of something that cannot be directly
apprehended, it is also for Romanticism what is the totalizing reason for
the Enlightenment.
Arnason then examines Kants theory on reason and imagination first
Kant looks for imaginary roots of reason and talks about a synthesis of
imagination and experience, but then he retreats from this position to
state that imagination has an intermediary role between intellect and
intuition. Arnason mentions the Hedieggerian interpretation of the theory
of Kant and once again the key phrase the ability to represent without
presence19 Any attempts to undermine the figurative synthesis of
imagination and consciousness leads to reducing imagination to
perception, especially visual perception.
19 P.161

Now Arnason comes to his point the hermeneutical transformation


consists in incorporating the cultural context into concepts. There is a
traditional asymmetry between the concepts of reason and imagination
reasserts itself in the new context, it is difficult to find the balance
between them. Then the author describes three perspectives of rationality,
which are evident in the development of the idea of reason: radicalization,
fragmentation and relativization. In the first aspect Arnason is interested in
a unifying concept of rationality, still uncovered by Weber. The second
perspective is an abandonment of the search of this unifying factor and
the third deals with making the concept of rationality more explicitly
relative to the concept of culture.
Arnason says that the shift from reason to rationality thus turns out to
be a very complex and controversial process 20, but he doubts whether the
same can be said about the move from imagination to imaginary. The
radical imaginary emerges as otherness, it exists as the social-historical
and as psyche/soma. The social imaginary is the positing, creating,
bringing-into-being of the social-historical. He cites Castoriadis to explain
that the shift from imagination to the imaginary is self-transcending with
three aspects defunctionalization, deconditioning and destructing.
Defunctionalization means that on the level of psyche the activity of
imagination is not programmed by organic needs or drives, on the social
level not confined within a system of social needs. Deconditioning is not
just the impact of external determinants that is reduced, the links to
extrernal referents are loosened. The destructing of imagination concerns
its internal determinations, here the shift from imagination to imaginary is
most important. Arnason finishes with Merleau-Ponty and his theory that
would open up a new phase the idea of philosophy as a rediscovery and
articulation of the opening to the world that is constitutive of the human
condition.

20 P.165

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