This is the first English translation of Husserliana XXIII, the volume in the critical edition of Edmund Husserl's works that gathers together a rich array of posthumous texts on representational consciousness. The lectures and sketches comprising this work make available the most profound and comprehensive Husserlian account of image consciousness. They explore phantasy in depth, and furnish nuanced accounts of perception and memory.

Husserl’s extensive analyses of image consciousness (Bildbewusstsein) and of the imagination (Phantasie) offer insightful and detailed structural explications. However, despite this careful work, Husserl’s discussions fail to overcome the need to rely on a most problematic concept: mental images. The epistemological conundrums triggered by the conceptual framework of mental images are well known—we have only to remember the questions regarding knowledge acquisition that plagued British empiricism. Beyond these problems, however, a plethora of important questions arise from claiming that mental (...) images are structural moments of imaging and imagining. Any attempt to clarify the structure and conditions for the possibility of aesthetic experience must first provide an unambiguous account of pictorial depiction—a task unattainable through the mental images discourse. Similarly, exposing the import of the imagination for theoretical scientific inquiries (be they positive or eidetic) requires an initial explication of the structure of this consciousness; this explication, however, must address our ability to imagine non-spatially determined objects—something the conceptual framework of mental images utterly fails to accomplish. In this paper I argue against Husserl’s reliance on mental images in his phenomenological analyses of imaging and imagining and propose an alternative structural account for both. This account is free of this reliance and able to steer clear of its insidious implications for epistemology, aesthetics, and methodological reflections. By closely following the development of Husserl’s account I suggest alternative descriptions while building on Husserl’s important work. (shrink)

The central theme of my dissertation is Husserl’s phenomenological analysis of how we experience images. The aim of my dissertation is twofold: 1) to offer a contribution to the understanding of Husserl’s theory of image consciousness, aesthetic consciousness and art, and 2) to find out whether Husserl’s theory of the experience of images is applicable to modern and contemporary art, particularly to strongly site-specific art, unaided ready-mades, and contemporary films and theatre plays in which actors play themselves. Husserl’s commentators (...) and followers interested in his theory of the experience of images have mostly focused on the concept of “phantasy” [Phantasie] or “imagination.” Accordingly, the main interest is in the notion of the “image object” [Bildobjekt] and in the question of how something absent can appear in an image. In my dissertation, the central concept is “image consciousness” [Bildbewusstsein] which is a unique kind of experience: it involves both perception and imaging. I want to show that Husserl’s early theory of depictive image consciousness and his later theory of the experience of images can both be subsumed under the term “image consciousness”. I want to point out that Husserl’s revision of his earlier theory of image consciousness results in the distinction between depictive and non-depictive image consciousness, and that revision did not amount to an abandoning of the theory of “image consciousness.” In addition, Husserl divides depictive consciousness into positing and non-positing depictive consciousness. In my dissertation, I take the theory of image consciousness as the basis for explaining the experience of images, including the experience of visual works of art. In Husserl’s definition of art: “Without an image, there is no fine art”. The theory of image consciousness also plays an important role in explaining aesthetic consciousness since the focus is on “the How of the image object’s depicting”. My aim is to accentuate the subject in image consciousness, rather than the image object. I want to show that whether the subject is involved in image consciousness or not makes the difference if we have a two-fold or three-fold experience of seeing-in. In this way, I can also compare Husserl and Wollheim’s theories of seeing-in: a comparison that has received minimal attention in the literature of pictorial experience until now. In addition, I aim to show that according to Husserl’s theory, the image subject is involved only in depictive image consciousness. Moreover, I try to show that it is more difficult to define the image subject than the image object for the subject cannot be equated with the referent. Lastly, I will point out that Husserl mentions the possibility that it is the appearance of the subject rather than the image object appearance that we are focused on in aesthetic consciousness. Another topic that has received minimal attention until now is Husserl’s idea that depiction is involved in the experience of theatrical performance. The latter is primarily used by Husserl as an example of non-depictive image consciousness. I will examine how depiction can be involved in the experience of a theatre play in the case of actors playing themselves onstage. I will show that, in light of this example, either Husserl’s theory of depiction need to be revised or we cannot say that depiction is involved when an actor plays a real life person. Again, the key issue is how the subject appears. Thus, I will try to apply Husserl’s theory of depiction in explaining our experience of theatrical performances. I will also try to use his theory of aesthetic consciousness in describing the experience of strongly site-specific art and point out what the difficulties are of using the idea of the limited synthetic unity of the aesthetic object in the case of strongly site-specific art which seems to have no prescribed margins that could correspond to the limitedness. In addition, I will show how Husserl’s phenomenology, especially the notion of horizon, can be used to define visual art. I will defend the view that an object of art can be defined as art through an external co-determining horizon – the artworld. My dissertation is divided into four parts. In the first part, I give an overview of the development of Husserl’s philosophy from the period 1989 – 1920s with a special focus on the development of the theory of image consciousness. In that part, I introduce the notions of depictive and non-depictive image consciousness. In the second part, special focus is on the depictive image consciousness or the theory of depiction. I will first explain the phenomenological approach to the experience of images and what the difference and similarities are between Husserl and Wollheim’s theory of seeing-in. Then I give more detailed description of the three objects or objectivities in image consciousness with the emphases on the image subject. Also, how the objects are related to each other: the necessary conflicts and a resemblance in image consciousness. Lastly, I will analyse Husserl’s claim that depiction might be involved in the experience of theatrical performances and I will show what the difficulties are of applying this idea in the case of a theatre play in which actors play themselves. In the third part, I examine Husserl’s theory of aesthetic consciousness. I will first point out how the notion of “aesthetic object” is equated with that of “work of art” by Husserl. Then I will show the similarities between the aesthetic attitude and phenomenological attitude in general, and how aesthetic consciousness differs from image consciousness according to Husserl. In this vein, I will point out the difficulty of defining whether, following Husserl’s texts, we are directed to image object appearance or the appearance of the image subject in aesthetic consciousness. Lastly, I will analyse Husserl’s idea of the limited synthetic unity of the aesthetic object and whether this theory holds in the case of the experience of strongly site-specific art. In the fourth part, I will give an overview of Husserl’s notes on art and his attempt to define art. The question whether every visual work of art must be an image is also addressed. The fourth part is divided into two sections. Firstly, I will show how some of Husserl’s commentators analyse artworks as analogues to or illustrations for Husserl’s phenomenology: how some works of art are doing phenomenology. Secondly, how Husserl’s phenomenology can be used to analyse our experience of artworks. In this section, I will examine Husserl’s claim that all works of visual art are images. Also, I will show how Husserl’s notion of the external co-determining horizon can be used to define art. Some material used in my dissertation has been published in the following journals: Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, South African Journal of Philosophy, 2013), Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi, 2014), Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics Spring 2014). (shrink)

Monotheism of reason & heart, polytheism of imagination and art: That is what we need!Even today aesthetics is not considered among Edmund Husserl’s main interests. It is true, however, that there are many other phenomenological approaches to aesthetics among his “heretic” disciples, as Ricoeur calls them. I am thinking here especially of Sartre’s L’Imagination and L’imaginaire, Roman Ingarden’s Untersuchungen zur Ontologie der Kunst and Das literarische Kunstwerk, and Mikel Dufrenne’s Phénoménologie de l’expérience esthétique. Nevertheless, it may be objected that in (...) regard to Husserl’s work in aesthetics, research has been, at times, limited or simplified. Though... (shrink)

Introduction 11 PART I: THE HALLE YEARS Chapter One: The Rehabilitation of the Imagination in Husserl’s Early Thought. 17 §1. Brentano’s Rehabilitation of Intentionality and the Problem of Imagination. §2. Husserl and the Breakthrough of Phenomenology. §2.1 The Meaning-Bestowing Act as ‘the Peg from which Everything hangs.’ §2.2 Consciousness is not a Container. §2.3 ‘A Difference that cannot be Phenomenologically Reduced.’ §3. Imagination as an Authentic, Intuitive Intentionality. PART II: THE GÖTTINGEN YEARS Chapter Two: Irreconcilable Differences: Imagination and Image (...) Consciousness. 71 §1. Separations, Convergences, and Goodbyes §2. A nothing in the midst of things that sees me. §3. Wrestling with the angel of Imagination. §4. Images of Productive Phantasy. Chapter Three: The Garden of the Forking Paths: On Time Consciousness. 107 §1. Picking up an Ancient Cross. §2. Continuum of Continua. §3. In Search of Time Lost. Chapter Four: Absence and the Absolute: The Revisions of Phantasy and Time-Consciousness. 143 Recapitulation: Cutting loose the baggage of the ‘Content for an Apprehension and Apprehension’ Schema. §1. The Concept of an Absolute Consciousness and the Embedment of Contents. §2. Transcendental Phenomenology and the Opening Up of a Closed Field. §3. The Breakthrough on the Contents of Consciousness. §3.1. ‘Consciousness through and through’ §3.2. Ambiguities of Immanence. §4. Primary and Secondary Memory revisited. §5. The New Account of Internal Time Consciousness. Chapter Five: The Breakthrough of the Life of Phantasy: Recollection and Pure Phantasy. 187 §1. Introducing the Pure Ego. §2. The Pending Problem of Belief in Presentifications. §3. Recollection and Internal Time Consciousness. §3.1. The Characterization of Recollection as Consciousness ‘Once Again’ following the Revision of the Schema. §3.2. Recollection as a Modified Appearance and a Directedness toward the Past Object. §3.3. Recollection as the Reproductive Modification of the Internal Consciousness of a Past Act. §4. The Differentiation of Recollection and Pure Phantasy on the basis of Internal Time-Consciousness. PART III: THE FREIBURG YEARS AND BEYOND Chapter Six: The Subject in Image: Husserl’s Revisiting of Image-Consciousness. 239 §1. Introducing the Concept of Perceptual Phantasy. §2. The Subject in Image. §3. Is There Temporality in Image?. §4. Revisiting the Theory of Image-consciousness as Depiction. §5. Pictoriality and Phantasy Temporality. Chapter Seven: ‘Myth that is Truest Memory:’ Phantasy and the Literary Work of Art. 303 §1. Theater and Drama. §2. Is the Literary Work of Art Itself Imaginary? §3. The Literary Work as an Idea with a Temporality. §4. Phantasy and the Consciousness of Possibility. Parting Words on Poetry and Philosophy. Bibliography: 361. (shrink)

Although imagination is not one of the subjects treated extensively in Husserl's phenomenology, it is one of its most important 'instruments'. In his phenomenology as a work of imagination, imagination even acquires for Husserl primacy over perception. But in his phenomenology of imagination as its subject matter, Husserl seems to repeat the old distinction between original and image in his differentiation between perception as the reaIization of full bodily presence and imagination as referring to inferior modes of presence. -/- (...) The author criticaIly analyses Husserl's distinction (within imagination) between phantasy and image-consciousness. The fact that Husserl describes the image-object in image-consciousness as a "mere image" which appears only as "a nothing" on the scene of actual presence, and the fact that Husserl distinguishes phantasy from image-consciousness by its lacking any representational consciousness, leads one to suspect greatly that Husserl reverts to a contentbased approach which was to have been excluded by his theory of intentionaIity. -/- In the last section the author outlines a reorientation according to which imagination is thought of not in reference to presence (as has been done in the history of metaphysics), but in reference to an appearing, an imaging, a showing, that would never be a matter simply of presence, but rather of spacings that would fracture presence. This conception of imagination could explain the power of imagination to open up phenomenology. (shrink)

The validity of Husserl’s early apprehension/content of apprehension schema (_Auffassung/Auffassungsinhalt Schema_) of intentionality has long been a subject of dispute. In the case of phantasy (_Phantasie_), commentators often assert that the talk of “non-intentional content,” i.e. the phantasm, is abandoned in Husserl’s mature phenomenology of phantasy, and his subsequent theory of reproductive consciousness aims precisely to replace the previous schema. Against the current dismissive stance in the literature, this paper argues for the centrality of the concept of phantasm (...) in the phenomenology of phantasy. This is achieved in three steps. First, I argue for a functional interpretation of the schema, which maintains that it is not an empirical-genetic account of how non-intentional “sense-data” is transformed into presentations of intentional objects, but a structural exposition of the essential moments of objectifying consciousness. Second, I revisit Husserl’s theory of reproductive consciousness, arguing that in reproduction, what is reproduced is not only the noetic experience but also the hyletic substrate. Hence, the theory of reproductive consciousness, far from calling for an abandonment of the concept of phantasm, instead clarifies this concept and its function in phantasy. To fortify the point that the phantasm is crucial for the phenomenology of phantasy, I examine two features of phantasy, namely the perspectivalness of phantasized objects and the experience of my phantasy Ego being the “zero point of orientation” in phantasy, arguing that these two essential features can only be accounted for by appealing to the concept of phantasm. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to argue against the claim that Edmund Husserl does not adequately distinguish physical imagination from phantasy in his early texts. Thus, the article examines Husserl’s early theory of imagination according to which phantasy and image consciousness (understood as physical imagination) have a similar structure of pictorialization but differ with respect to apprehension contents and the number of apprehended objects: phantasy involves phantasms and two apprehended objects but physical imagination involves sensations (...) and can have three apprehended objects. (shrink)

This study aims at exposing the phenomenological description of attention as presented by Husserl in his 1904-05 Göttingen-lecture Principal Parts of the Phenomenology and Theory of Knowledge, in its relevance for the study of so-called “intuitive re-presentations”, that is, phantasy and image-consciousness. Starting with the exposition of the fundamental traits of the intentional theory of attention, this study discusses the definition of attention in the terms of meaning [Meinen] and interest, which allows it to become an encompassing modification (...) of all kinds of lived experiences that does not imply an alteration of their act-character (Husserl, 2004: 73). We refer to this character of attention as “plasticity”. In what follows, the study underlines these two definitions of attention and their importance for the understanding of phantasy and image-consciousness. Both kinds of re-presentations will be described stressing the role of attention in the “structuring” of the intentional act and in its affective basis. Finally, the study deals more specifically with the complex description of image consciousness from the viewpoint of the attentional meaning of the image subject. (shrink)

The paper strives to clarify the essential structures of productive imagination using the resources of Husserlian phenomenology. According to my working hypothesis, productive imagination is a relative term, whose meaning derives from its opposition to reproductive imagination. One thus first needs to clarify what makes imagination into a reproductive mode of consciousness, and in this regard, Husserl’s phenomenology proves exceptionally fruitful. My analysis unfolds in four steps. First, I fix the sense in which phantasy is an essentially reproductive mode (...) of consciousness. Secondly, I argue that phantasy cannot be conceived as an ingredient of perceptual consciousness. Thirdly, I show that both memory and phantasy generate patterns of sense, which can subsequently be transcribed into the field of positional experience. Finally, I conclude with a suggestion that the plurality of cultural worlds can be conceived as diverse configurations of sense, which are the constitutive accomplishments of productive imagination. (shrink)

My goal is threefold. First, building on the basis of Husserl’s phenomenology of the imagination, I will argue that phantasy is a specific type of intentional experience, which intends its objects as neutralized presentifications. Second, I will turn to dreams and argue that non-lucid dreams are unconscious phantasies, which cannot be conceived in the above-mentioned way. This realization will bring us to the third task. When recognized as the most extreme form of unconscious phantasy, dreams compel us to (...) raise anew the fundamental question: what is the nature of phantasy experience? According to the perspective I will here develop, phantasy is a specific field of experience that lies between two extremes: the fully translucent mode of the as if consciousness and the thoroughly opaque mode of absorption. Most of our phantasies, both conscious and unconscious, voluntary and involuntary, are lived somewhere between these two extremes. (shrink)

This paper addresses Husserl’s theory of image consciousness and phantasy, which, along with remembering, constitute three kinds of presentification, a sort of intuitive intentional relational different from perception. In the second place, the paper tries to highlight the significance of «neutralizatiom> - as a means to access the world of phantasy - for the understanding of the origin of the aesthetic attitude. Finally, the paper discusses the kind of spacial relations that arise from «neutralizatiom>, in contrast with (...) life-world experience of space, and how those relations can be exemplified in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Rear Window. (shrink)

This article begins by presenting the two most important transformations that establish a genuine Husserlian approach to the imagination: the first lies in the grasping of imagination, despite its essential differences with perception and hallucination, as an intuitive, or sensuous consciousness ; the second lies in the insight that imagination, or better – phantasy –, requires no images, mental or otherwise. Further, the distinction between pure and perceptual phantasies and their respective fictional objects is drawn out. A comparison between (...) pure phantasy and memory, then leads to a closer look at the role of inner consciousness in pure phantasy and to a clarification of the ‘splitting of the subject’. The exploration of this split allows us to trace the role of the real-ego and the phantasy-ego in pure phantasy, which opens the exploration of phantasy as a consciousness of possibilities. This helps us gain clarity about the nature of both real and ideal possibilities and the respective modes of phantasy. Objects of phantasy also most easily lend themselves to an eidetic variation and to an insight into essences. Phenomenological essences concern the ideal possibility of real and ideal objects and of their experience. It is through their contribution to insight into the real and ideal conditions of possibility of different forms of intentional acts that acts of phantasy best show their potential for Husserl’s project of philosophy as a rigorous science. Imagination or fiction becomes, in his own words, the ‘vital element of phenomenology.’. (shrink)

This article aims to explore the relationship between neutralization and “as if” consciousness in Husserl’s phenomenology, in particular, from its convergence in intuitions concerning phantasy. Starting from a critique of a line of interpretation that, in its attempt to approach phenomenologically to an “aesthetic consciousness”, homologates the neutrality modification with the Epoché, the article seeks to expose the methodological function that the modalization of belief fulfills in the project of Ideas I, as well as highlighting the growing importance that (...) phantasy and the “as if” consciousness will acquire in the subsequent development of Husserl’s phenomenology. (shrink)

This is the first book dedicated to Husserl's aesthetics. Paul Crowther pieces together Husserl's ideas of phantasy and image and presents them as a unified and innovative account of aesthetic consciousness. He also shows how Husserl's ideas can be developed to solve problems in aesthetics, especially those related to visual art, literature, theatre, and nature. After outlining the major components of Husserl's phenomenological method, Crowther addresses the scope and structure of Husserl's notion of aesthetic consciousness. For Husserl, aesthetic (...) consciousness in all its forms involves phantasy-where items or states of affairs are represented as if actually perceived or experienced, even though they are not, in fact, given in the present perceptual field. Husserl also makes some extraordinarily interesting links between aesthetic consciousness and nature, showing how natural things and environments become instigators of such consciousness when apprehended in the appropriate terms. This "unreality" of the object of aesthetic consciousness anticipates contemporary debates about pictorial representation and is also relevant to Husserl's accounts of literature and theatre. The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Consciousness and Phantasy will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in aesthetics, philosophy of art, phenomenological aesthetics, and Husserl's philosophy. (shrink)

The present study reconsiders Husserl’s method of eidetic variation and Schütz’s critique. The method of eidetic variation describes a complex process through which the eidos of empirical objects is obtained. This process has different steps, one of which is the free variation that is conducted by the act of free phantasy. According to Husserl, it is through this act that the transcendental consciousness can surpass the boundary established by empirical generalities and uncover the full extension of eidos (...) as pure generality. However, in Schütz’s analysis, he leaves a series of questions regarding the limitations of the free variation, which potentially leads to a serious consequence: eidos and type (empirical generality) are merely different in degrees. After examining Husserl’s account of the method and Schütz’s analysis, it appears that, although Husserl has noticed the potential questions posed by Schütz and provided an answer to them, the method still fails to provide a way to reveal the eidetic basis of variants. To solve this issue, I argue that an additional step is required for the method to succeed, which involves the act of productive phantasy that enables one to exclude the empirical influences of types. (shrink)

A clarification of Husserl's changing conceptions of imaginary consciousness ( phantasy ) and memory, especially at the level of auto-affective time-consciousness, suggests an interpretation of Freud's concept of the Unconscious. Phenomenology of consciousness can show how it is possible that consciousness can bring to present appearance something unconscious, that is, something foreign or absent to consciousness, without incorporating it into or subordinating it to the conscious present. This phenomenological analysis of Freud's concept of the Unconscious leads to a partial (...) critique of Freud's metapsychological determination of the Unconscious as a simple, internally unperceived representational consciousness. It also suggests an account of how a reproductive inner consciousness can free the subject from the experience of anxiety by allowing for possibilities of self-distanciation and symbolic self-representation that protect the subject from traumatic affection by and through its own instinctual drives. (shrink)

This dissertation explores and argues for the import of the imagination (Phantasie) in Edmund Husserl's phenomenological method of inquiry. It contends that Husserl's extensive analyses of the imagination influenced how he came to conceive the phenomenological method throughout the main stages of his philosophical career. The work clarifies Husserl's complex method of investigation by considering the role of the imagination in his main methodological apparatuses: the phenomenological, eidetic, and transcendental reductions, and eidetic variation - all of which remained ambiguous despite (...) his extensive programmatic discussions. The work illuminates and clarifies aspects of the Husserlian phenomenological method never before explored. -/- In order to clarify Husserl's eidetic method of inquiry, I propose a new way of thinking about the imagination - as direct intuitive presentation (eigentliche anschauliche Vorstellung) and as horizonal-nexic level of consciousness exhibiting the neutrality, freedom, and possibility as its essential features. Following Husserl's studies of the imagination, I propose a three-level model of consciousness (realizing, imagining, and eidetic) and explore the dynamic flexibility of each level (as horizon within which acts such as judgments or memories can unfold). This model of consciousness allows for a rethinking of the sources and conditions for the possibility of eidetic phenomenological inquiry - topics Husserl was mostly silent about. -/- Through a rethinking of the model of consciousness, I propose a tight and substantial relationship between the natural (everyday) and artificial (methodological, theoretical) attitudes. I argue that the structure and systems of possibilities pertaining to the artificial attitude - i.e., our actual as well as possible methodological tools - are structurally and well as informationally bound to the structure and system of possibilities pertaining to the natural attitude. In order to explore the nature of the relationship between these two attitudes I argue that we must take a closer look at the structure and abilities of imagining consciousness - the sole nexic-horizonal level that can function both naturally and artificially. This insight regarding the nature of consciousness clarifies Husserl's transcendental idealism in its intimate connection to the everyday. Understanding Husserl's philosophical stance is thus purged of all possibility of mistakenly labeling it as entailing immanent detachment, solipsism, or Platonic idealism. (shrink)

By drawing on Husserl’s manuscripts on Phantasy, Image Consciousness and Memory, this paper aims to shed light on some of the primary concepts defining his notion of image—such as “belief,” “presentification” and perzeptive Phantasie—and endeavours to show how such concepts could be profitably developed for the sake of a phenomenological description of film image. More in particular, these analyses aim to give a phenomenological account of the distinction between positing film images, presupposing a claim to reality—for (...) example the ones we experience in a documentary attitude—and quasi-positing film images involved in artistic creation. The latter, despite their photographic relation to reality, are capable of giving rise to filmic “image-worlds” having intersubjective existence. (shrink)

Husserl?s concept of imagination has been systematically presented in Husserliana XXIII, in which its manifold role has been set out. Through the different texts, the author shows that phantasy should be considered as one of the modifications of pure re-presentation. The article first tries to underline the distinction between Husserl?s deliberation on this phenomenon and the traditional concept of imagination. Second, it shows the fundamental moments of constitu?tional consciousness in order to relate the notion of imagination to perceptual apprehension. (...) At the very end, the notion of phantasy is connected with the idea of first philosophy and the question of possibil?ity of its realization. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to analyze the way in which Edmund Husserl deals with the problem of the constitution of image in his writings. The difference between a common thing and a work of art lies in the fact that the ‘thing’ is submitted as an object to perception, while the work of art is the product of the human capacity called imagination or fantasy (Phantasie). Therefore, the difference between perception (which is an objectifying act) and imagination (...) (which refers to a mental representation) is the fundamental difference Husserl operates with in his analysis of the phenomenological problem of the image building. I also want to show that Husserl’s analysis of the constitution of the image is fundamental in the understanding of the work of art (aesthetic phenomena including) and of its difference from a common thing. From the point of view of the History of Philosophy, the Husserlian analysis presupposes the overcoming of the classical opposition between subject and object, and the aesthetic experience is one of the (privileged) ways through which this overcoming can be achieved. (shrink)

According to Sartre, irreal objects, such as centaur, appear to consciousness without any temporal determination. Husserl also speaks about quasi-time, but this quasi, even when it constitutes irreality, remains bound to the general time of consciousness which is one of the fundamental synthesising moments within the structure of consciousness. Only inner temporality guarantees the unity of human consciousness. The acts of fantasy also belong to the general synthesis of consciousness. Time is a continuous synthesis constituting consciousness itself and offering a (...) common basis for all experiences. Transcendental structures, according to Kant and Heidegger, are testimony to this – the radical temporality of imagination makes the opening of the horizons of reality possible. The link between fantasy, imagination and time is more fundamental than the link between them and perception because the former, irreducible and irreversible, constitutes the latter.Keywords: phantasy, imagination, temporality, time, reality. (shrink)

The systematic importance of the eidetic account of phantasy for Husserlian phenomenology in general is undisputed, but whether this account can be relevant for Aesthetics has often been put into question. In this paper I argue that Husserl’s rich phenomenology of phantasy, and in particular his account of perceptual phantasy, can nevertheless significantly enhance our understanding of how we recognize and imaginatively participate in artistic fictions. Moreover, I show how Husserl’s peculiar formulation of a non-intuitive phantasy (...) at stake in artistic representation anticipates some uses of the imagination in Aesthetics suggested by Ernst Gombrich and Kendall Walton. (shrink)

In this paper, I will present an argument against Husserl’s analysis of picture consciousness. Husserl’s analysis of picture consciousness (as it can be found primarily in the recently translated volume Husserliana 23) moves from a theory of depiction in general to a theory of perceptual imagination. Though, I think that Husserl’s thesis that picture consciousness is different from depictive and linguistic consciousness is legitimate, and that Husserl’s phenomenology avoids the errors of linguistic theories, such as Goodman’s, I submit that his (...) overall theory is unacceptable, especially when it is applied to works of art. Regarding art, the main problem of Husserl’s theory is the assumption that pictures are constituted primarily as a conflict between perception/physical picture thing and imagination/picture object. Against this mentalist claim, I maintain, from a hermeneutic point of view, that pictures are the result of perceptual formations [Bildungen]. I then claim that Husserl’s theory fails, since it does not take into account what I call “plastic perception” [Bildliches Sehen], which plays a prominent role not only within the German tradition of art education but also within German art itself. In this connection, “plastic thinking” [Bildliches Denken] was prominent especially in Klee, in Kandinsky, and in Beuys, as well as in the overall doctrine of the Bauhaus. Ultimately, I argue that Husserl’s notion of picture consciousness and general perceptive imaginary consciousness must be replaced with a more dynamic model of the perception of pictures and art work that takes into account (a) the constructive and plastic moment, (b) the social dimension and (c) the genetic dimension of what it means to see something in something (Wollheim). (shrink)

Sartre attacks the "illusion" that mental images are "immanent" in consciousness. After comparing sartre with husserl, I develop his view that mental images are non-Perceptual phenomena involving a relationship with something non-Present. From the impoverished, Unworldly view that results, I suggest that sartre's own view is still too attached to the perceptual analogy and conclude with the richer, Alternative view of ricoeur that imaginal fiction has a constructive role in shaping reality.

This article considers Edmund Husserl’s description of image consciousness from the viewpoint of the role played by attentive meaning (meinen) in the intention of the image subject. We argue that the intention of the image subject has to be interpreted in the sense of the attentive meaning as presented in the second part of Husserl’s 1904/5 lecture on Phenomenology and Theory of Knowledge. Attentive meaning performs 1) the segregation of a specific apprehension along with the attentive articulation (...) of experience, and 2), as a formative and preferential function, it introduces a difference in the objective consideration. First, we explain the connection between apprehension, attentive meaning, and object; then, we clarify the relationship between apprehension and attentive meaning in image consciousness in the 1898 manuscripts and the 1904 lecture; finally, we set forth the motivation for the intending of the image subject on the basis of the image apprehension. (shrink)

This piece explicates some chief modes of consciousness in phenomenology in order to show that a very significant challenge of virtuality surfaces both within, as well as outside of, the discipline. This issue is of no small importance today, where the difference between perception and imagination, real and irreal, as well as presence and absence, are all becoming increasingly vague because of new technologies and the intrinsic virtualities involved therein. In this context, the question is: Where does virtuality fit in (...) such a picture? I will argue that phenomenology can start to account for such developments, although much more explicative work will be required in the future. With this in mind, sections two to four will articulate an initial phenomenology of perception, phantasy, and image-consciousness, as found chiefly in works by Husserl and Sartre. Then, section five will question the preceding phenomenological theory through some phenomenological and non-phenomenological thinkers, who all seem to have a concept of virtuality at the heart of their work. Lastly, in the final two sections I will suggest a difference between real and irreal virtualities, and briefly mention some current virtual technologies in order to show that there is a constant and complex interplay between the real, irreal, and the virtual in many of our everyday experiences—an interplay that needs to be investigated much further if we are to make sense of how it is changing how we think and behave. (shrink)

In this reply to my reviewers, I touch upon Husserl’s notion of fantasy. Whereas Kant positions fantasy outside the scope of his own work, Husserl brings it back. The importance of this notion lies in freeing imagination from the tight link to images, as for Husserl imagination is an activity that functions as a “quasi perception.” Ihde and Stiegler enrich Husserl’s analysis of imagination with various aspects of technology: Ihde shows how changes in the technologies that mediate our imagination will (...) necessarily change our imagination; Stiegler broadens Husserl’s analysis of retention. The two theories can be combined into a new understanding of subjectivity that is modeled as layers. Some layers can be performed by AI. The second part deals with the question of whether AI can be imaginative. Traditionally, imaginative creativity is associated with art. Bioart and AI art are brought as examples of a new definition of art, according to which art is the arrangement of materials in a way that produces a meaning. This definition does not refer specifically to creativity. In both forms of art, the biological/artificial and the human cooperate so that the former arranges the materials and the latter produces the meaning, albeit this division of labor is not clear-cut. The result is a co-shaping process. My conclusion is that algorithms can be considered creative by human standards, but this entails a new mode of imagination that is co-shaped and co-shared by humans and algorithms. The layer paradigm explains how such co-shaping works in practice. (shrink)

The paper contends that transcendental phenomenology is a form of radical immanent critique able to explicate the necessary structures of meaning-constitution as well as evaluate our present situation through the historically traditionalized layers of concrete, lived experience. In order to make this case, the paper examines the critical dimension of phenomenology through the lens of one of its core conditions for possibility: the imagination. Building on—yet also departing from—Husserl’s own analyses, the paper contends that the imagination is both self- and (...) lifeworld-constituting. The imagination is anchored in our everyday senses of self and world as well as able to distance itself from being naively moored in normalized and deeply sedimented commitments. It is precisely this ‘anchored distance,’ rather than a sweeping doxic and ontic neutrality and negative freedom, that reveals the critical dimension of the imagination. (shrink)

Il n’est pas inhabituel de considérer l’imagination comme une conscience d’objets non réels, ayant la forme d’images internes ou de représentations privées de toute incarnation spatiale. Dans cet article j’interroge la phénoménologie de l’imagination de Husserl à partir de deux questions : l’imagination est-elle un type de conscience d’image? L’imagination, est-elle privée de toute incarnation spatiale? Après avoir reconstruit la distinction nette opérée par Husserl entre imagination et conscience d’image (l’imaginaire n’est pas une image mentale interne), j’explore (...) la thèse de Husserl, fort suggestive, selon laquelle toute imagination implique la projection du corps vécu. Loin d’être entièrement dépourvu de spatialité, l’imaginaire exhibe des caractéristiques quasi-spatiales, et il est fondé sur ce qui est « le plus propre » de mon corps vécu – cela même que, pour ainsi dire, j’amène toujours avec moi, même dans les envols les plus éloignés de mon imagination. (shrink)

Il n’est pas inhabituel de considérer l’imagination comme une conscience d’objets non réels, ayant la forme d’images internes ou de représentations privées de toute incarnation spatiale. Dans cet article j’interroge la phénoménologie de l’imagination de Husserl à partir de deux questions : l’imagination est-elle un type de conscience d’image? L’imagination, est-elle privée de toute incarnation spatiale? Après avoir reconstruit la distinction nette opérée par Husserl entre imagination et conscience d’image (l’imaginaire n’est pas une image mentale interne), j’explore (...) la thèse de Husserl, fort suggestive, selon laquelle toute imagination implique la projection du corps vécu. Loin d’être entièrement dépourvu de spatialité, l’imaginaire exhibe des caractéristiques quasi-spatiales, et il est fondé sur ce qui est « le plus propre » de mon corps vécu – cela même que, pour ainsi dire, j’amène toujours avec moi, même dans les envols les plus éloignés de mon imagination. (shrink)

Il n’est pas inhabituel de considérer l’imagination comme une conscience d’objets non réels, ayant la forme d’images internes ou de représentations privées de toute incarnation spatiale. Dans cet article j’interroge la phénoménologie de l’imagination de Husserl à partir de deux questions : l’imagination est-elle un type de conscience d’image ? L’imagination, est-elle privée de toute incarnation spatiale ? Après avoir reconstruit la distinction nette opérée par Husserl entre imagination et conscience d’image (l’imaginaire n’est pas une image mentale (...) interne), j’explore la thèse de Husserl, fort suggestive, selon laquelle toute imagination implique la projection du corps vécu. Loin d’être entièrement dépourvu de spatialité, l’imaginaire exhibe des caractéristiques quasi-spatiales, et il est fondé sur ce qui est « le plus propre » de mon corps vécu – cela même que, pour ainsi dire, j’amène toujours avec moi, même dans les envols les plus éloignés de mon imagination. (shrink)

In the succession of states of consciousness that constitute James’s stream of consciousness, there occur, among others, states of consciousness that are themselves, or that include, perceptual mental acts. It is assumed some of the latter states of consciousness are purely perceptual, lacking both imaginal and signitive contents. According to Husserl, purely perceptual acts present to consciousness, uniquely, their environmental objects in themselves, in person. They do not present, as imaginal mental acts do, an image or other representation of (...) their object. Husserl’s theory resembles Gibson’s with respect to perception’s being direct. Both theorists hold perceptual awareness of the environment is not a "founded" act; its proximate causation does not involve any other mental act. Both theorists contend that perceptual acts keep the perceiver directly in touch with the surrounding environment. The present article considers Husserl’s account of this directness. Although this account has problems, and is largely phenomenological description, it may help psychologists to find their way to an adequate account of the objects of perceptual consciousness — perhaps if it is integrated with Gibson’s perception theory, as I will attempt in a sequel to which this article is introductory. Husserl seeks to provide the phenomenological side of the story, Gibson the stimulus-informational side. (shrink)

Husserl and Sartre’s analyses of mental imagery and some of the latest cognitive research on vision provide a framework for understanding a number of films by Hitchcock (Psycho and Rear Window) and Buñuel (Un Chien Andalou), films which similarly probe the subtleties and uses of mental imagery. One of the many ways to enjoy these films is to see them as explorations of visual phenomenology; they allow us to enact, as well as reflect upon, mental images as part of the (...) film experience.<br><br><br><br><br><br>. (shrink)

‘No matter how long I may look at an image, I shall never find anything in it but what I put there. It is in this fact that we find the distinction between an image and a perception.' - Jean-Paul Sartre L’Imagination was published in 1936 when Jean-Paul Sartre was thirty years old. Long out of print, this is the first English translation in many years. The Imagination is Sartre’s first full philosophical work, presenting some of the basic (...) arguments concerning phenomenology, consciousness and intentionality that were to later appear in his master works and be so influential in the course of twentieth-century philosophy. Sartre begins by criticising philosophical theories of the imagination, particularly those of Descartes, Leibniz and Hume, before establishing his central thesis. Imagination does not involve the perception of ‘mental images’ in any literal sense, Sartre argues, yet reveals some of the fundamental capacities of consciousness. He then reviews psychological theories of the imagination, including a fascinating discussion of the work of Henri Bergson. Sartre argues that the ‘classical conception’ is fundamentally flawed because it begins by conceiving of the imagination as being like perception and then seeks, in vain, to re-establish the difference between the two. Sartre concludes with an important chapter on Husserl’s theory of the imagination which, despite sharing the flaws of earlier approaches, signals a new phenomenological way forward in understanding the imagination. The Imagination is essential reading for anyone interested in the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, phenomenology, and the history of twentieth-century philosophy. This new translation includes a helpful historical and philosophical introduction by Kenneth Williford and David Rudrauf. Also included is Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s important review of L’Imagination upon its publication in French in 1936. Translated by Kenneth Williford and David Rudrauf. (shrink)

In a well-known course he gave in 1904-1905, Edmund Husserl developed a ‘threefold’ notion of image revolving around the notion of depiction [Abbildung]. More specifically, the phenomenological description allows a seeing-in to emerge as an essential characteristic of the image consciousness, in which an image object assumes the role of a representant [Repräsentant] in order to allow us to see the image subject in the image itself. Nevertheless, our paper – focusing particularly on what might (...) be called the depictive art par excellence, that is the portrait – aims to show that it would be erroneous to read the Husserlian notion of image exclusively on the basis of this earlier course: things seem to change significantly when Husserl develops a different notion of phantasy, and artistic images, in particular, are not to be thought of as resembling something else, but rather as expressive images producing their own model. (shrink)

Recent neuro-psychoanalytic literature has emphasized the view that our subjective identity rests on ancient subcortical neuro-psychic processes expressing unthinking forms of experience, which are “affectively intense without being known” (Solms and Panksepp, 2012). Devoid of internal representations, the emotional states of our “core-Self” (Panksepp, 1998b) are entirely “projected” towards the external world and tend to be discharged through instinctual action-patterns. However, due to the close connections between the subcortical and the cortical midline brain, the emotional drives may also find a (...) way to be reflected within an intrinsic self-referential processing, evident when the organism is not actively engaged with the external world. Thanks to such endogenous functioning, the core-Self emotional dispositions are not overtly executed, but they are organized within coherent dynamic mental structures, called “feeling-toned complexes” by C.G. Jung and “unconscious phantasies” by Melanie Klein. The intrinsic self-referential dynamism of the ‘brainmind’ originated from REM sleep arousal and then evolved in the resting-state activity of a complex of cortico-limbic midline brain structures (CMS), also called Default Mode Network (DMN). From our neuro-ethological perspective, it is sustained by an “introverted” SEEKING activity leading to the subjective exploration of internally constructed virtual scenarios. This “mind wandering” function, implicated in dreaming, fantasy processing, remembering and thinking, is the essence of the imaginative function and constitutes the first form of reflection, where intentions and drives gain a primordial form of conscious (but not self-conscious) representation. During postnatal development, this original (“archetypal”) imaginative function is slowly attuned in a relational “transitional” space and may be expressed first in non-verbal and eventually in abstract-verbal social communicative patterns. Our view has noticeable implications for psychotherapy. Instead of trying to directly modify interpersonal, extrinsic relationships (a top-down approach), dysfunctional emotional-relational patterns may be modified by a process in which the patient is helped to let-go of the perceived feeling-objects in favor of an immersion, via the actual feeling, from the superficial level of perception towards a void feeling-state, empty of images. Only starting from this “anoetic” feeling-state, the deep imaginal creative and re-structuring self-referential activity may be reactivated by a process of spontaneous imagination. (shrink)

Si bien es cierto que Husserl no ha escrito sistemáticamente sobre estética, consideramos no sólo posible y legítimo, sino también establecer las condiciones de posibilidad para una conciencia estética desde el punto de vista de la fenomenología trascendental de Husserl. Motivados por esta idea, en el presente trabajo examinamos, en primer lugar, el tipo de estética que puede deducirse de aquellos pasajes en los que Husserl considera explícitamente experiencias artísticas, para arribar a la idea de que, analizado desde la perspectiva (...) de la conciencia de imagen, el fenómeno estético del que se puede dar cuenta es limitado. Así, en segundo lugar, intentamos mostrar que esta pobreza no es esencial al fenómeno y, por tanto, que dichas limitaciones pueden ser superadas, o al menos trascendidas, si en vez de considerar la estética desde el punto de vista de la conciencia de imagen, se la considera desde la perspectiva de la fantasía.While it is true that Husserl has not written systematically about Aesthetics, we believe it is possible and legitimate to study how Aesthetic Consciousness works from Husserl's point of view of transcendental Phenomenology. Hence, in this paper we consider, in the first place, the virtues and limitations of the Aesthetic that can be deduced from the passages in which Husserl explicitly refers to artistic experiences, to arrive to the idea that, analyzed from the perspective of image-consciousness, the aesthetic phenomenon that can be described is limited. So, secondly, we try to show that this poverty is not essential to the phenomenon and, therefore, such a limitation can be overcome, or almost transcended, if we contemplate the Aesthetic considerations taken by Husserl not from the point of view of image-consciousness but from the perspective of phantasy. (shrink)

_The purpose_ of the article is to comprehend the Husserlian model of constituting temporal modes through the ability of intentional "retentional-protentional" consciousness, as well as to clarify the possibility of interpreting its positions in the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time. _Theoretical basis._ The theoretical framework of the research includes: 1) the interpretation of the phenomenological reflection of "time-consciousness" by E. Husserl in the context of solving the problem of phased-differentiation of this form of temporality; 2) the concept of (...) anthropic time (V. Khanzhy). _Originality._ For the first time in research literature, the possibilities of applying the ideas of Husserl to the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time are considered through the interpretation of the phenomenological solution to the problem of temporality, proposed and specified in Husserl’s "time-consciousness" concept. _Conclusions._ The comprehension of the Husserlian model of intentionality of consciousness through the "grasping-from-now" and the constitution of phases of phenomenological time through the component of "exiting-from-now" showed that solving the problem of phased-differentiation of phenomenological time leads to the observation of the impossibility of isolating the modes of past, present, and future as self-sufficient and unconditional. More accurate indications, based on the constitutive intentionality of consciousness on the "grasping-from-now" phases of time (as conventional), are as follows: a) the abilities of retention and recollection are the foundation for the constitution of the past and its connections to the present; b) the perception establishes the basis for the phase of the present itself; c) the possibilities of protention and anticipation (as forms of imagination) constitute the future and its connections to the present. By the concept of retention, Husserl fixes a certain primary memory (the present "now" of a past interval), which enables retaining the past in the present. The category of recollection or secondary memory is used by the philosopher to refer to the self-sufficient reproduction of past experiences (without being joined to present perception). The fundamental difference between recollection and retention is that the former _re-_presents a temporal interval, grasping its content and reproducing it as it was in the past, while in the latter, the perceived duration is presented as a fragment of time that has just passed. According to the German philosopher, the "grasping" of the present phase is performed by perception. Through the constitutive intentionality of consciousness, perception synthesizes the results of primary-actual activity and retentional holding of duration. The second part of the article will present solutions to the following research tasks: 1) analysis of the possibilities of protention and anticipation in constituting the future and its connections with the present; 2) understanding the possibility of using interpreted forms of Husser’s ideas in reconstructing the concept of anthropic time. (shrink)

This paper consists in a study of the development of Husserl’s thought on the notions of phantasy and image consciousness. It shows how, following a first phase in which he still identified phantasy with image consciousness, Husserl gradually began to distinguish the two and define what is proper to each in an increasingly precise manner. The paper then shows how Husserl came to view pure phantasy as a modification of perception. Concerning image consciousness, it (...) shows how the status of the image-object and the nature of its reference to the image subject evolved throughout Husserl’s thought. The problems raised by this model are also discussed, in particular when it comes to cases where there is no image subject, e.g. in theatre. Finally, the paper shows how the development of these concepts in Husserl’s work involves a new conception of the notion of “phantasm” – one that goes hand in hand with rejection of the ‘content of apprehension-apprehension’ scheme. (shrink)

If the possible ends of art criticism are taken to include not only the provision of a detailed evaluation of the artwork, but, cognately, an elaboration upon how one has been, or believes oneself to have been, changed by a particular artistic encounter, then the very praxis of art criticism stands to benefit from a theoretical elucidation of the possible nature of the subjective transformations that may flow from the critical appreciation of art. We are entitled to enquire, in particular, (...) into the conditions under which, and indeed the extent to which, such putative change at the personal level can be explicated in moral epistemological terms. It is pertinent in this context also to investigate the phenomenal character of the experiences that have been operative and their essential structures; to enquire, in short, into the phenomenology of the transformative artistic encounter. In this thesis, the bearing, in particular, of intersubjectivity upon the content and modalities of disclosure in a literary context will be investigated. It will be shown how an understanding of the relevance of intersubjectivity to the phenomenology of literary experience can inform an assessment of the claims of literary aesthetic moral cognitivism. Yet the intention to clarify the connection between literary experience and intersubjectivity also requires reflection upon what it is in the first place to encounter someone else, and to apperceive a foreign subjectivity and its motivations. For this reason, the contributions of Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein to the investigation of the phenomenology of empathy will be discussed and evaluated. This discussion will in turn be shown to be of assistance in clarifying the role of the imagination in the apperception and comprehension of another person’s mental life. The thought of Jean Starobinski will prove to elucidate the question of why the insights of the phenomenological tradition are highly pertinent to the investigation of literary experience, and to the development, in particular, of a conception of an imagined ‘Other’ who is (in a sense that will be clarified) embedded within the literary text, a person, that is, to whom one might coherently refer as the “implied author”. For reasons which will emerge in the course of this study, it will be argued that authentic empathy, in its fulfilling explication (in the Steinian sense), is given to the empathising consciousness in the manner of a semblance, and, consonantly, that the phenomenological structure of authentic empathy is characterised in its mature phases by an homological relation to pictureconsciousness. The epistemological significance of literature’s capacities for moral suggestion will be explicated principally in terms of the unfolding of values within the human personality, and in terms of the disclosure of the phenomenal character and structures of virtuous experience. It will be explained why the structure of empathy has implications for the aesthetic value of literature. The question of the relation between aesthetic and ethical value will be clarified. In this context, it will be argued on phenomenological grounds that the appresentation of moral virtue in an implied author could contribute to the aesthetic value of a literary work, although it will also be shown that implied authorial moral virtue could conflict irremediably with other qualities like moral doubt and uncertainty, which may themselves be important sources of aesthetic value. For this reason, the thesis will conclude by challenging the ethicist view that an aesthetically relevant ethical flaw in a literary work must count as an aesthetic flaw. (shrink)

_The purpose _of the article is to comprehend the Husserlian model of constituting temporal modes through the ability of intentional "retentional-protentional" consciousness, as well as to clarify the possibility of interpreting its positions in the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time. _Theoretical basis._ The theoretical framework of the research includes: 1) the interpretation of the phenomenological reflection of "time-consciousness" by E. Husserl in the context of solving the problem of phased-differentiation of this form of temporality; 2) the concept of (...) anthropic time (V. Khanzhy). _Originality._ For the first time in the research literature, the possibilities of applying the ideas of Husserl to the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time are considered through the interpretation of the phenomenological solution to the problem of temporality, proposed and specified in Husserl’s "time-consciousness" concept. _Conclusions._ According to Husserl, the structure of human time-consciousness is instantiated in three spheres of passivity: prerefleсtive cogito, embodiment, and intersubjectivity. Within the framework of the problem of phase differentiation of phenomenological time, an analysis of the potencies of consciousness in constituting the phases of time-consciousness, namely protentional and retentional potencies, has been proposed. In the context of the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time, several aspects of Husserl’s model of time-consciousness have been interpreted, including the paradoxical reconciliation of two quasi-incompatible ideas: the idea of the vagueness of the boundaries between temporal modes and the thesis of the formal capacity of preserving temporal units within their respective temporal phases. The property of multilevel complexity in the system of human temporality accounts for the diversity in the relationship of unique temporal units based on formal and content-related criteria ('temporal matryoshka'). (shrink)

The post-Darwinian double-aspect theory that Professor Robert Kunzendorf's introduces in On the Evolution of Conscious Sensation, Conscious Imagination, and Consciousness of Self points to evolutionary functions of certain sensations, youngling vivid images, and self-consciousness.