Abstract

In the context of the Anthropocene the imagination has three main tasks. Firstly, it is the task of imagination to help to recall historical and cultural facts from history and other cultures. The imagination helps to transcend distance and to make things that are far away from us in time or space part of our personal experience that influence the way we act. To understand the situation of the Anthropocene we need to make things come alive through our imagination. Without the imagination it is not possible for us to understand historical developments, for our emotions to be stirred by them and for us to be challenged to act in new ways. Secondly, the imagination can qualify historical and cultural developments by making us aware that all developments could also have evolved differently. The imagination can combine diverse facts in a variety of ways; it makes new connections between individual factors and produces new ways of looking at things. As a result, we become aware of alternatives. Thirdly, the imagination helps to develop new scenarios which provide a framework for the destructive effects of the Anthropocene to be corrected. For this to happen new ways of living and acting are imagined that contain utopian elements geared towards sustainability. These serve as examples of good scenarios and practices.