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Two Enlightening Thought: Kant and the Imagination
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B { 25 } Framing the Imagination in Western Thought The imagination is notoriously difficult to define. Indeed, this difficulty may explain the fact that prior to the Enlightenment there was no attempt to develop a unified theory of the imagination. In the history of ancient Greek philosophy, its amorphous character contributed to its being treated in two distinct, albeit related, ways. On the one hand, imagination was defined in terms of inspired artistic expression, outside the realm of explanation and description. On the other, it was described as a mysterious mental faculty that somehow accomplished the impossible , bridging the divide between the world of sensation and the world of thought. Mark Johnson, in his Body in the Mind, directs us to a passage in the Ion where Plato advances the first interpretation of the imagination as a function of inspiration. Plato writes: The poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and Two Enlightening Thought: Kant and the Imagination 26 Kant and the Imagination the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles. Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they do not speak of them by any rules of art: they are simply inspired to utter that to which the Muse impels them, and that only. According to Plato, the creative imagination only operates in moments of ecstasy, moments in which a person stands outside (ex-stasis) herself, possessed by the artistic spirit. The suggestion that the imaginative poet is “out of her mind” led Plato to assert that the imagination necessarily stood against reason. The poets, along with the sophists, merely produced images and appearances that led individuals away from truth. This position is reaffirmed throughout book 10 of the Republic, where Plato states that the poets remain “thrice removed from the truth.” This assertion suggests that they do little more than enflame the negative emotions of the public. To say that poets do little more than play on the emotions is, according to Plato, no small claim: the imagination of poets has the power to convince the public that the appearances represented in their art are in fact real. Plato thus maintains that the imagination as creative fantasy is necessarily dangerous and should be banned from the ideal state. Aristotle opposes Plato in this regard, making a clearer distinction between the imagination as a cognitive faculty and its role in creativeartistic expression. In both these characterizations, Aristotle acknowledges imagination’s vital importance. He devotes book 3 of On the Soul to the explanation of imagination as an indispensible part of human thought, noting its ability to mediate between abstract conception and sensuous perception. He claims that the imagination is different from both the sensation that initiates human thinking and higher forms of cognition that grant the possibility of formal judgment. Aristotle, however , is clear to state that imagination is not found without sensation and that judgment is not found without the imagination. It is in this formulation that we first come to see the type of mediating role that the imagination will take on in the Enlightenment tradition of the eighteenth century. Additionally, Aristotle provides an alternative to Plato’s rendering of the imagination as a creative impulse that should be tamed by or [34.228.168.200] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 21:07 GMT) Kant and the Imagination 27 exiled from the realm of cognition. In the Poetics, he acknowledges that the imagination can be used irresponsibly by poets or playwrights but suggests that, despite this danger, the imagination is a necessary force in creating a meaningful human life. According to Aristotle, catharsis, the outpouring of emotion prompted by the imaginative drama of a playwright and actor, serves as a healthy outlet for members of a given audience. Catharsis creates a type of escape valve for the public, who can deal with intense emotions in the context of an imagined situation rather than in the high-stakes business of daily life. The imagination of the poet serves another important function, Aristotle explains, by inviting others into a fictional world that is realistically felt. These imagined worlds serve a pedagogical function by allowing an audience to experience or sympathize with a variety of morally significant scenarios. While these...