Abstract
What does “imagination” mean? Strawson noticed that “the uses, and applications, of the terms ‘image’, ‘imagine’, ‘imagination’, and so forth make up a very diverse and scattered family”.1 Edward Casey is also right when he adds that “the very multiplicity of such accounts suggests that there are as many kinds of imagination as there are explanations or descriptions of it”.2 In this paper I will argue that the phenomenological analysis of imaginative phenomena worked out by Edmund Husserl in the course of his philosophical career on the one hand gives us a clue to an understanding of these “scattered” phenomena in terms of a unified field and on the other provides us with grounds for the claim that, prevailing Western philosophical attitudes notwithstanding, the cognitive performance of imaginative acts cannot be ignored.
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Notes
P. F. Strawson, “Imagination and Perception,” in Experience and Theory, ed. L. Foster and J. W. Swanson (London: Duckworth, 1970), p. 31.
E. S. Casey, Imagining. A Phenomenological Study (Bloomington/London: Indiana University Press, 1976), p. 5.
Cf. J.-P. Sartre, L’imagination (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1965e), pp. 146–148.
E. Tugendhat, Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Husserl und Heidegger (Berlin: de Gruyter, 19702), p. 27.
E. Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung. Zur Phänomenologie der anschaulichen Vergegenwärtigungen. Texte aus dem Nachlaß (1898–1925), ed. E. Marbach (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1980), “Husserliana” XXIII, p. 6.
E. Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, First Book, Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, Part One, ed. K. Schuhmann (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1976), “Husserliana” IIV1, p. 90.
On the following cf. ibid, p. 252; E. Husserl, Erste Philosophie (1923/24), second part, Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion, ed. R. Boehm (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1959), “Husserliana” VIII, pp. 111–112; Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein Erinnerung,op. cit., pp. 18–20, 29.
Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., p. 19.
Cf. R. Bernet, I. Kern, and E. Marbach, Edmund Husserl. Darstellung seines Denkens (Hamburg: Meiner, 1989), p. 140; M. M. Saraiva, L’imagination selon Husserl (The Hague: Nijoff, 1970), pp. 93–95.
The thread of this inquiry is to be found in the analysis that Husserl developed in the lectures of 1905 on “Phantasy and Image-Consciousness,” now edited in Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., pp. 1–108.
Cf. E. Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil. Untersuchungen zur Genealogie der Logik, ed. L. Landgrebe (Hamburg: Meiner, 19856), pp. 359–360.
Cf. E. Husserl, Formale und transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logi- schen Vernunft,ed. P. Janssen (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1974), “Husserliana” XVII, p. 242.
Cf. E. Husserl, Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs-und Forschungsmanuskripten. 1918–1926, ed. M. Fleischer (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1966), “Husserliana” XI, p. 34: “The very same stock of hyletic data is the common base of two superimposed apprehensions. [chwr(133)1 They are in conflict one with the other, each of them in it own way is strongly motivated and as it were `claimed’ by the perceptual situation up to now and its intentional content.”
Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., p. 48.
In order to understand more fully how this principle of consistency works, it may be worthwhile to refer to Hume’s argument with regard to the nature of miracles: a miracle can in no way exist, since we accept believing in a “wonder” only when not to believe in it would mean to admit something even more wonderful (Cfr. D. Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Vol. IV of D. Hume, The Philosophical Works, ed. Th. Green and Th. Grose, [Aalen: Scientia, 1964], Sect. X).
Cf. Husserl, Phantasie, Bildewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., p. 77: the question “Why do we set value on continuity instead of discontinuity?” remains unanswered.
Cf. ibid., p. 40: “The oft-cited example of a wax-works shows that if the imaginative function is put to one side, an imaginative phenomenon transforms itself and gives rise instead to a common perceptual apprehension, and perhaps even into a perception in the strict sense of the term, with a basis in normal belief. We might at first mistake the wax model for a person. In this case we have a normal perception, though it reveals itself afterwards as a mistake. When we suddenly become aware of the deception, a consciousness of an imaginative kind occurs.”
Cf. ibid.
Cf. ibid., p. 47.
Ibid.
Cf. ibid., pp. 482–485.
Ibid., p. 47.
Ibid., p. 489.
Ibid., p. 66.
Cf. Husserl, Ideen I, op. cit., pp. 247–248; Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., p. 508.
Husserl, Ideen I, op. cit., p. 252.
Ibid.
Cf. Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., pp. 479–480, 486–491.
Ibid., p. 480.
Cf. Husserl, Ideen I, op. cit.,p. 90: “In my lectures delivered at Göttingen (since the summer term of 1904, in fact) I have substituted the inadequate exposition which I gave in the Logical Investigations with an improved version of the same”
Cf., for instance, Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., pp. 83, 150, 161.
Ibid., p. 66.
Cf. Ibid., p. 67, note 1.
Ibid., p. 76.
Husserl’s conclusion leaves us in no doubt: “Of course there is no real insertion of phantasy in perception as such, as if a mixture could really originate from it. [chwr(133)] Synthesis leads the corresponding parts of both fields to a synthetical unity, [chwr(133)] but this unity in the intellective consciousness of transition is not the unity of appearance” (ibid., cf. also pp. 67–68, 74, 86).
Ibid., p. 67.
Cf. Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, op. cit., §§ 36–39, and the manuscript these paragraphs are based on (MS. M III 3 VII: “Wirklichkeit und Phantasie. Untersuchungen zum Problem der Individuation”). M. M. Saraiva’s synthesis is also particularly well-done. (cf. L’imagination selon Husserl, op. cit., p. 223).
Cf. Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., p. 67.
Ibid., p. 513.
Cf. ibid., pp. 85–87; Saraiva, L’imagination selon Husserl, op. cit., pp. 130–133.
Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., p. 100.
Cf. for instance ibid., p. 191: “Memory can be used just as well as imagination.”
Cf. Marbach, Einleitung, op. cit., pp. LXIII—LXV.
Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., p. 294.
Ibid., p. 296.
Ibid.p. 298. Here a fleeting terminological innacuracy leads Husserl to use the terms “actuality” and “inactuality” instead of “positionality” and “neutrality.” Cf. E. Husserl Zur Phänomenlogie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins (1893–1917) ed. R. Boehm (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1966), “Husserliana” X, p. 102: “`Actuality’ and `inactuality’ here have the same meaning as `potentiality’ and `neutrality’ in the sense of the Ideen.” On these topics cf. also G. Piana Elementi di una dottrina dell’esperienza (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1979), p. 114.
Cf. Husserl, Ideen I, op. cit.,p. 250; Husserl, Erste Philosophie, op. cit., pp. 112–113; E. Husserl, Phantasie, Bildewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., p. 322; Bernet, Kern, and Marbach, Edmund Husserl. Darstellung seines Denkens, op. cit., pp. 137–138; Saraiva, L’imagination selon Husserl, op. cit., pp. 204–216. On the way this idea matured in the course of time, see Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., pp. 217, 245–248, 253–255, 277, 281–282. To define phantasy as a neutralized presentification is to put it in the same frame of reference as image-consciousness, which is a neutralized presentation. According to this argument, Belussi’s distinction between a-positionality (image-consciousness) and quasi-positionality (phantasy) is unjustifiable (cf. F. Belussi, Die modaltheoretischen Grundlagen der husserlschen Phänomenologie [Freiburg/Munich: Alber, 1990], pp. 251–260).
Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., p. 77.
Ibid.
Cf. Husserl himself: “Genetically speaking a discredit [scil. neutralization] of this nature is very important. A phantasy-will, namely a discredited one, yields no action, a phantasy-judgement yields no willing, etc.” (Husserl, Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung, op. cit., p. 104). A similar argument — but in a different context — is put forward by Jean-Paul Sartre in L’imaginaire. Psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination (Paris: Gallimard, 1940), p. 158.
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Volonté, P. (1999). Imagination: Rescuing What is Going to be Cancelled. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Life Scientific Philosophy, Phenomenology of Life and the Sciences of Life. Analecta Husserliana, vol 59. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2079-3_30
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