The Imaginary

by Jean-Paul Sartre

A cornerstone of Sartre’s philosophy, The Imaginary was first published in 1940. Sartre had become acquainted with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl in Berlin and was fascinated by his idea of the 'intentionality of consciousness' as a key to the puzzle of existence. Against this background, The Imaginary crystallized Sartre's worldview and artistic vision. The book is an extended examination of the concepts of nothingness and freedom, both of which are derived from the ability of consciousness to imagine objects both as they are and as they are not – ideas that would drive Sartre's existentialism and entire theory of human freedom.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychology, Theory, France, Classics, 20th Century

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1940

About the author

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology). His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution."
Sartre held an open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both lifestyles and thought. The conflict between oppressive, spiritually destructive conformity (mauvaise foi, literally, 'bad faith') and an "authentic" way of "being" became the dominant theme of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant, 1943). Sartre's introduction to his philosophy is his work Existentialism Is a Humanism (L'existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946), originally presented as a lecture.

Reviews

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

020219 from ??? (2000s): if you want an introductory sartre text this is it- while he is figuring it out he writes it out. sort of like a precursor to being and nothingness. he is an excellent writer, i think his rhetorical skill serves his ideas rather than obscures, he is the easiest existentialist to read...

[HuDa AljaNabi]

you need a clear mind to start with this book.

[John Kulm · Rating 4 out of 5]

In psychology, Sartre is sure different than the "old shaman" Jung. Being the atheistic existentialist, Sartre doesn't think we can transcend projection. In fact, since all is subjective we can only know each other through projecting ourselves onto each other.

"When will the beloved become in turn the lover? The answer is easy: when the beloved projects being loved." Actually, that quote is from Being and Nothingness. Sartre has a lot of profound things to say about love. And yet, if love is nothing more than projecting ourselves onto the other, there can be no mystical connection. Interesting book, though, "The Imaginary..."

Easier to find this book under the title, "The Psychology of the Imagination."

[Sajid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sartre's sharp intelligence made this book into a brilliant study of Imagination. This is more of a phenomenological study of Imagination,where only some aspects were drawn from experimental psychology. Here, Sartre deviated from the common sense notion of Imagination by just letting appear the phenomena as they are. He says that imagination is nothing like perception. In our perceptual life we see the objects, we can modify our way of seeing by using glasses or magnifying glasses. Besides,we can take Infinite of positions of the object we are perceiving. This field is always rich with meaning and hidden aspects. But the fact is that in perception we can only perceive one side at a time of the object. But in imagination the object appear all at once. We can have the very reality,meaning, sensation and perspectives of object simultaneously–which in perception is successive. And when we picture to ourselves an image,it is in Sartre's words “quasi-observation”.

Sartre argues that we always misunderstand imagination with the character of perception because of what Sartre calls “illusion of immanence”,where we think that even in our imagination objects are given in a spatial reality. Sartre says:

“We depicted consciousness as a place peopled with small imitations and these imitations were the images. Without any doubt, the origin of this illusion must be sought in our habit of thinking in space and in terms of space. I will call it: the illusion of immanence.”

But for him,imagination is not any work or content of consciousness. It is consciousness itself. Because consciousness is a consciousness through and through. And in this particular attitude of consciousness, which is imaging consciousness, our intentionality always aims for an object that is absent. Hence there is nothingness involved. And knowledge as well. It is only through my knowledge that i aim for an object i intend to. That's how we always confer a new meaning based on our own individual knowledge. The picture i see of my friend is not just the picture as a colours or lights reflected on it,i always confer on it my own knowledge of my friend and thus i surpass or transcend the very materiality of the photograph or picture before me.

Overall we can say for Sartre imagination is never a content or elements of consciousness, which psychology has taken for granted. But imagination is rich and creative in its very being. It is nothing but consciousness in its pure spontaneity.

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the tradition of Rene Descartes, Jean-Paul Sartre in The Imaginary added his insights into the philosophy of mind through his analysis of the imaging consciousness. In particular, his discussions on the differences among perception, conception and imagining identify the nuances among these modes of consciousness. Though he didn’t have as much empirical data from neurobiology as we have nowadays in the age of AI, his ideas provide some fundamentals of the philosophy of mind that help us understand about how we form images in our minds. Recommended for those interested in the philosophy of mind as well as existentialism.

[Alina · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a happy day to have read this work! I haven't encountered any thinker yet who so exactly puts his finger on the phenomenon I've been caring about, and who provides a compelling positive account of it, even if this account is quite general or preliminary. It is a wonderful surprise. Let me summarize Sartre's ideas and then ramble a bit about them.

In chapter 1 "Description," Sartre lays out his method and motivates its importance. It is broadly a phenomenological method, by which he asks us to attend to our everyday experiences and notice details in them. Sartre argues that it would be pertinent if psychologists did this more; they too quickly leap to theories, and so miss out on all the further empirical evidence they could have for inspiring theory, by failing to do phenomenology. Sartre begins describing imaginative states (what he calls "the image" or "the imaged object.") Whenever we talk about objects, of which we're consciously aware, we're in the habit of connoting that they lie in space and time of reality. Imagined objects violate that. Moreover, imagined objects always differ from perceived objects with respect to that in apprehending the former, we are aware of how the object consists in our consciousness (or conscious activity/awareness) itself; in contrast in apprehending the latter, we are aware of how the object comes from the world, and so is material/worldly. The relationships between knowledge and perception, on the one hand, and knowledge and imagination, on the other hand, also differs. We gain knowledge through bodily interaction with the world, when we perceive it. In contrast, it is knowledge we already have that is necessarily drawn upon and governs the appearances of the imagined object. So in apprehending an imagined object, knowledge is 'immediate'; it is manifest in the imaged object itself, and needs not be acquired (and in fact we can't acquire new knowledge from imagined objects, according to Sartre, a point I'll return to below.)

Whenever we perceive the world, there is "an infinity of relations" that stand between things of the world. So there are many different possible states of affairs that we can alight upon, in interacting with and perceiving the world. A metaphor is that there are many different constellations that could be drawn, given the extreme density of stars. In contrast, imaginative states have "a kind of essential poverty"; the constitutive elements of an imaginative state lack relationships to the rest of the world, and have finite relations to one another, namely the relationships of which we already know, and are now primed to let govern the act of imagining. Nevertheless, given sensorily/visually minimal or truncated imagined objects can impact us profoundly, and evoke a wealth of thoughts and memories. This is because any imagining flows from past knowledge, whose active role in partially constituting the imagining at this moment implies that there is an intention we have, to imagine something or another, in a certain way or another; this intention may be a mental state that extends past the imagining itself, unifying and impacting different sorts of mental attitudes (Sartre doesn't go into this point, but this is my reconstruction of what he gestures at. I think it is fruitful to explore this relationship between intention and imagination further, for the sake of analyzing what role imagined objects can have in our lives; I'll go into this below.)

Any imagined object is apprehended as "a nothingness." We grasp anything we imagine as not actually being present, but rather as nonexistent, absent or elsewhere, or as neutral regarding its existential status but as at least not in the distal here-and-now. This follows from the fact, according to Sartre, that imagination is always creative and active; that we are imagining, as an intentional act, implies that we are aware of our intention and thus of the fact that this is an imagining. So we will be aware of the imaginative, non-real character of the object. Of course imagined objects may stand in for or represent actual objects in the world, but when they do, whenever we encounter such imagined objects, we never confuse the imagining itself with those objects out there in the world, for the reasons just explained. At the same time, however, we never perceive a mental image as a mental image; whenever we imagine, we encounter the object imagined, of which we're also aware is not a perceived object before us, but is delivered by imagination.

In chapter 2 "The image family," Sartre explores how many different phenomena interactions with which may yield imagined objects. It's not just whenever we lay in bed and imagine something, we encounter imagined objects. There are also photographs, portraits, verbal descriptions, and caricatures, for example. Sartre does an interesting phenomenological analysis of the different sort of experiential states interactions with each of these types yields. Verbal descriptions of a person have no visual resemblance to the person. Instead, the association is purely conventional. In contrast, photographs and portraits may bring about similar psychological effects upon the viewer as a perception of the object might (e.g., the elicitation of affect or emotion.) This may partly explain superstitions and rituals certain peoples have had towards pictures. These psychological effects continue to happen to us, even when we know that the person isn't really there; this obstinacy of effects may be compared to that of the effects of certain visual illusions (e.g., the stick in water still appearing as bent, when we know it is not.) Sartre explores how schematic drawings, like caricatures, can have especially profound emotional effects on us. Why is that? He doesn't offer an explanation, but this fact is certainly fascinating, and I'd like to explore it further (it is related to rhetorical devices and how those work, in general.)

Chapter 3 "The nature of the analogon in the mental image" was my favorite. Here, Sartre offers a positive account for how imagined objects can affect us emotionally at all, as if they were actually there impacting our bodies and raising some stakes. Sartre starts off with analyzing further how knowledge and intention is responsible for any imagining. Whatever we encounter in imagination will be "degraded," with respect to the full grade of relevant objects as perceived. If we can transform or anticipate new unfoldings in an imaginative episode, this is made possible by what we already know about the imagined objects. Sartre proposes that we can understand the basic structure of objects of imagination in terms of "symbolic schemata" or "affective-motor analogons," which are roughly synonymous on his terms. A nice example to get us started in understanding this is Hume's missing shade of blue. Hume asked whether we can picture a particular shade of blue that stands between other shades that we perceive. Sartre's answer is that we may not be able to visually imagine that shade itself, but we do imagine some overall form of that shade, where this form partially consists in our knowledge and intentions pertaining to the relationship this shade has to all the others, which we do perceive.

In perceiving the world, we attend to something outside of ourselves, and grasp that it is indeed external. In contrast, when we imagine the world, our consciousness implicitly aims to determine, or to make more clear/precise, the object that is imagined, which is apprehended as something that is not really there, and so which can't be interacted with; interaction is no longer available as a possible source for increased understanding or determination.

Sartre visits the theory of affect available in his day. Psychologists broadly define affect in terms of a purely subjective feeling, which has no relation to objects in the world. Sartre criticizes this; affective states must be linked to the world. He proposes that we understand affect as a modification of the mode of consciousness awareness as a whole, and thereby as having the functional status of modifying all the particulars of which we become aware, rather than a particular mental stage that fills one's conscious awareness at a certain time. Once we are affected, or have affect, we often aim to discover more about our situation, to figure out what is affecting us. In imagining an object, when it gives us affect, we then are compelled to attend to our knowledge and background intentions, which are responsible for the contents of this imagining. This knowledge and intention will be tethered to the world, or to reality. There are things in the world that we've perceived in the past and acquired knowledge from, which now informs the present imagining. Remembrance of those things, in turn, further affect us, changing our affective state into different emotions.

Sartre insists that we should avoid the temptation to think about affect as something that's added on top of knowledge states. He claims that instead, affect itself is constitutive of the knowledge. He doesn't elaborate on what this means exactly; I find it wonderfully suggestive, and will elaborate upon this idea below.

Sartre visits the idea of cross-modal perception. People blindfolded, when touching an object from all sides, can come to visually imagine the shape of the object accurately. Husserl writes on retension and protesion: certain happenings trigger in us awareness of the next happenings to come, which we anticipate. Sartre proposes that imagined objects are multi-modal and have this dynamically unfolding character; an imagined object is "a form in the making" and activates in our bodies kinesthetic sensations, which amount to a sort of action inclination or motor compulsion, which coincides with the the form. If we imagine a sphere, for example, this will activate a kinesthetic sensation of the possibility of turning it over, rolling it, or doing other things that are consistent with our knowledge and present intention regarding the sphere thus imagined.

Sartre calls the succession of kinaesthetic sensations and their corresponding affects which partially constitute an imagined object "an affective-motor analogon." This is always a schematic form of an object we have knowledge and intentions of, where this form develops over time, on the basis of what appears, how our bodies respond (both kinaesthetically and affectively), and what in turn unfolds in appearance. The analogon functions as a proxy of an object in the world, which we could perceive and act upon. In perception, when we interact with an object, more of its aspects unfold, which are given by the world itself; but in imagination, the imagined object will seem to spontaneously unfold and transform according to the dynamics that define the analogon (i.e., the interaction of kinaesthetic and affective sensations, orchestrated by background knowledge and intention).

Sartre has a fascinating analysis of the relationship between linguistic expression and "pure thought," which just is imagination itself. We can have a pure thought, which is nonlinguistic, and consists in affective-motor analogons. Then, we could try to describe or narrativize what is going on in our minds. In doing so, we will now newly present into consciousness specific words. These words are apprehended differently than analogons. Words are signs for something that has a sensory-visual presence. The words themselves lack any sensory-visual resemblance to that thing. So it is possible to apprehend linguistic expressions in the absence of any analogons; in contrast, in pure thought or in imagination, that is impossible. Analogons constitute pure thought itself. Sometimes when we apprehend linguistic expressions, the forcefulness or presence of the relevant analogons are still present. The words are like delicate signs laid over the pure thought. At other times, the distinctive function of language takes over, and the analogons are lost.

Once we articulate our pure thoughts in the form of linguistic expression, these expressions themselves will carry with them further knowledge/intentions, which go beyond those which were initially constitutive of the pure thought. So while we cannot learn anything new from imagination itself, often in imaginative episodes we employ language, or we describe/conceptualize what's going on in our minds to ourselves—it is this linguistic activity that presents new materials, which makes learning possible during imaginative episodes. Here's another way to think about what the introduction of language does to thought/imagination. A linguistic expression is a new form that's external to our pure thought. We now can interact with this form, as something "outside" of our initial conscious state. This allows for all sorts of new associations, ideas, and discoveries. I really love this point. I will muse upon it below.

In chapter 4 "The role of the image in psychic life," Sartre examines aesthetic experience and dream experience in light of his concept of the analogon. In chapter 5 "The irreal object," Sartre focuses on the temporal aspect of imaginative episodes. The sense of time within the imaginary world of imagined objects differs from that of the real world. It can feel like no time has passed at all, if you're absorbed in a fantasy, when in fact an hour has passed. The feelings we imagine ourselves as having, when we imagine ourselves interacting with imagined objects, are not actual feelings. Consider the difference between a memory or imagination of a pain, and actually having a pain. In chapter 6 "Conclusion" Sartre examines the implications that these essential features of the imagination have upon the nature of consciousness. Whenever we reflect upon experience, and so conceptualize what is going on, Sartre argues that this must be an imaginative act; and as imaginative, we are aware that whatever we have posited as real need not be exactly the case. Whatever we're aware of explicitly or reflectively (i.e., imaginatively) is "emptiness" or "nothingness" in the sense that it is presented by our mind, and is not reality in itself—and importantly, we are aware of all of this. One can see how this theory of mind paves the way towards Sartre's theory of radical freedom, which he will write in his later work Being and Nothingness.

It is totally worth reading chapters 1-3 in careful detail. This work as a whole is greatly underrated. It gets at more profound issues pertaining to the imagination than most contemporary works on the imagination (e.g., Greg Currie, Ian Ravenscroft, Peter Langland.) Sartre points out that not all sorts of conscious experiences are created equal. Many contemporary works presuppose that imaginative experience is just like perceptual experience but represented in a certain way; Sartre shows that the difference is beyond that, or he goes into detail regarding the exact differences.

Now here are some ramblings. I've been thinking about how in imagination/thought, objects can be presented as either part of reality, or as unreal (e.g., make-believe, false, illusory.) Reading Sartre sensitizes me to a couple of distinctions and makes me wonder about the relations between them: (1) spontaneity v. reflection; (2) manifest reality v. unreality, (3) no language use v. language use. For example, it seems that reflective language use severs us more fully from the affective-kinaesthetic effects of the analogon, but spontaneous language use can preserve the functional powers of the analogon. Sometimes, it seems that if experience is more spontaneous, it is likely to show up as real, whereas if the contents of experience require much deliberation or care, it is more likely to show up as unreal. This may be because once more deliberation or care is involved, this usually means we're using language reflectively; or, we're actually making things up, if we're not drawing inferences using language reflectively. There are many open questions in this vicinity.

Sartre also helped me realize how concerned I should be about my pet hypothesis that the primary modifers of objects of experience are tracked by the concepts of our sense of reality v. make-believe. There are various different ways by which an imagining relates to reality. For example, maybe the category of things that show up as real but as uncertain can be on par with straight-up make-believe at least with respect to certain key dimensions. The two would be unified by awareness of how what we come up with can reflect reality in different ways. For example, compare an artist’s expression, on the one hand, and my imagining something that might or could happen on the other hand. I could do the latter for the sake of predicting the future, for my own amusement, etc. The purpose of this imaginative project would make a difference as to how it ‘symbolizes’ the world, and as to what sort of genuine emotion it evokes. If I imagine something that could happen for the sake of my own amusement, it’s ever more close to straight-up make-believe. I'm not sure whether this means that manifest reality v. unreality/make-believe is no longer a primary distinction. At least it means that when we consciously focus on a certain object, that object could be make-believe, while at the same time, it anchors us onto some part of manifest reality, by virtue of our grasp of some 'symbolic' or 'expressive' relationship.

[Xander]

This is a terribly boring book. Boring due its subject matter, boring due to the dry philosophical prose of Sartre, and most of all, just boring as a whole. Boring seems to emanate from this book.

Usually, I am not one to give up a book after picking up to read it. But I simply can't seem to drag myself through its pages. Perhaps it's a personal thing, but more likely, it is simply this book.

I won't rate it, since that would be unfair.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hated reading this, and I really wanted to like it (I bought my copy at Green Apple Books in SF 12 or 13 years ago, in the throes of my existentialist obsession that prefigured my phenomenological & epistemological interests, hoping that it would somehow unlock a part of Sartre for me otherwise unobtainable. Spoiler: it didn’t).

The arguments he lays out and the very methodical way he structures his ideas are neat, but I would come back to it every time with so little memory of what he was building. I developed no feeling for his thinking. A lot of the time I had to just rewrite in the margins and in any empty space several pages’ worth of idea-building just to be clear on what the hell he is trying to say. Other Sartre I’ve encountered (non-fiction as well as fiction) is equally obtuse but more rewarding as you put work into it. This certainly was not for me. From other reviews I see here, it would seem that it works for others. Kinda a drag, and I do almost feel like I’ve somehow failed this test.

I’ve stopped at part 4 (of 5…+ conclusion?), just as he was taking his thesis into what seemed like an interesting arena (the image arises out of nothing; consciousness creates from nothing). I will certainly come back to this when I have more patience and when I don’t have so many more pressing and meaningful things to devote (reading) time to.

[صفاء · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will call the different immediate modes of apprehension of the real as a world ‘situations’. We can then say that the essential condition for a consciousness to imagine is that it be ‘situated in the world’ or more briefly that it ‘be-in-the-world’. It is the situation-in-the-world, grasped as a concrete and individual reality of consciousness, that is the motivation for the constitution of any irreal object whatever and the nature of that irreal object is circumscribed by this motivation. Thus the situation of consciousness must appear not as a pure and abstract condition of possibility for all of the imaginary, but as the concrete and precise motivation for the appearance of a certain particular imaginary.

From this point of view, we can finally grasp the connection of the irreal to the real. First of all, even if no image is produced at the moment, every apprehension of the real as a world tends of its own accord to end up with the production of irreal objects since it is always, in a sense, free nihilation of the world and this always from a particular point of view. So, if consciousness is free, the noematic correlate of its freedom should be the world that carries in itself its possibility of negation, at each moment and from each point of view, by means of an image, even while the image must as yet be constituted by a particular intention of consciousness. But, reciprocally, an image, being a negation of the world from a particular point of view, can appear only on the ground of the world and in connection with that ground. Of course, the appearance of the image requires that the particular perceptions be diluted in the syncretic wholeness world and that this whole withdraws. But it is precisely the withdrawal of the whole that constitutes it as ground, that ground on which the irreal form must stand out. So although, by means of the production of the irreal, consciousness can momentarily appear delivered from its ‘being-in-the-world’, on the contrary this ‘being-in-the-world’ is the necessary condition of imagination.

[Uki Esa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Materi tidak pernah merupakan analog yang sempurna dari objek yang direpresentasikan. Pengetahuan tertentu ikut muncul untuk menginterpretasikan materi tersebut untuk melengkapi celah-celahnya. Ketika kita melihat materi sebuah lukisan, awalnya adalah sebuah unsur netral yang kemudian secara spontanitas kesadaran kita dibangkitkan melalui bentuk, warna-warna dalam lukisan tersebut yang kemudian memproklamirkan sebuah imajinasi. Kita menghidupkan lukisan mengubahnya menjadi representasi dari sebuah objek yang sama sekali tidak eksis.

Dalam buku ini Satre menguraikan bagaimana indra menangkap sebuah objek kemudian melahirkan imajinasi, persepsi dan intuisi.

[Sara G · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do I read Sartre because of FOMO? Perhaps. Am I getting much out of it? Not really. Was I going to say something really mean here? Yes but I changed my mind. No comment I guess.

[Wissam Asaad · Rating 4 out of 5]

الإنسان كائنٌ يتمثّل العالم، وهو نفسه داخل العالم

[Emay · Rating 4 out of 5]

** تلخيصي لكتاب التخيل ل جان بول سارتر...
التخيل او المعرفة بالصورة تأتي من الذهن أنه الذهن وقد أوقع على الانطباع الحاصل في الدماغ الذي يعطي وعيا بالصورة وهذه الصورة كذلك ليست موضوعه امام الوعي بنحو الموضوع الجديد للمعرفة على رغم ما لها من صفة كونها واقعة جسدانية فذلك كان سيدفع إلى ما لا نهاية إمكانية علاقة الوعي بموضوعاته وإنما هي تملك هذه الخاصه الغريبه بكونها قادرة على استحثاث أفعال الروح بالحركات الدماغية إذ تكون قد سببتها مواضيع خارجيه على ما هي ليست تشمل على شبيهاتها فهي توقظ في النفس أفكارا والأفكار تأتي من الحركات....
* وجان بول سارتر فيلسوف وروائي وكاتب مسرحي كاتب سيناريو وناقد أدبي وناشط سياسي فرنسي ولد عام 1905 يعتبر من اهم رموز الفلسفة الوجوديه بدأ حياته العملية أستاذا درس فلسفه في ألمانيا خلال الحرب العالميه الثانيه حين احتلت ألمانيا النازية فرنسا وانخرط سارتر في صفوف المقاومة الفرنسيه السريه توفي عام 1980.... ومن أهم أعمال سارتر ومؤلفاته :-
تعالي الأنا موجود
التخيل
تخطيط لنظرية الانفعالات
الخيالي
الوجود والدعم
الوجوديه مذهب إنساني
نقد العمل الجدلي....
وسارتر من ابرز من انتقد المدرسة التجريبية من الفلاسفة وتعود أسس نظرية سارتر في الخيال الى مصدرين اثنين قام سارتر بالاستناد اليها بصياغة نظريته في الخيال هما هوسرل والآن أميل شارتييه....
*هوسرل والمدرسة الظاهرتيه يرى أن بأن كل وعي هو وعي لشيء ما اي أن الوعي يتوجه دائما نحو موضوع خارجي ليس هناك وعي بدون موضوع....
وتتعدد حالات الوعي فالادراك الحسي هو احد حالات الوعي كذلك الخيال هو حالة وعي وفعل الوعي خلال الإدراك الحسي يختلف عن فعل الوعي خلال التخيل فهما فعلان مختلفان نوعيا او هما حالاتان يتوجه فيهما الوعي نحو موضوعه بطريقه مختلفه نوعيا وليس كما يقول التجريبيون بأن التخيل هو الأثر الضعيف الباقي من الإدراك الحسي...
*المصدر الثاني لنظرية سارتر نجدها عند الآن... حيث يرفض الآن وجود الخيال ويرجع التخيل الى :-
1- معرفة سابقة
2- مضاف إليها حركات الجسم او هي معرفه مجسدة في حركات... فالصورة اذا هي معرفة مرسومة في حركات الجسد...
بالنسبة لسارتر هناك فرق نوعي بين الوعي الناجم عن فعل الإدراك والوعي الناجم عن فعل التخيل (الوعي المتخيل)والتمييز بين النوعين أمر بديهي وتلقائي
التخيل ببساطه هو التفكير في شيء ما باعتباره غير موجود أن اتخيل شقيقتي او صديقي يعني أن أفكر به حين كان غائبا لأن وعي الشيء في حال وجوده هو ادراك حسي... ** مما استوقفني في الكتاب: -
- الفرق بين الخيال وأشكال المعرفة الاخرى ما الفرق مثلا بين شخص او مبنى بعد زيارته له المتكررة وبين شخص آخر حصل على معلومات عنه من القراءة...
هل من يعرف أن عدد ضحايا آسيا وصل لحدود مائتين وخمسين الف ضحية كمن يحاول تخيل الكارثة مثلا؟ وهذا ما أجاب عليه سارتر بأن التخيل ليس معرفة بسيطة بالشيء أنه يتطلب مادة ما يعبر الفكر من خلالها الى الموضوع الغائب الذي يتم تخيله..
فالعاشق الذي يفكر في حبيبته أثناء غيابها فإنه يستند إلى مادة تؤدي دور المحرض او المساعد على التخيل وهذه المادة قد تكون صورة لها او رائحة عطر او اي شيء آخر يقوم بدور الحاث المحرض على التخيل وهذا ما يسميه سارتر (التشبيه) او المماثل (كترجمة للمصطلح الذي يستخدمه سارتر وهو Analogon)
وهذه المماثل المساعد على التخيل قد يكون عبارة عن حركات يقوم بها الشخص المتخيل كحركات الترحاب التي نقوم بها حين نتخيل حضور عزيز علينا هنا يبدو التطابق واضح مع الآن....
- ان التدقيق في الصورة بذاتها ألوانها حجمها تفاصيل الخطوط والأشياء الموجودة تشكل عاملا معوقا للتخيل أكثر منها عامل مساعد في هذه الحالة تكون حالة الوعي الطاغية هي الإدراك الحسي بينما العبور نحو التخيل يؤدي تلقائيا إلى ضعف هذا الوعي ليحل محله وعي آخر هو (الوعي التخيلي) ويلعب المماثل دورا في الاحلام كما يرى سارتر وقد يكون المماثل على شكل شرارات ضوئية او مثيرات حسية (لمسية ) او صوتيه فالنائم وبسبب من منبه الساعه صباحا قد يحلم أنه يمضي عطلة نهاية الاسبوع قرب شلال النهر في الطبيعة المروج الخضراء حوله والعائلة والأصدقاء (صوت منبه الساعه هنا يلعب دور المماثل) او الطفل الذي يسمع صوت أبيه الذي حضر من السفر ليلا فيحلم حلما له علاقه بالوالد... أرى سارتر غير مقنعا حين اعتبر الحلم نوعا من التخيل...
اذا اعتبرنا أن الحلم نوع من التخيل فإن نظرية سارتر ستواجه صعوبه في التوفيق بين قوله بسهولة وتلقائية التمييز بين الإدراك الحسي والنخيل وبين صعوبة التمييز بين الإثنين في الحلم لأن الذي يحلم يظن ما يعيشه في الحلم بأنه حقيقة واقعية اي أنه يظن حلمه (تخيله) إدراكا حسنا وبالتالي فإن هناك صعوبة في التمييز بين الإدراك الحسي والتخيل وهذا ما قاله التجريبيون وانتقده سارتر بشدة...
- لا يمكن لحال من الاحوال ان يكون الوعي شيئا لان نمط وجوده بالذات انما ان يكون وجودا لذاته فأن يوجد الوعي هو ان يكون واعيا بوجوده فهو يظهر بنحو محض عفوية ازاء عالم الاشياء الذي هو محض عطالة...
سارتر ليس يعني بالماهية الحقيقة الكليه للشيء الجزئي بما هو هو وانما يعني بالماهية عين الشيء الجزئي بما هو نفس الشخص... الفرق الوحيد بين الصورة والفكرة هو ان التعبير عن الموضوع في الحال الأول يكون ذا لبس وفي الحال الآخر يكون بينا ويأتي اللبس من أن الدماغ يتلقى لا متناهيا من التغيرات التي لا يمكن أن تتناسبها إلا فكرة ذات لبس هي تنطوي على لا متناه من الأفكار البينة التي تتناسب مع جزء جزء بالأفكار البينة اذا هي محتواة في الفكرة ذات اللبس انها لا واعية انها مدركة من غير أن تكون متبينة وليس يتبين إلا جملتها الكليه التي تبدو لنا بسيطه لحهلنا بمركباتها...
إذ هناك بين الصورة والفكرة فرق يشبه أن يكون مجرد فرق رياضي فالصورة لها ثخانة اللامتناهي والفكرة لها وضوح الكم المتناهي والمحلل كلاهما معبران
- الفرضية القائلة بفكر محض من الصور والكلمات هي غير محتمله وهي على كل حال غير مبرهنة عليها....
- الذاكرة تلتقط الصورة على طول الزمن وفي كل الوقت الذي تنشأ فيه...
الترابط ليس بأمر أولي وهو بالتفكيك إنما ميل كل ذكرى لأن تضم إليها غيرها فإنما سببه عودة الذهن بطبعه إلى وحدة الادراك اللامتجزئة...
أن الفكر هو فعل لا واع من الذهن شأنه أنه لكي يصبح واعيا فهو محتاج لصور وكلمات...
ان علم النفس يفحص في عدد من القوانين نسميها بالذهنية من أجل أن نقابل بها قوانين الطبيعة الخارجية المختلفة عنها والتي هي على التحقيق لا تستحق صفة الذهنية تلك لانها إنما هي قوانين الصور والصور نفسها هي عناصر مادية ومهما بدا هذا عجيبا فإن علم النفس هو علم بالمادة وعلم بقطعة من المادة لها خاصية الاستعداد التكيفي...
- ان الصورة وقد أصبحت محتوى حسيا فهو ملقى بها خارج الوعي أن علماء النفس المعاصرين كانوا يقبلون بنحو ضمني التفرقة الجوهرية بين الصورة وتعقل الصورة فهورنلي كان يميز بين الصورة ودلالتها أي كان يميز بين الشيء الذي هو (الصورة) ومدلول هذه الصورة عند الفكر وكنا رأينا سبير حين قال أننا غالبا ما يقع انتباهنا لا على موضوع الحدس الحسي...
- ان الصورة هي موجود ذهني ليس يلائم إلا عصر الاحياز الدماغية وهي لا محاله ينبغي أن تضمحل مع فرضيات كفرضيات بروكا وورنك اذ انه ليس لها من مكان في علم نفس تأليفي...
- انها فكرة ساذجة وملائمة ولكنها طفوليه تلك القائلة باننا نحتفظ بنسخ الذاكرة بنسخ الأشياء وبأننا نستطيع بنوع ما أن نتصفحها فالصورة ليس لها وجود ولا يمكن أن تكون موجودة وما نطلق عليه هذا الاسم إنما هو ابدا إدراك خاطئ...
- أننا في كل تخيل نلاقي ثلاث ضروب من العلل العالم الخارجي والحال الجسدية والحركات
وكل ادراك خاطئ فما هو إلا حكم خاطئ لأنه أن ندرك هو ان نحكم..
فالصورة ما هي إلا ادراك ناله الخطأ وبعد ذلك فنحن لم نعد محتاجين لأن نضع مسألة (ضرب ترابط ) الصور فليس يوجد من ترابط للأفكار ولا انتقاء يأتيه الفكر إذ لم تعد هناك محتويات حسبه منبعثة وإنما نحن نحكم على المحتويات الحسية الحاضرة وهذه المحتويات وتتعاقب كما تقتضيه قوانين العالم "إنما أحلامنا تأتينا من العالم لا من الآلهات" اوبااا شو قوية العبارة
- ان الفكر هو حكم عفوي صادق او كاذب له تعلق بالمعطيات الفعلية للعالم الخارجي والجسد
أننا لا نفكر البته كما نشاء والذي يجعلنا نعتقد بأننا نفكر كما نشاء هو ان الأفكار التي ترد إلى ذهن المرء هي يشبه ان تكون دائما نفس الأفكار التي تلائم مع الأوضاع
** تلخيص كل هذا هو ان كل الذين سبقوا بالبحث في أمر الصورة حينما اتفقوا على انها في حقيقتها الميتافيزيقية إنما هي محتوى عاطل اي شيء في الأشياء فإنهم قد تعثروا وذهب أمرهم حينما حاولوا أن يبينوا امرين مهمين:-
أولا كيف يمكن أن تحصل التفرقة تفرقة اوليه بين الصورة الإدراك وثانيا كيف يمكن ان يدخل الوعي الذي هو في جوهره عفوية محضة بالتأثير في الصورة التي هي على رأيهم عاطله محضه وهذا التخبط الذي وقع فيه هؤلاء في الجواب على هذين السؤالين كان من أثره أن دفع بفريق من أهل التحصيل بعدهم إلى أن أنكروا وجود الصورة بإطلاق ومن هؤلاء الفيلسوف الفرنسي سارتر...
- ان تعريف الصورة بأنها ادراك خاطئ قد سبق أن رأينا شبيها به لما عرضنا لآراء سبير كان يقر بمحتوى خاص بالصورة وأن كان هذا المحتوى نفسه هو محتوى حسي مثله مثل الادراك أما لدى الآن فليس يوجد إلا المواضيع التي لا يمكن ان تكون إلا مواضيع الادراك...
والتخيل ليس هو لا فعلا آخر مغايرا لفعل الإدراك ولكنه يكون ذا كثافة اقل او من مخلفات فعل الموضوع في الذات فالتخيل لدى الآن اذا إنما هو ادراك خاطئ لا غير 😉
كتاب فلسفي شائك جميل لا يخلو البته من المتعة ...

[Khaled · Rating 3 out of 5]

(فالناس يرتابون الآن ويأخذون حذرهم من الفردية النقدية بسبب نتائجها الخلقية، فهي تؤدي من الناحية السياسية إلى الفوضوية، لأنها تقود إلى المادية والإلحاد).
هل عملية التخيّل عبارة عن صور أو كلمات أو كلاهما؟ وإن كان الأول فكيف نستطيع ترجمته لكلام؟ وإن كان الثاني فكيف نستطيع أن نترجمه لصور؟ وإن كان كلاهما فكيف نستطيع ترجمته متكاملاً؟ ولكن السؤال المهم كيف يحدث التخيّل؟ وما هو المجال الذي يساعده للتطور لينعكس على أرض الواقع؟ وهل نستطيع أن نترجم كل ما في مخيلتنا إن كان بالقول أو الصور أو كلاهما؟ ما دور الفردية المرفوضة مجتمعياً في نمو عملية التخيّل؟ تعتبر هي أساس الإبداع التخيّلي، فعملية التخيّل ترتبط بالإبداع بثلاثة عوامل: 1- العامل الذهني، 2- العامل الشعوري (العاطفي) 3- العامل اللاواعي؛ والفردية هي من تجعل حرية المتخيِّل أمر متاح للتطور وترجمته على أرض الواقع. ومن هذا المنطلق يسعى ساتر لتوضيح كيف تتطور عملية التخيّل وما أشهر النظريات فيها فينقد البعض ويشيد ويكمل بعضها ويرفض بعضها.
كتاب ملهم ويستحق القراءة بتأني وتأمل.

[Lacan Nathalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

الخبرة الاستبطانية هي الأروع بلا شك في فهم كيف تتجلى الصورة ومن قبل ماهيتها وهل تعد الصورة هي التخيل بذاته وله أم هي رافد من روافد إنتاجه ...محاولة إقصار تلك المحاولة على فيزيولوجيا الجهاز العصبي سيحول علم النفس_او بمعنى أوضح_ سيبقيه في عرين العلوم الطبيعية كعلم استنتاجي لا وصفي( ينحو نحو ماهية الشيء قبل النزوع سريعا لمعرفة محصلته)
...
وهنا يجيء بنا سارتر و يذهب كعادته ما بين الفكرة وضدها ليخلق في النهاية دوامة لا تنتهي من التساؤلات
وعيب كل العيب أن نفترض أن علم النفس علم فوق إنساني يمكنه أن يجيب على الميتافيزيقيا ..ولكن الهم كل الهم أن يستطيع عالم النفس إدراك الهوة الفاصلة ما بين الفكرة و تمثلها و ما بين الصورة و واقعها و هو إدراك في حد ذاته كفيل بدحض وهم الشعور بالهوة
و لأنه علم بـ"اتجاه عالم "أو أجساد "
ولأن الوعي هو في صميمه وعي بشيء ما
فوعينا في ذاته بالنفس البشرية كفكرة يمنحنا شعورا فريدا باللّا_اغتراب عن عالمنا

[Hippie Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75/5

I would say that this work builds off of and is a direct elaboration of his work “The Imagination”. It has a lot of links, although original in its own right. I skimmed through certain parts that were really repetitive and came back to it later.

I do not know much to say, as I would be repeating most of what I wrote for “The Imagination”. The Imaginary feels more abstract and gets quite obscure. It is very repetitive in all honesty. Not my favorite work of Sartre, however, it is an interesting phenomenological psychology no doubt.

[Antonietta Florio · Rating 4 out of 5]

«[…] l’atto d’immaginazione è un atto magico. È un incantesimo destinato a far apparire l’oggetto pensato, la cosa desiderata in modo che se ne possa prendere possesso. In questo atto c’è sempre qualcosa d’imperioso e d’infantile, un rifiuto di tenere conto della distanza, delle difficoltà.» (J.-P. Sartre, L’immaginario. Psicologia fenomenologica dell’immaginazione)

Immagine, coscienza, percezione, allucinazione, realtà-irrealtà, sogno sono i termini che ricorrono di frequente in questo saggio di Jean-Paul Sartre, L’immaginario. Psicologia fenomenologica dell’immaginazione, che – come sembra suggerire di per sé il sottotitolo – si ricollega idealmente alla fenomenologia husserliana. Eppure, a ben vedere, il punto di partenza del filosofo esistenzialista sembra contrapporsi alla tesi di Husserl: se per questi, il ricordo è la presentificazione di un oggetto precedentemente percepito, per Sartre il ricordo è il rimembrare un oggetto assolutamente assente.

A collegare i due pensieri è il concetto di noesi, «che garantisce la costituzione fenomenologica del senso da attribuire agli oggetti». Ma anche qui, Sartre tende ad allontanarsi da Husserl scindendo tra l’oggetto in immagine (che rimanda a un oggetto reale) e l’immagine mentale, definita quale «degradazione dell’attività della coscienza», in quanto rimanda a un oggetto irreale, privo di esteriorità. La tesi di fondo de L’immaginario è descritta dall’autore stesso in questi termini:

«pensare l’immagine significa concepirla non a partire dalla presenza dell’oggetto che viene immaginato, ma a partire dalla sua assenza. Sartre intende così rompere con la tesi metafisica che vede nell’immaginazione un surrogato della percezione, cioè una traccia sensibile, esangue e indebolita, che la memoria ha il compito di riattivare.»

Pertanto, la definizione che viene data dell’immagine è:

«un atto il quale mira nella sua corporeità a un oggetto assente o inesistente attraverso un contenuto fisico o psichico che non si dà propriamente, ma come un rappresentante analogico dell’oggetto preso di mira.»

Nella prima parte, l’autore afferma che la caratteristica propria dell’image è che essa sia una forma della coscienza, mirante a produrre un oggetto, che può essere dato da tre tipi di coscienza: percezione, concezione e immaginazione, laddove l’imaginatio, mirando all’irreale, precede la percezione.

Inoltre, se la facoltà percettiva è un fenomeno ingannevole, l’immagine veicola un significato o dato certo, per quanto l’operazione esegetica sia dipendente dal sapere, il quale però varia da individuo a individuo. È per questo motivo che la funzione dell’immagine è simbolica: la comprensione, dunque il sapere, non si realizza attraverso l’immagine, bensì in immagine. Scrive in proposito il filosofo francese:

«La comprensione è un movimento che non si compie mai, è la reazione dello spirito a un’immagine per mezzo di un’altra immagine, a quest’ultima per mezzo di una nuova immagine e così via, teoricamente all’infinito.»

Non solo, Sartre individua altresì un tipo di coscienza strettamente connessa all’immaginazione, denominandola coscienza prigioniera, la quale non non è nel mondo, manca di una rappresentazione del possibile, ed è perciò dominante nel sogno. Onde ne deriva un paradosso: «vedo realmente qualcosa, ma quello che vedo è nulla». Un atteggiamento consimile si ha anche durante la lettura, laddove la funzione mediatrice dei segni verbali tra i segni e la coscienza (ibrida, semi-significante e semi-immaginativa) realizza un contatto con l’universo irreale.

«Per poter immaginare, basta che la coscienza possa superare il reale costituendolo come mondo, giacché l’annullamento del reale è sempre implicato nella sua costituzione in mondo. […] un’immagine non è il mondo-negato, puramente e semplicemente, ma è sempre il mondo negato da un certo punto di vista, e appunto da quello che permette di porre l’assenza o l’inesistenza di quell’oggetto che sarà reso presente “in immagine”.»

Oltre alla rappresentazione, l’immagine – contenente a un tempo elementi reali e oggetti irreali – possiede una forte valenza affettiva. Perciò è opportuno riconoscere in noi due persone distinte: l’io immaginario con i suoi desideri e l’io reale. La loro coesistenza è pressoché impossibile, l’uno è irriducibile all’altro, dove c’è l’uno non c’è posto per l’altro.

Ne consegue che il desiderio, essendo in primis “coscienza di un oggetto desiderato”, non può mai essere esaudito completamente, proprio per questo abisso esistente fra realtà è immaginazione («”essere-nel-mondo” è la condizione necessaria dell’immaginazione»), per via dell’antitesi tra l’atto immaginativo e l’atto realizzante.

Ne L’immaginario, insomma, Sartre definisce l’immaginazione come condizione per l’uomo «trascendentalmente libero» di superare il reale, come «una condizione essenziale e trascendentale della coscienza»; non vi è passaggio dal mondo reale al mondo immaginario, ma semplicemente un cambiamento di atteggiamento da immaginativo a realizzante.

Particolarmente significativo è il discrimine tra l’analisi sartriana dell’imagination e l’imaginatio esaminata dall’umanista fiorentino Marsilio Ficino, da questi concepita come attività partecipante al processo conoscitivo, e che rappresenta il tema su cui si focalizza il mio saggio dal titolo La gnosoleogia di Marsilio Ficino. Conoscere attraverso l’attività dell’«imaginatio-phantasia» (Edizioni Solfanelli, 2021, pp. 224)

© Antonietta Florio

[Mindaugas Dudenas · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you were to draw a picture that depicted only itself, what would it look like?

a depiction need share neither shape, nor colour, nor texture, it seems, with the thing it depicts.

Pictures that we find ‘realistic’ are simply those we can read most fluently.

In perception, knowledge of the object is consequent upon the experience of it, whereas in imagination knowledge is prior to experience;

images - elements of consciousness

Proust has shown well this abyss that separates the imaginary from the real, he has shown well that one can find no passage from one to the other and that the real is always accompanied by the collapse of the imaginary, even if there is no contradiction between the two, because the incompatibility comes from their nature and not from their content;

image can be defined, like the perception, by the relation of the object to a consciousness;

The image plays neither the role of illustration nor that of support for thought. It is not something heterogeneous with thought. An imaging con- sciousness includes knowledge, intentions, and can include words and judgements. And by that I do not mean to say that one can judge about the image, but that judgements in a special form, the imaging form, can enter into the very structure of the image;

For example, I often dream that I am about to be guillotined and the dream stops at the very moment when my neck is placed on the block. Here it is not fear that motivates the awakening – for, paradoxical as this might appear, this dream is not always presented as a nightmare – but rather the impossibility of imagining an after. Consciousness hesitates, this hesitation motivates a refection, and this is the awakening;

The dream is a privileged experience that can help us to conceive what a consciousness would be like that had lost its ‘being-in-theworld’ and had, at the same time, been deprived of the category of the real;

But in so far as he appears to me as imaged, this Pierre who is present in London, appears to me as absent. This fundamental absence, this essential nothingness of the imaged object, suffices to differentiate it from the objects of perception. What therefore must a consciousness be in order that it can successively posit real objects and imaged objects?;


There is nevertheless an essential diference between the thesis of the memory and that of the image. If I recall an event of my past life, I do not imagine it, I remember it. That is to say, I do not posit it as given-absent, but as given-now as passed;

There cannot be an intuition of nothingness, precisely because nothingness is nothing and because all consciousness – intuitive or not – is consciousness of something. Nothingness can be given only as an infrastructure of something;

It is simply that the aesthetic object is constituted and apprehended by an imaging consciousness that posits it as irreal;

As for the aesthetic enjoyment, it is real but is not grasped for itself, as produced by a real colour: it is nothing but a manner of apprehending the irreal object and, far from being directed on the real painting, it serves to constitute the imaginary object through the real canvas. This is the source of the famous disinterestedness of aesthetic vision;

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Più recentemente noto come L'immaginario, si intravede in questo testo di Sartre un interesse fenomenologico che spazia in apparenza a quello più propriamente detto "esistenzialista" de L'essere e il nulla, i cui concetti portanti trovano le loro basi nelle conclusioni a cui egli perviene alla fine delle sue considerazioni sul mondo dell'immagine qui affrontate.

Il termine immagine non può quindi designare che il rapporto fra coscienza e oggetto; in altre parole è una certa maniera dell'oggetto di presentarsi alla coscienza o, se si preferisce, una certa maniera di darsi un oggetto. (Parte prima: Il certo - II. Prima caratteristica: l'immagine è una forma di conoscenza, p.18)

Sartre, a differenza di Merleau-Ponty, non prende in considerazione il pensiero di Scheler, e pertanto il suo discorso fenomenologico è principalmente imbevuto della terminologia husserliana, in particolar modo laddove si afferma che "ogni coscienza sia coscienza di qualche cosa": c'è sempre un termine di relazione, un oggetto tra noi e la realtà. L'errato rapporto con l'immagine, tuttavia, è ciò che Sartre definisice sin dalle prime righe illusione di immanenza, ed è il cieco pregiudizio di chi crede che elaborando un'immagine arrivi a cogliere l'oggetto nell'immagine o lo consideri un suo sostituto. Scopo del saggio, pertanto, sarà non solo quello di descrivere l'immagine, ma soprattutto di analizzarne la relazione col soggetto una volta liberatosi da questa assurda convinzione.

Può un segno restituirci una certa emozione? Può una caricatura o un ritratto rappresentare davvero la persona che vogliamo vedere? Può un attore essere in grado di rappresentare l'essenza di un personaggio? Il problema dell'immagine non è semplice, tuttavia Sartre lo affronta apertamente e con molta lucidità: queste forme sono coscienze d'immagine che mantengono un rapporto puramente "affettivo" nei confronti della realtà, ma di fatto il loro "sapere" contenuto è povero, essenziale, forse completamente sfuggente al soggetto. Infatti, scrive Sartre:

Il sapere immaginativo, invece, è una coscienza che cerca di trascendersi, di porre la relazione come un di fuori. Non, a dir vero, affermandone la verità: avremmo soltanto un giudizio. Ma ponendo il proprio contenuto come esistente attraverso un certo spessore di realtà che gli serve da rappresentante. Tale realtà, naturalmente, non è data nemmeno sotto la forma indifferenziata ed estremamente generica di <>. Vi si mira soltanto. Il sapere immaginativo si presenta dunque come uno sforzo di determinare questo <>, come una volontà di giungere all'intuitivo, come un'attesa di immagini. (Parte Seconda: Il probabile - I. Il sapere, pp.108-109)

Tale processo è molto vicino, come esemplifica poi lo stesso Sartre, a quello che compiamo durante e dopo la lettura di un testo, romanzo o saggio che sia, quando cerchiamo cioè di dare forma a quello che abbiamo letto e pretendiamo di coglierne dei significati: quello è il qualcosa che si presenta dinanzi a noi, e in quel momento produciamo tutta una serie di immagini che vogliono dare forma alla nostra conoscenza.

Per quanto riguarda la componente affettiva, invece, essa è fondamento di ogni coscienza immaginativa: ogni immagine da noi prodotta, infatti, scaturisce sempre da un desiderio, ed essa si carica di un certo insieme di emozioni. Sartre, tuttavia, avverte il suo lettore: non è un oggetto ciò che viene posto dal soggetto mediante l'immagine, bensì è un qualcosa che corrisponde alla data emozione che stiamo provando o che vogliamo sperimentare, altrimenti si ricadrebbe nell'illusione di immanenza. Da ciò si deduce che l'immagine sia una componente indispensabile della vita psichica, i cui riscontri si hanno potenzialmente a livello di pensiero. Si potrebbe dire lo stesso della percezione? Secondo Sartre non c'è correlazione tra immagine e percezione, poiché i mondi di interesse sono diversi, e per tale ragione questo concetto viene trascurato e rapidamente liquidato, per poi essere ripreso sotto un'altra ottica da Merleau-Ponty, che invece dimostrerà con la sua teoria dello spazio che il legame tra le due forme di relazione con il mondo (e anche di conoscenza) sono ben più vicine di quanto pensasse il primo.

Da questo punto in poi l'analisi di Sartre assume sempre più le caratteristiche di una psicologia in chiave fenomenologica, con particolare attenzione alle funzioni immaginative, alle patologie ad esse connesse e al sogno. Un risultato importante di tutte le considerazioni è, ad esempio, l'azione del soggetto sull'immagine mediante attribuzione di significati, quel concetto di "nullificazione" più ampiamente sviluppato ne L'essere e il nulla e con la conseguente libertà del soggetto.

In ultima analisi, Sartre prende in esame l'opera d'arte, e applicando le considerazioni derivate dalla "riduzione fenomenologica" approda ad un "pessimismo estetico", secondo cui la realtà non è mai bella perché l'oggetto dell'opera d'arte è qualcosa di irreale. Ne segue, quindi, una chiusura dell'individuo in sé e un ripiegamento in quelle immagini che possono presentarsi ossessive ed opprimenti.

Al di là delle derive negative di Sartre, è un testo interessante che aiuta a prendere consapevolezza di ciò che noi produciamo attraverso l'immaginazione. La scrittura è fenomenologica, forse meno impegnativa di quella di Merleau-Ponty, tuttavia potrebbe rappresentare uno scoglio per chi non sia predisposto ad uno stravolgimento di concetti o ad una particolare manipolazione della terminologia. Leggetelo cautamente per le prime pagine, e quando avrete ingranato con i modi di esporre di Sartre, la lettura diventerà più celere e comprensibile.

[Nanda Alifya Rahmah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Buku wajib untuk membuka kesadaran antara ruang riil dan nonriil dalam kerangka eksistensialisme. Juga titik di mana keduanya membentuk hubungan segitiga dengan kita sebagai subjek kesadaran. Menarik mengetahui Sartre memilah lapisan hubungan antarsubjek dan imajinasi sebagai objek sekaligus ruang di mana segalanya mengada. Namun menurut saya buku ini bisa menjadi sangat sulit dipahami jika pembaca sebelumnya tidak memiliki informasi tentang definisi 'subjek' dan 'objek' dalam eksistensialisme. Jadi ini adalah buku dasar, tapi saya kira bukan buku pertama yang harus dibaca untuk mengenal Sartre.

[Mohammed Khattab · Rating 4 out of 5]

❞ انفعال قوي صار محسوساً مدركاً، غير منفصل عن الحركات الجسمية وفي الوقت عينه ينتج اعتقاد شبيه بالصادق ولكنه متسرع، وهو في النهاية بغير موضوع, والمجموع يتسم بانتظار ولوع..
وهو خیالي بمعنی ما ولكنه حقيقي من جهة جيشان الجسم, اضطراب هو إذن في الجسم، و يمكن أن يكون خطأ أو صواب في الفكر، وكل منهما يغذي الآخر: وهذه هي حقيقة التخيل." ❝

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❞ "الخطأ الأكبر في مسألة الصور المعرفية هو الاعتقاد بها على غرار الاعتقاد بحقائق واقعية، فغاب عن الذهن أن وجودها افتراضي خالص، ومواضعة خالصة، وشيئاً فشيئاً انتهى الأمر بفصلها عن الكلمة وعن الفكرة وانتهى الأمر بقبول صور في المخ بدون كلمات، ❝

🌿
- جان بول سارتر
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[Quiver · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mind that cannot step out of the real into the irreal domain of the imagination (where analogons thrive against an infrastructure of absence and nothingness) cannot avail itself of choice. Choice has to be imagined.

A dense text, at times eye-glazing, at time brilliant and invigorating. The final message, however, towers over all other worries: Our imagination is our source of freedom. For that (and for all the other reasons), I shall gladly move onto Sartre's magnum opus Being and Nothingness.

[Lee Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a cover-to-cover read for me. Interesting chapter on the figments of imagination, e.g. synesthesia.

Sarte had suffered from extropia from childhood as the result of influenza, and perhaps a cautionary tale for what might happen as the result of COVID-19 infections. He writes frequently about "Entoptic Lights", which are probably visual artifacts that he experienced almost as a form of synesthesia, which can inform imagination and creativity.

[Keelan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though this book is short, it is immensely dense and takes great care to work through. I thoroughly enjoyed it but remain frustrated with the cogito lurking beneath it like a spectre. For imagination to be understood in all its peculiarity, Cartesian thinking will have to be dispelled once and for all. This book, nonetheless, is likely to be one of the authoritative studies of imagination.

[Jacob Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brave, bold and respectable for taking the study seriously. However, it all falls apart in the conclusions that are made. Works best as not a concrete statement but rather trying out a few ideas before your eyes.

[Book Guy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sarte's thoughts and insights are hammered into the reader constantly, yet I found them incredbly hard to follow. Still interesting, but I think I will need better foundation before coming back to this.

[Aria Zhu]

ee trauma

[Alea Alea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok

[fer · Rating 3 out of 5]

flop

[NO NAME WEEB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would be 5 stars if Sartre wasn't such a bitch