Abstract
There seems to be another approach useful for untangling the fundamental issue of personal individuality. It seems that the most intuitive way to solve this issue is appealing to imagination: through imagination I can stretch the range of my self-possibilities so as to make my identity coexist with self-changes. We take into account two sets of theses: theories that focus on the notion of moral imagination and theories that ascribe an epistemic function to imagination.
Our overview on moral imagination—from Kirk to Nussbaum—makes us understand that this approach regards imagination as a force that allows us to stretch the boundaries of our individualities and flex ourselves. Moreover, those who ascribe an epistemic function to imagination—from Kind to Williamson—tether imagination to the epistemic field in the scope of contingency: imagination is an ability we could usefully appeal to when deciding how to act.
We argue that both these approaches fail to account for the fundamental issue: they do not acknowledge that my self-imagination is highly constrained (I cannot imagine everything about myself) and so do not identify the constraints that influence the range of my possible self-changes. These are the reasons why these approaches do not treat the question regarding the core of individuality. Nevertheless, how can I stretch the boundaries of my individuality and imagine myself in possible circumstances, if I do not know the essence of my individuality?
From a phenomenological perspective, we notice that the epistemic function that Husserl ascribes to phantasy—regarded as an instance of imagination and an exercise of eidetic variation—oversteps the scope of contingency. This is the reason why we tackle Husserl’s stance on the epistemic function of phantasy. In so doing, we reframe the issues related to the degree of freedom and the type of constraints involved in self-imagination and, subsequently, in self-shaping.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Kirk provides a really odd and insightful example: “this ‘diabolic imagination’ dominates most popular fiction today; and on television and in the theatres, too, the diabolic imagination struts and postures. The other night I lodged at a fashionable new hotel […] After ten o’clock, all the films offered were nastily pornographic. But even the ‘early’ films, before ten, without exception were products of the diabolic imagination, in that they pandered to the lust for violence, destruction, cruelty, and sensational disorder. Apparently it never occurred to the managers of this fashionable hotel that any of their affluent patrons, of whatever age and whichever sex, might desire decent films” (Kirk, 1981, 39).
- 2.
There are countless stances we could take into account with regard to the topic of imagination and its compass. This note provides a few references that could be regarded as notable landmarks in the contemporary debate.
With regard to the link between imagination and the fictional scope, see Gendler, 2010; Pavel, 1986, 2009; Radford & Weston, 1975; Spinicci, 2009; Walton, 1980, 1983, 1990. With regard to the role of emotions in imaginative experiences, see Voltolini, 2010; Walton, 1978b. With regard to mental imagery, see Bértolo, 2005; Dehaene, 2007; Gibson, 1950; Johansson, 2013; Kosslyn, 1980, 1994; Kosslyn et al., 1995; Kosslyn & Denis, 1999; Paivio & Sadoski, 2004; Sacks, 2010. With regard to the link that tethers imagination to creativity, see De Bono, 1990, 1993; Winnicott, 1971. With regard to the nexus that ties imagination to the notion of image, see Elkins & Naef, 2011; Krešimir, 2015.
- 3.
Her worry about how a ‘single’ mental activity called imagination could capture so many different expressions and applications finds an elegant solution with Husserl’s theory of intentionality: there are different kinds of imaginative acts and they do not belong to one ‘ability’ but each nonetheless has a same structure, as intentionality; but the ‘ability’ is strictly speaking different, since they are not the same act: the act of imagining a unicorn is not the same as act of looking at a picture of a unicorn.
- 4.
“Fingiere ich einen Zentauren, so hat das die Bedeutung: Ich versetze mich in ein mögliches Wahrnehmen, und zwar Wahrnehmen dieses Zentauren; reflektiere ich in diesem Phantasiebewußtsein, so finde ich dieses Quasiwahrnehmen [...] Ich mache nun nicht die wirklichen naturalen Thesen mit, die sich auf meine jetzige aktuelle Welt beziehen und die evtl. auch den Zentauren angehen, nämlich wenn ich ihn mir hier auf dieser Straße heranspringend fingierte. Ich stelle mich natürlich aber auch nicht auf den Boden der Phantasie, wie ich es tue, wenn ich mich der Phantasie ‘hingebe’ und aktuell phantasierend und träumend die phantasierten Ereignisse quasierlebe, über sie quasiurteile, zu ihnen in Gefallen und Mißfallen, in tätigen Handeln Stellung nehme—in der ‘Modifikation der träumenden’ Phantasie” (Husserl, 2015, 184).
- 5.
“Im Fortgang dieses immer vollkommener veranschaulichenden und näher bestimmenden Phantasieprozesses sind wir in weitem Maße frei; wir können ja dem phantasierten Kentauren nach Belieben näher bestimmende Eigenschaften und Eigenschaftsveränderungen anschaulich zumessen; aber völlig frei sind wir nicht […] Wie willkürlich wir das Phantasierte deformieren mögen, es gehen Raumgestalten wieder in Raumgestalten über” (Husserl, 1913, 311).
- 6.
In the Italian version of Ideen I (Einaudi 2002), the term “Phantasiewelt” is translated into “imaginary world” (“mondo immaginario”). Such a translation is likely to make readership mistake phantasy for imagination. This is just an example: we do not intend to discuss all cases where similar misunderstandings might occur.
Bibliography
Babbit, I. (1908). Literature and the American College. Essays in defense of the humanities. The Riverside Press.
Bértolo, H. (2005). Visual imagery without visual perception? Psicológica, 26, 173–188.
De Bono, E. (1990). Lateral thinking. A textbook of creativity. Penguin Books.
De Bono, E. (1993). Serious creativity: Using the power of lateral thinking to create new ideas. Harper Collins.
De Monticelli, R. (2018). Il dono dei vincoli. Per leggere Husserl. Garzanti.
Dehaene, S. (2007). Les Neurones de la lecture. Éditions Odile Jacob.
Elkins, J., & Naef, M. (Eds.). (2011). What is an image? The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Fennell, J. M. (2016). What is the moral imagination? In The Imaginative conservative. Available via theimaginativeconservative.org. Accessed 9 Nov 2017.
Gendler, T. S. (2010). Intuition, imagination and philosophical methodology. Oxford University Press.
Gendler, T. S., & Liao, S.-y. (2016). The problem of imaginative resistance. In N. Carroll & J. Gibson (Eds.), The Routledge companion to philosophy of literature (pp. 405–418). Routledge.
Gibson, J. J. (1950). The perception of the visual world. The Riverside Press.
Hagège, C. (1985). L’homme de paroles. Contribution linguistique aux sciences humaines. Librairie Arthème Fayard.
Husserl, E. (1913). Ideen zu einer Reinen Phänomenologie und Phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die Reine Phänomenologie. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Husserl, E. (1973). Experience and judgement. Trans. J. S. Churcill & K. Ameriks. Evanston: Northwestern University Press; Erfahrung und Urteil. Untersuchungen zur Genealogie der Logik. Prag:Academia Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1939.
Husserl, E. (1983). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. General introduction to a pure phenomenology. Trans. F. Kersten. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Husserl, E. (2005). Phantasy, image consciousness, and memory (1898–1925). Trans. J. B. Brough. Dordrecht: Springer; Phantasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung. Zur Phänomenologie der Anschaulichen Vergegenwärtigungen. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1898–1925). Dordrecht: Springer, 1980.
Husserl, E. (2015). Phänomenologie und Erkenntnistheorie. Trans. P. Volontè. Milano: Bur.
Johansson, R. (2013). Tracking the mind’s eye. Eye movements during mental imagery and memory retrieval. Lund University Cognitive Studies, 155.
Kind, A. (2013a). The heterogeneity of the imagination. Erkenntnis, 78, 141–159.
Kind, A. (2013b). How imagination gives rise to knowledge. Available via www1.cmc.edu/pages/faculty/AKind/Imag&Knowldraft.pdf. Accessed 3 July 2017. To be published in Perceptual memory and perceptual imagination. Eds. F. Macpherson & F. Dorsch. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kind, A. (2016a). The snowman’s imagination. American Philosophical Quarterly, 53, 341–348.
Kind, A. (2016c). Imagining under constraints. In A. Kind & P. Kung (Eds.), Knowledge through imagination (pp. 145–159). Oxford University Press.
Kirk, R. (1981). The moral imagination. Literature and Belief, 1, 37–49.
Kosslyn, S. M. (1980). Image and mind. Harvard University Press.
Kosslyn, S. M. (1994). Image and brain. The resolution of the imagery debate. MIT Press.
Kosslyn, S. M., & Denis, M. (1999). Scanning visual mental images. A window on the mind. Current Psychology of Cognition, 18, 409–465.
Kosslyn, S. M., Behrmann, M., Jeannerod, M., et al. (1995). The cognitive neuroscience of mental imagery. Neuropsychologia, 33(11), 1335–1344.
Krešimir, P. (2015). What is not an image (anymore)? Iconic difference, immersion, and iconic simultaneity in the age of screens. Phainomena Journal of Phenomenology and Hermeneutics, 92–93.
McRobie, H. (2014). Martha Nussbaum, empathy, and the moral imagination. Available via opendemocracy.net. Accessed 8 Oct 2017.
Nussbaum, M. C. (1995a). Poetic justice. The literary imagination and public life. Beacon Press.
Nussbaum, M. C. (1995b). Poets as judges: Judicial rhetoric and the literary imagination. The University of Chicago Law Review, 62, 1477–1519.
Nussbaum, M. C. (2001). Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. Cambridge University Press.
O’Shaughnessy, B. (2000). Consciousness and the world. Oxford University Press.
Paivio, A., & Sadoski, M. (2004). A dual coding theoretical model of reading. In R. B. Ruddell & N. J. Unrau (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (pp. 1329–1362). International Reading Association.
Pavel, T. (1986). Fictional worlds. President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Pavel, T. (2009). Come ascoltare la letteratura (I: 55–66). Trans. A. Sotgiu. Enthymema; Comment écouter la littérature? Paris: Collège de France/Fayard, 2006.
Radford, C., & Weston, M. (1975). How can we be moved by the fate of Anna Karenina? Aristotelian Society Supplementary, 49(1), 67–93.
Sacks, O. (2010). The mind’s eye. Knopf.
Saraiva, M. M. (1970). L’imagination selon Husserl. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Sartre, J.-P. (2004). The imaginary. A phenomenological psychology of the imagination. Trans. J. Webber. London: Routledge; L’imaginaire. Psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination. Paris: Gallimard, 1940.
Spinicci, P. (2009). Lezioni sul concetto di immaginazione. cuem.
Voltolini, A. (2010). Finzioni. Il far finta e i suoi oggetti. Laterza.
Walton, K. L. (1978b). Fearing fictions. The Journal of Philosophy, 75(1), 5–27.
Walton, K. L. (1980). Appreciating fiction: Suspending disbelief or pretending belief? Dispositio, 5(13/14), 1–18.
Walton, K. L. (1983). Fiction, fiction-making, and styles of fictionality. Philosophy and Literature, 7(1), 78–88.
Walton, K. L. (1990). Mimesis as make-believe. On the foundations of the representational arts. Harvard University Press.
Walton, K. L. (2006). On the (so-called) puzzle of imaginative resistance. In S. Nichols (Ed.), The architecture of the imagination: New essays on pretense, possibility, and fiction (pp. 137–148). Oxford University Press.
Williamson, T. (2016). Knowing by imagining. In A. Kind & P. Kung (Eds.), Knowledge through imagination (pp. 113–123). Oxford University Press.
Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and reality. Tavistock Publications.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bellini, B. (2021). Theories on Self-Imagination Do Not Solve the Fundamental Issue. In: How Change and Identity Coexist in Personal Individuality . Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 116. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81451-9_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81451-9_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-81450-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-81451-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)