Imagination: History of the Concept

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Across all varieties of meanings that reach from ‘mental imaginery,’ ‘invention of the mind,’ to ‘fantasy,’ ‘illusion,’ and ‘chimera,’ there is a common reference of the term ‘imagination’ to the human ability to form—more or less intentionally—images of phenomena, may these be absent or present. From the classical tradition to Kant, Hegel, and romanticism, this faculty of mental imagery has been given central place in philosophical discourse with regard to knowledge, concept-formation and language, memory, and aesthetics. It is demonstrated not only that the history of epistemology offers different answers to the question which role and significance images have in the process of cognition, but also that knowledge has been linked persistently to image and memory. Even though the concept of imagination appears no longer to hold a central place in aesthetics, it has remained vibrant as a liberating power that restores human freedom against technology and reification—such as in Herbert Marcuse or Cornelius Castoriadis. Imagination becomes a category that thinks freedom in aesthetic categories and demands the liberation of fantasy through political praxis.

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