Abstract
Imagination seems to the present writer to encompass to varying degrees all the processes discussed in this study, marking their convergence. Imagination is, in a metaphorical sense, their least common denominator.
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References
J.-P. Sartre, Imagination. A Psychological Critique. Ann Arbor 1962, Introduction.
H. Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics. New York 1912, p. 1.
B. Russell, Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays. London 1918.
S.T. Bruyn, op. cit., p. 166, 167.
E. Kris, Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art. New York 1952, pp. 59, 60.
J.-P. Sartre, L’imaginaire. Paris.1948 (1940).
T. Ribot, Essai sur l’Imagination Créatrice. Paris 1908.
H. Bergson, Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience. Paris 1889 (translated as Time and Free Will); Matière et mémoire. Paris 1896. See Sartre, Imagination, p. 57.
J.-P. Sartre, Imagination, pp. 134, 135.
Ibid.,pp. 135f.
J.-P. Sartre, L’imaginaire, p. 27.
“La pensée prend la forme imagée lorsqu’elle veut être intuitive, fonder ses affirmations sur la vue d’un objet. Cette conduite en face de l’irréel est la vie imaginaire”. Ibid., p. 158 Each concrete and real situation of the consciousness in the world is pregnant with the imagination in so far it always presents itself as “un dépassement du réel, une possibilité concrète de produire l’irréel” (p. 236) “Tout existant est dépassé vers quelque chose. L’imaginaire est en chaque cas le ”quelque chose“ concret vers quoi l’existant est dépassé” (p. 237). In the field of imaginative literature (“fiction”) the novelist, the poet, the playwright constitute an irreal object through verbal analogs. “Hamlet n’est pas le personnage qui se réalise dans l’acteur, mais l’acteur qui s’irréalise dans son personnage” (p. 243). The Seventh Symphony is not real, out of existence; I listen to it in imagination (“dans l’imaginaire”).
The term “unconscious” is far from being an explanatory concept. Let us distinguish in agreement with R.D. Laing two usages of it. First, the term may refer to dynamic structures, functions, mechanisms, processes which are outside experience but start from inferences about experience. More specifically, according to W. Waller (op. cit., p. 324, 325), unconscious behaviour arises from either the following out of roles which have been so long established and have sunk so deeply into the foundations of the personality that it is no longer possible to take account of them, or form an organization of behaviour into which the individual has no insight or only partial insight, or through the repudiation of an assigned role through the action of the mechanism of repression. Second, “unconscious” may signify that the user of the term is claiming that he or the other is unaware of part of his own experience, despite the apparent absurdity of this claim. In this sense, the “unconscious” is what we do not communicate, to ourselves or to one another (R.D. Laing, op. cit., pp. 7, 17). It seems to the present writer that the second usage of the term “unconscious” is more adequate from a sociological standpoint.
S. Isaacs, “The Nature and Function of Phantasy”. In: J. Riviere, ed., Developments in Psycho-analysis. London 1952.
R.D. Laing, op. cit., pp. 16, 17. See note 12.
Ibid.,p. 19.
Ibid., pp. 41, 42.
E.J. Furlong, Imagination. London 1961, pass.
C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination. New York 1959, p. 212.
E.D. Hutchinson, op. cit., p. 403.
Ibid., p. 398.
Ibid., p. 420.
T. Abel, “The Operation Called Verstehen”, in: Amer. J. Sociol. 1948.
Ibid., pp. 217, 218.
D. Wrong, ed., op. cit., pp. 19, 20.
Ibid., p. 21.
In. C.R. Rogers, op. cit., p. 398.
Ibid.
C. Wright Mills, op. cit., p. 211.
The fictional accounts of A. Huxley, B.F. Skinner, G. Orwell and of others are telling illustrations of how a scientifically managed world would destroy the human person.
A.L. Mooney, “Groundwork for Creative Research”. In: E.E. Moustacas, ed., The Self, Explorations in Personal Growth. New York 1956, p. 265.
O. Rank, “Fate and Self-Determination”. In: E.E. Moustacas, ed., op. cit.
R.L. Mooney, op. cit., p. 269.
H. Read, op. cit., p. 291.
A. Wenkart, “Creativity and Freedom”. In: H.M. Ruitenbeek, ed., The Creative Imagination. Chicago 1965.
C. Wright Mills, op. cit., pp. 18, 13, 15.
Ibid., pp. 8, 18, 137, 211.
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Baumann, B. (1975). Imagination. In: Imaginative Participation. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4871-1_6
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