Table Of ContentProductive imagination is a concept that has long deserved a special
study. Saulius Geniusas traces its importance from Kant and Hus-
serl through 20th century German and French phenomenology. With
sweeping scholarship and penetrating analysis, Geniusas opens PHENOMENOLOGY
our eyes to the nature of productive imagination and its relation to
embodiment, language, and subjectivity.
of
David Carr, Professor Emeritus, Emory University
S
Saulius Geniusas’ book offers a radically new investigation of the a PRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION
u
vital relationship between imagination and the body. The writing is
l
clear, persuasive, and extensive in its scholarly range. An important i
u
study of indispensable drives of human creativity. s
Richard Kearney, Charles Seelig Professor in Philosophy, Boston College G
Embodiment, Language, Subjectivity
e
n
Although productive imagination has played a highly signifi cant
i
u
role in (post-) Kantian philosophy, there have been very few book-
s
length studies explicitly dedicated to its analysis. a
In his new book, Saulius Geniusas develops a phenomenology of s
productive imagination while relying on those resources that we
come across in Edmund Husserl’s, Max Scheler’s, Martin Heideg-
ger’s, Ernst Cassirer’s, Miki Kiyoshi’s, Jean-Paul Sartre’s, Maurice P
Merleau-Ponty’s, and Paul Ricoeur’s writings, while also engaging h
e
in present-day philosophical discussions of the imagination. In- n
o
vestigating the relation between imagination and embodiment, af- m
fectivity, perception, language, selfhood, and intersubjectivity, the e
book provides a phenomenological conception of productive imag- n
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ination, which is committed to basic phenomenological principles l
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and which is sensitive to how productive imagination has been g
y
conceptualized in the history of phenomenology.
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Against such a background, Geniusas develops a new conception f
P
of productive imagination: It is a basic modality of intentionality
r
that indirectly shapes the human experience of the world by forming od Saulius Geniusas
the contours of action, intuition, knowledge, and understanding. It u
c
is not so much a blind and indispensable function of the soul, but t
i
an art concealed in the body, for it springs out of instincts, drives, v
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desires, and needs.
I
m
Saulius Geniusas is Professor of Philosophy at the Chinese Uni- a
versity of Hong Kong. Geniusas is the author of The Origins of the g
i
n
Horizon in Husserl’s Phenomenology (Springer 2012), The Phenom-
a
enology of Pain (Ohio University Press 2020) and What is Pain? t
i
o
Descriptive Psychology, Transcendental Phenomenology and Natu-
n
ralism (in Lithuanian; Phi knygos 2021).
ISBN: 978-3-8382-1552-5
ibidem ibidem
ibd
Body and Consciousness, vol. 2
Saulius Geniusas
Phenomenology of Productive Imagination
Embodiment, Language, Subjectivity
BODY AND CONSCIOUSNESS
Editor: James Richard Mensch
Consulting Editor: Donald Phillip Verene
ISSN
1 James Mensch
Decisions and Transformations
The Phenomenology of Embodiment
ISBN 978-3-8382-1435-1
2 Saulius Geniusas
Phenomenology of Productive Imagination
Embodiment, Language, Subjectivity
ISBN 978-3-8382-1552-5
Saulius Geniusas
PHENOMENOLOGY OF
PRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION
Embodiment, Language, Subjectivity
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bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
Cover picture: ID 46316215 © Michael Kuelbel | Dreamstime.com
ISBN-13: 978-3-8382-7552-9
© ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart 2022
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For my mother,
Izolda G. Geniušienė
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................... 11
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................ 13
CHAPTER I: What is Productive Imagination? From Kant to
Phenomenology ................................................................................... 25
Introduction .................................................................................. 25
Methodological Considerations ................................................. 26
Kant on Productive Imagination ............................................... 28
Productive Imagination in Post-Kantian Philosophy ............. 31
Conclusion .................................................................................... 35
CHAPTER II: What is Productive about Reproductive
Imagination? Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology of Phantasy
and the Constitution of Cultural Worlds ......................................... 37
Introduction .................................................................................. 37
What is Reproduction and What is Reproductive
Imagination? ......................................................................... 41
Perception and Imagination ....................................................... 49
Memory and Phantasy ................................................................ 55
The Role of Phantasy in the Constitution of Cultural
Worlds ................................................................................... 61
Conclusion .................................................................................... 69
CHAPTER III: Between Phenomenology, Pragmatism and
Metaphysics: Max Scheler’s Concept of Productive Phantasy ...... 75
Introduction .................................................................................. 75
Scheler’s Critique of Pragmatism .............................................. 76
Productive Phantasy and the Genesis of Experience .............. 80
7
Sensation, Perception and Phantasy ......................................... 84
The Psychic, Historical and Cultural Dimensions of
Productive Phantasy ............................................................ 87
Phantasy and Desire .................................................................... 89
The Development of Productive Phantasy............................... 91
The Limits of Productive Phantasy ........................................... 93
Life, Spirit, and Productive Phantasy ....................................... 98
Conclusion .................................................................................. 101
CHAPTER IV: Between Phenomenology, Ontology and
Philosophy of Culture: Productive Imagination and the
Cassirer-Heidegger Disputation ...................................................... 103
Introduction ................................................................................ 103
The Historical Setting ................................................................ 104
Productive Imagination and the Subjectivity of the
Subject ................................................................................. 108
The Copernican Turn ................................................................ 111
Terminus a Quo and Terminus ad Quem .............................. 115
Freedom ...................................................................................... 121
The Possibility of Reconciliation .............................................. 123
Temporality ................................................................................ 125
Conclusion .................................................................................. 132
CHAPTER V: From Phenomenology to the Kyoto School: Miki
Kiyoshi and the Logic of Imagination ............................................ 137
Introduction ................................................................................ 137
Miki as a Phenomenologist ...................................................... 140
The Standpoint of Contemplation and the Standpoint of
Action .................................................................................. 143
8
The Field of Imagination as the Field of Action .................... 146
The Logic of the Imagination as the Logic of Collective
Representations .................................................................. 148
The Logic of Imagination as the Logic of Symbols ............... 153
The Logic of Imagination as the Logic of Forms ................... 157
The Logic of Imagination as the Logic of Institutions .......... 160
Conclusion .................................................................................. 164
CHAPTER VI: From the Phenomenology of the Body to the
Ontology of the Flesh: Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Embodied
Imagination ........................................................................................ 169
Introduction ................................................................................ 169
Merleau-Ponty’s Early Phenomenology of Imagination ...... 170
Two Forms of the Imaginary in the Sorbonne Lectures
(1949-1952) .......................................................................... 179
Imagination and Perceptual Faith in The Lectures on
Passivity (1954-1955) .......................................................... 186
Phenomenological Ontology and the Imaginary Texture
of the Real in “Eye and Mind” ......................................... 191
Conclusion .................................................................................. 201
CHAPTER VII: From Phenomenology to Hermeneutics: Paul
Ricœur’s Philosophy of Productive Imagination .......................... 203
Introduction ................................................................................ 203
The Paradox of Irreality ............................................................ 204
Utopian and Constitutive Tendencies: Sartre, Castoriadis
and Ricœur ......................................................................... 206
The Reproductive Model of Imagination ............................... 209
The Productive Model of Imagination .................................... 211
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