Abstract

An impressive addition to the growing corpus of phenomenologica by a young phenomenologist who has already contributed significantly to phenomenology as a translator of two works of Mikel Dufrenne and as the author of almost a dozen articles centering upon the role of imagination in philosophy, art, and psychology. Imagining attends to the very core of phenomenological method which rests upon the technique of imaginative variation as the means to eidetic intuition. Though guided by Husserl especially, the work is not about phenomenology, but is an actual specimen of phenomenology. Significantly, too, the author also takes his bearings from suggestions in Wittgenstein, Strawson, Austin, and Ryle and displays an awareness of the whole history of the treatment of imagination in philosophy, psychology, and art criticism. But the focus is upon the Sache selbst, on the phenomena of imagining as they present themselves directly in experience. If at times the works of phenomenologists appear to be diffuse, cumbersome, and linguistically opaque, the present work is remarkably clear and well-organized—almost establishing a new genre in phenomenological writing. Perhaps some indebtedness to Weiss shows through in the author’s attempt, not only to describe, but to systematize the field of the phenomena in question; the influence of the analysts appears in the clarity of the overall style.