Defining Imagination Sartre Between Husserl and Janet
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Transcript of Defining Imagination Sartre Between Husserl and Janet
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Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences (2005)4:133153 C Springer 2005
Defining imagination: Sartre between Husserl and Janet1
BEATA STAWARSKADepartment of Philosophy, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, U.S.A.
(E-mail: [email protected])
Abstract.The essay traces the double, phenomenological and psychological, background of
Sartres theory of the imagination. Insofar as these two phenomenological and psychological
currents are equally influential for Sartres theory of the imagination, his intellectual project
is situated in an inter-disciplinary research area which combines the descriptive analyses ofEdmund Husserl with the clinical reports and psychological theories of Pierre Janet. While
Husserl provides the foundation for the prevailing theory of imagination as pictorial represen-
tation, Janets findings on obsessive behavior enrich an alternative current in Sartres thinking
about imagination as spontaneous and self-determined creativity.
Key words:Husserl, imagination, Janet, phenomenological psychology, Sartre
The objective of this essay is to trace the double, phenomenological and
psychological, background of Sartres theory of the imagination, presented
in his treatise Limaginaire and announced in a preceding critical study
Limagination (see Sartre 1972, 1983, 1986). I intend to demonstrate that
these two phenomenological and psychological currents are equally influen-
tial for Sartres own theory of the imagination, and so that his intellectualproject is situated in an inter-disciplinary research area which combines the
descriptive analyses of Edmund Husserl with the clinical reports and psy-
chological theories of Pierre Janet. The interest of this essay lies then not
simply in documenting the undeniable indebtedness of Sartre to other schol-
ars no philosopher works in an intellectual vacuum but more importantly
in demonstrating that some of the key texts produced in the post-Husserlian
phenomenology result from a deliberate crossing of the disciplines, with en-
lightenment and inspiration for phenomenological reflection being found di-
rectly in the research results of the applied sciences. I will address Husserls
and Janets influence on Sartres theory of the imagination respectively.
InLimaginaire Sartre develops a rigorous project of formulating a uniform
theory of the imagination. This uniform theory hangs on the claim that a rangeof apparently disparate objects such as portraits (e.g. the portrait of Charles
VIII in the Offices of Florence), caricatures, actors imitations (Franconay imi-
tating Maurice Chevalier), schematic drawings and hypnagogic images belong
to one family and can therefore be subsumed under the heading of the image
family (la famille de limage) (Sartre 1986, pp. 40112; 1983, pp. 1762).
The term picturefamily might better capture the defining characteristic of
imagination theorized by Sartre though, since the author states that images
function aspictorial representations of absent, and possibly even non-existent,
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134 BEATA STAWARSKA
entities. It is the function of depictingsomething or someone, shared by por-
traits, caricatures, actors imitations, drawings and mental images, that allows
Sartre to arrive at a uniform theory of imagination. Imagination gets theorized
in terms of an image (or picture) family where all images (or pictures) are
functionally identical (Sartre 1986, p. 43; 1983, p. 18).
Sartres theory of imagination as image/picture family finds its principal
source of inspiration in the Husserls writings available at Sartres time, notably
intheIdeas I.2 Sartre praised Husserl in fact for having blazed the trail for his
own theory of the imagination, even though he regretted that the scattered and
fragmentary character of Husserls observations on imagination contained in
theIdeas Imakes their exposition exceedingly difficult (Sartre 1972, p. 143).
For the sake of being complete I shall therefore comment on Husserls laterpublished texts in what follows as well, especially as they point to some diffi-
culties inherent in an exclusively pictorial account of imaginary activity and
raise the question of how Sartre countered these difficulties in his own theory.
To the principal merits of Husserls phenomenological theory belong, in
Sartres view, firstly, explicating the intentional structure of conscious acts, in-
cluding the imaginary acts of consciousness, and, secondly, laying the ground
for the assimilation of pure fantasy with the consciousness of physical pic-
tures (paintings, drawings, photographs). The latter contribution is especially
important in that it provides the basis for Sartres own unitary theory of imag-
ination which subsumes mental images and physical pictures in one ex-
tended family. Consider these two principal insights which Sartre draws fromHusserls observations in theIdeas Iin more detail.According to Sartre, the principal merit of the intentionality thesis is that it
providesthe only means of preserving the transcendence of the object of a con-
scious act, whether perceptual or imaginary. Defining consciousness in terms
of intentionality ultimately breaks with any form of immanentism where the
object ofconsciousness gets identified with a content in consciousness, and so
where its transcendent character with regard to consciousnessis compromised.
Sartre targets Berkeleys idealism for having reduced transcendent objects to
their mode of appearance, and so reduced the objective world to subjective
impressions. The intentionality thesis permits, Sartre contends, to restore the
transcendent character to the world, because the intendum ceases to be the
content of the subjective act. To be sure, the act of consciousness is still com-posed of impressional data, but these hyletic components of a subjective act
are not to be confused with theobjectof a conscious act (Sartre 1972, p. 132).
More importantly still, the intentionality thesis provides the ultimate means
of breaking away with a long and faulty tradition of theorizing imagination
as a variant of perception. Sartres critical studies of the dominant theories of
imagination produced in the history of Western philosophy, from Descartes to
Bergson, aim to dissipate the common illusion haunting these theories that the
image is a sort of a lesser thing, a trace of the perceived object. This illusion
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DEFINING IMAGINATION 135
gives rise to, what Sartre calls, the naive ontology of the image for which
[t]he image is made into a copy of the thing, existing as a thing. (Sartre 1972,
p. 4). Sartre objects, however, that images are not lingering impressions left
behind by antecedent perception and imagination is not a secondary percep-
tion of reflections of perceptual objects left behind in consciousness. Images
are not, as Hume would have it, weak perceptions.3 If the difference between
perception and imagination lay in the intensity of impression only (perceptual
objects are given with greater vivacity than images) and if there was no dif-
ference inkindbetween perception and imagination, then there would be no
absolute way of distinguishing the two, yet one has no problems telling them
apart. The upshot of this argument is that the procedure of locating images in
the mind renders it impossible to distinguish between perception and imagi-nation; furthermore, it falls prey to the illusion of immanence which takes
consciousness to be a receptacle for mental representations.
The intentionality thesis permits to theorize imagination otherwise than as
observation of perceptual traces left behind in consciousness with the minds
eye. The image ceases being an immanent psychic content. Sartre refers to
Husserls example of imagining a centaur playing the flute from Section 23
ofIdeas Ito illustrate this point. Following Husserl, the centaur produced in
this flight of fancy can be called a mental representation only as long as it
is understood that we mean by representation what is represented rather
than a psychic state. The centaur can thus be termed an intentional object
of the imaginary consciousness even though it does not have an independentexistence and is no more than a product of the mind. It exists neither in the
soul nor in consciousness nor anywhere. It does not exist at all, it is invention
through and through. (Sartre 1972, p. 133). Sartre thus credits Husserl for
having restored to the centaur, in the very heart of its unreality, its transcen-
dence. (Ibid., 134). The centaur can be regarded as a transcendent nothing
(Ricoeur 1981, p. 170), irreducible to the mental act despite its non-existence.As previously noted, Sartre does not deny there being a real content in
the imaginary act despite the imaginary object being a nothing. The ques-
tion of what makes up this psychic content is discussed fully in Limaginaire,
and will be taken up in further sections of this essay. It suffices to note at
this stage that, following Sartres line of thought, the impressional matter or
stuff of imaginary consciousness supports the assimilation of pure fan-tasy, such as imagining a flute-playing-centaur, with the consciousness of a
physical picture, such as a painting, a drawing or a photograph. Sartre finds
the germ of this assimilation in another passage from the Ideas I, where
Husserl comments on Durers engraving The Knight, Death and the Devil.
Husserl distinguishes there between two ways in which the engraving can
be apprehended: it can be an object of a normal perception, where it is
grasped as a physical thing, a sheet of printed paper, or it can be an object
of aesthetic contemplation where the figures of the Knight, Death and the
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136 BEATA STAWARSKA
Devil get represented in image or where we are directed to the imaged
realities (abgebildet), the knight in flesh and blood, etc. This passage leads
Sartre to conclude that the consciousness of a physical picture, for example
The Knight, Death and the Devil engraving, can be aligned with an act of
pure fantasy, e.g. imagining a flute playing centaur, in that both acts consist of
intentionally animating some content, which may be either physical or mental
(Sartre 1972, p. 135). The foundation for Sartres image/ picture family is
thus established on the basis of relevant passages from Ideas I.
As previously noted, Sartre could not have been familiar with Husserls
lectures on picture consciousness, even though he was knowledgeable of
their existence (Sartre 1972, p. 136; Husserl 1980). It is helpful therefore
to briefly overview some relevant points from Husserls lectures, especiallysince Husserls investigations into imaginary consciousness initially led him
to take the function of pictorial representation as essential to imagination as
a whole. One can therefore trace a picture family in Husserls theory of
imaginary acts as well, which combines the consciousness of a physical or
external picture ( ausseres Bildbewusstsein) with that of an internal picture
of pure fantasy, or what Sartre terms a mental image. It is equally instruc-
tive to highlight the difficulties inherent in the unitary theory of imagination
as picture consciousness encountered by Husserl, in view of subsequently
articulating how Sartre countered these difficulties in Limaginaire.
Husserls elaboration of picture consciousness is part of the analysis of
intuitive acts whose object is either present in person or is not itself presentbut represented. The former presentation of the object is a perception, the
latter, a re-presentation of the object by means of a picture. Perception enjoys
the bodily (leibhaft) presence of the object; picture consciousness is limited
to a mediate, as if revelation of the object.The picture can be physical or external as in a painting, a pho-
tograph, a sculpture. The consciousness of such a physical or an external
picture is a complex act which combines perceptual apprehension of a phys-
ical picture with an apprehension aiming at the absent object (a piece of
landscape, a person) represented by this picture. The latter apprehension suc-
ceeds in transforming the physical thing (piece of canvas, sheet of photo-
graphic paper, block of stone) into a picture properly so-called, i. e. into
an object where an absent person or thing is brought into a phantom-likepresence. The two apprehensions at work in the overall consciousness of a
picture are co-dependent and their concerted action makes an intuitive pre-
sentation of something absent in the (present) picture possible. Perceptual
apprehension gives picture consciousness its intuitive character, while non-
perceptual apprehension fantasizes the absent object into the physical thing
and turns it into a picture. Picture consciousness involves therefore three inter-
related elements: the picture-thing (Bildding), i.e. the physical thing (a piece
of canvas, of paper, of stone) which serves as the material of the picture; the
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DEFINING IMAGINATION 137
picture-object (Bildobjekt), i.e. the picture apprehended not simply as a per-
ceptual object but as a representation of a referent i.e. of the so-called
picture-subject (Bildsujet).4
Following Husserl, pictorial representation can also be also at work in the
imaginary activity of fantasy, as well as in memory. In that case, physical or
perceptual picture/image becomes replaced by an internal and non-physical
one. Is this to say that the triple picture thing/subject/object/structure can also
be discerned in fantasy, which no longer supports itself on physical or ex-
ternal things? Images, unlike physical pictures, are not independent from
the consciousness that apprehends them; they are contents of consciousness,
forming an integral and internal part of an imaginary experience. Unlike the
physical picture which persists as a piece of canvas, paper, or stone, eventhough it ceases to function as a pictorial representation of an absent being,
the internal picture does not survive the end of the fantasy episode, there
is nothing left of it once the subject ceases to fantasize. The question arises
whether such an immaterial picture can serve the function ofrepresenting
an absent picture-subject or how an evanescent no-thing can be a symbol of
another thing. Material content seems indispensable if the picture is to fulfil
its representational function: only as a perceptual thing can a picture yield an
intuitiveapprehension of an absent referent. In order to function as a repre-
sentation (Bildobjet), the picture must be a thing (Bildding), i.e. there must
be a physical support if the picture is to symbolize the absent picture-subject
(Bildsujet). Yet such physical support is wanting in the case of internalpictures. In fantasy, it is impossible to distinguish a picture-thing from the
picture-subject it represents, and so it is difficult to see how the internal pic-
ture can serve the symbolic function at all. One can therefore hardly sustain
the interpretation of fantasy as the consciousness of non-physical pictures and
preserve a uniform theory of imagination as picture consciousness.5 These
difficulties led Husserl to progressively abandon the picture consciousness
theory as paradigm for the imagination. The question to raise then is whether
Sartres account of the imagination, which rehabilitates the theory of pictorial
representation and conjoins, in a manner analogous to early Husserl, exter-
nal and internal or, to use Sartres terminology, physical and mental
pictures, can counter similar difficulties.
Sartre assimilates physical pictures and images based on their sharedanalo-gizingfunction,i.e. on the function of makingan absententity appear by means
of an analogue. The definition of imagination reads therefore as follows: it
is an act [of consciousness] which aims at an absent or non-existent ob-
ject as a body (dans sa corporeite), by means of a physical or mental con-
tent which is present only as an analogical representative of the object
aimed at. (Sartre 1986, p. 46; 1983, p. 20). The question that arises at this
stage is whether pure fantasy can be included in this definition. When dis-
cussing Husserls identification of fantasy with picture consciousness, I noted
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138 BEATA STAWARSKA
that an object must have material content in order to function as a picture and
that insofar as internal pictures do not seem to have any content, it is diffi-
cult to understand how they could depict or represent their referent. It seems
that Sartres definition of imaginary consciousness, mapping the structure of
(physical) picture consciousness onto fantasy, is bound to encounter a similar
difficulty of accounting for how mental images could serve asanaloguesof
other absent entities. However, following Sartre, mental images, even though
they are not physical things but internal representations, do have mate-
rial content nevertheless. The only difference between physical pictures and
mental images consists in the fact that the former have material content which
can be perceived in a non-analogizing way, i.e., not as an analogue of an-
other absent entity but as a visible material thing, whereas the latter cannotbe perceived in that way (Sartre 1986, p. 111; 1983, p. 61). In the case of a
photograph or a caricature, the material can be perceived for itself: it is not
intended to function as the material of an image. [il nentre pas dans sa nature
propre quelle doive fonctionner comme matiere dimage] This photograph,
taken by itself, is a thing: I can try to ascertain the duration of its exposure
by its color, the product used to tone it and fix it, etc.; the caricature is a
thing: I can take pleasure in studying its lines and colors without thinking that
they were intended to represent something. (Sartre 1986, p. 42; 1983, p. 17).
In case of mental images, however, the material is not accessible in a direct
fashion, and that is why the material of the mental image is more difficult to
determine. (Sartre 1986, p. 42; Sartre 1983, p. 18). Still, it is evident that themental image must also have a material (Ibid.). Sartre reiterates that point
elsewhere in the text: we know since this is an essential necessity that
in the mental image there is a physical data ( un donne physique) which func-
tions as an analogue but when we wish to ascertain more clearly the nature
and components of this data we are reduced to conjectures. (Sartre 1986, p.
111; 1983, p. 61).6
What essential necessity stipulates that mental images have content? An
imaginary experiment proposed by Sartre provides elements of the response
(Sartre 1986, pp. 4041; 1983, p. 17).
I wish to recall the face of my friend Peter. I make an effort and I
produce a certain imaginary consciousness of him. But my objective isvery imperfectly attained: certain details are lacking, others are suspect,
the whole is very blurred. There is a certain feeling of sympathy and
pleasantness that I want to restore to the face but which will not come. I do
not give up, I rise and take a photograph from a drawer. It is an excellent
portrait of Peter, it gives me all the details of his face, even some that
had escaped me. But the photograph lacks life; it presents perfectly the
external traits of Peters face; it does not give his expression. Fortunately I
posses a skillfully drawn caricature of him. This time the facial features are
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DEFINING IMAGINATION 139
deliberately distorted, the nose is much too long, the cheeks too prominent,
etc. Nevertheless, what is missing in the photograph, vitality, expression,
is clearly present in the drawing: I rediscover Peter.
In this imaginary experiment, the three images/pictures served a pre-
determined aim of representing a concrete yet absent referent, thus lending
themselves to being subsumed under the form of picture consciousness. Grad-
ually moving from the mental image through the photograph to the caricature,
we moved from less to more representative representations of Peter, i.e.
from the unsatisfactory representation in the mental image (lacking detail and
expression) to more adequate representations in the photo and the caricature
(the detail is present and the expression is restored). It can be concluded thatthe passage from the mental image to the caricature is uniform in that each
of the steps grants a (at first partial and then gradually more complete) ful-
fillment of the original aim. The mental image, the photo and the caricature
appear as three stages of the same process, three moments of a unique act.
(Ibid.). And yet, Sartre adds, only the first one is usually termed an image.
A question arises whether it is justified to reserve this term for subjective
representations (Ibid.) only and whether objective representations (Ibid.)
like photos and caricatures should not be called images as well. In Sartres
view, they certainly should, insofar as they share the function of bringing an
absent referent into intuitive quasi-presence.
According to Sartre, it is not only plausible but even necessary to arguefor the materiality of internal pictures on the basis of the analogical character
they share with physical pictures. Throughout the above recounted imaginary
experiment, the aim remains the same: I want to recall Peter, yet since Peter
is not there, I have recourse to a certain material (Sartre 1986, p. 42;
1983, p. 17), which renders Peter present in a quasi-way. In order to make the
materialityof mental pictures evident, I need only compare my initial empty
intention with my mental image of Peter. At first I wanted to produce Peter
out of the void, and then something loomed up which filled in my intention.
The three cases are therefore strictly parallel. They are three situations with
the same form, but in which the material varies. (Sartre 1986, p. 42; 1983,
p. 18). Insofar as the mental image fulfils my originally empty intention of
wanting to recall Peter and succeeds inrepresentingPeter, even though inan imperfect way, itmustshare the material character of physical pictures and
musttherefore have a content. I cannot know with absolute certainty that there
is one, and yet the representational potential of mental images constrains me
to argue that they are non-empty.7
Theproblemencounteredby Husserl of how there could be internal pictorial
representationsseems therefore to have been disposed of. Insofar as the mental
image has a content, it istranscendentto the consciousness that apprehends it
and canrepresent another entity in theway a physicalpicture does. Both mental
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140 BEATA STAWARSKA
images and physical pictures are said to be objectsof consciousness (Sartre
1986, p. 110; 1983, p. 61), even though the transcendence of mental picture
needs to be differentiated from that of physical ones. The mental picture,
or better, its content, does not have the exteriority (exteriorite translated
as objectivity) which belongs to the physical picture. We see a portrait,
a caricature, a blot (une tache): but we do not see a mental image. To see
an object is to localize it in space, between this table and that carpet, at a
certain height, to my right or left. But mental images do not mingle with
surrounding objects (ne se melent pas aux objets qui mentourent). (Sartre
1986, p. 109110; 1983, p. 60). The transcendence of the mental image is
not to be interpreted in terms of the exteriority of a perceptual object but has
to do solely with the representational character of an object grasped as ananalogue of something other (Ibid.). Sartre terms that sort of transcendence
the transcendence of the representative (Sartre 1986, p. 10; 1983, p. 61), in
contradistinction from the transcendence of a physical thing (Ibid.).8
A question that still remains unanswered, however, is whether all imaginary
experiences must necessarily involve pictorial representations. If imagination
consists in representation by means of (mental and physical) content, then the
imaginary act that doesnot support itself on an image/picture either cannot
take place or cannot qualify as imaginary. And yet Sartre does admit that some
imaginary experiences are not accompanied by images as in the case of aes-
thetic appreciation of an artistic work, say a novel (Sartre 1986, p. 126; 1983,
p. 70). Another question left open is whether a picture consciousness theoryof imagination, which reduces imagination to a search for representations of
absent entities, does not assume that imagination has a merely reproductive
and not creative or productive function. As such, it raises the question of how
to theorizefictionwithin the picture consciousness framework. In fact, upon
examination, it turns out impossible to subsume fiction under the category of
pictorial representation and its double picture-original structure.Ricoeur (1981), for example, has pointed out to the difficulties of theorizing
fiction within the picture family paradigm. Recall the example of the fantasy
of a flute-playing centaur analyzed by Husserl in Section 23, Ideas I. In
this case, Ricoeur notes, it is impossible to draw a distinction between the
realand the representedobject, and so to subsume the fantasy of a centaur
under consciousness of a pictorial representation of an absent referent. Theobject of imaginary consciousness is one, even though it does not exist. Yet
it can be termed an objectof consciousness nevertheless, since it is not a
psychic state, it is not the invention itself (Ricoeur 1981, p. 170). Up to
that point Sartre is in agreement with Ricoeur, as will be clear to the reader
from the previous discussion of the intentional character of the imaginary
consciousness. The contention between Sartre and Ricoeur arises due to the
former subsuming the relation to a non-existent object under reproductive
consciousness, forcing the unreal centaur into the picture-model structure.
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DEFINING IMAGINATION 141
Ricoeur argues that the referent of the fiction and the referent of the picture
cannot be treated within the same framework. [. . .] But inLimaginationit is
uncritically assumed that the theory of the picture may be extended to that
of the fiction, and vice versa. (Ibid.). The procedure of identifying picture
consciousness with fiction is unjustified and has the consequence of making
one forget that fiction is a creative process, which producesits object rather
than merely representing it. In more general terms, the picture consciousness
theory of imagination leads to positing the primacy of the original, (Ibid.)
i.e., it gives primacy to theperceptualexperience of a given entity and endows
imagination with the subservient role of providing replicas of it. This seems
to ultimately undermine the validity of the guiding line of Sartres project,
namely that the image and the perception, far from being two elementarypsychical factors of similar quality and which simply enter into different
combinations, represent the two main irreducible attitudes of consciousness
(les deux grandes attitudes irreductibles de la conscience). (Sartre 1986, p.
231; 1983, p. 138).It can be objected, however, that Sartres understanding of the image in
terms of an intentional relation to a transcendent object rather than an im-
manent psychic content may support a non-representational paradigm of the
imagination. After all, having chased images outside of consciousness, Sartre
proclaims that the image stands only for the way in which consciousness
intends its object. The word image can [. . .] indicate only the relation of con-
sciousness to the object; in other words, it means a certain manner in whichthe object makes its appearance to consciousness, or, if one prefers, a certain
way in which consciousness presents an object to itself. (Sartre 1986, p. 21;
1983, p. 5). As a pure intentional relation, the image is therefore not a content
in consciousness. Yet it is extremely difficult to square this claim with the
definition of the image as an analogical representative, i. e., anobject, either
exterior to consciousness due to being a physical thing or transcendent to
it in virtue of its representational character. These two conflicting claims (the
image is a relationanda picture) both serve the purpose of dislodging the im-
age from consciousness: the argument that the image is a relation prevents all
attempts of inserting images into consciousness; the argument that the image
is a picture supposes that it is transcendent to consciousness. Yet the implica-
tions of these two arguments and the theories of imagination built upon themare strikingly different. Following the former account, one need not invoke
representational character of imagination and its dependence on perceptual
givenness of the original. In this perspective, imagination is as Sartre
wanted it to be an intentional relation equal in dignity and yet irreducible to
perception. However, if the picture consciousness theory is advocated, then
it is an analogue, i.e. the object mediating my access to something absent,
which deserves the name of the image, and which is a condition sine qua non
of an imaginary experience. As long as the latter theory is followed, imaginary
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142 BEATA STAWARSKA
consciousness does not appear as a pure relation but as a consciousness oftwo
objects: the picture/image and the original. A consequence of that formulation
is the assumption of the primacy of the original, which turns imagination,
despite or against Sartres intentions, into a servant of perception.
It appears therefore that Sartres overtly unitary theory of imagination is
destabilized by an inner tension between two non-identical accounts. This
tension is manifest in the list of the four possible positional theses Sartre
assigns to imaginary consciousness. Imaginary consciousness can posit its
object: as non-existent, or as absent, or as existing elsewhere; imaginary
consciousness can also neutralize itself, that is, not posit its object as exist-
ing (Sartre 1986, p. 32; 1983, pp. 1112). These positional theses express the
fact that the imaginary object is not present in person, but they do it in differentways. The first thesis states that the object, insofar as it does not exist, cannot
be made present in flesh and blood at all. It is impossible to perceive e.g. a
flute playing centaur, even though it is possible to imagine it. The centaur
is a mythicalbeing, and so, even if one day I was to come across a being
that displayed all the features of a centaur, still I could not claim that I have
encountered the chimera in person.9 Fictional beings are encountered in
the imaginary realm only. As for the theses 2 and 3, they are interrelated and
express the fact that the object can in principle be perceived but at the moment
it isnotpresent in person. The second thesis is purely negative and stipulates
that the object, e.g. my friend Peter, is absent; the third thesis is a positive
reformulation of the preceding one and it can supply further information con-cerning the object (Peter is in Berlin). The fourth thesis expresses a general
suspension of belief in regard to the imagined object. For example, When I
look at the photographs in a magazine they mean nothing to me, that is, I
may look at them without any thought that their subjects exist. (Si je regarde
les photos du journal, elles peuvent tres bien ne rien me dire, cest-a-dire
que je les regarde sans faire de position dexistence.) (Sartre 1986, p. 55;
1983, p. 26). In this case, I abstain from deciding whether the object exists or
not, is alive or dead, could or could not be met in person.
All the theses state that the imagined object is absentin the general sense of
not-being here. The absence seems most radical in the case of the first thesis:
non-existent beings cannotde jurebe perceived, their absence can never be
substituted by presence. The objects whose existence is put into bracketsmay but need not be capable of being rendered present. Absent and existent
elsewhere beings can, on the other hand, in principle be encountered in flesh
and blood. One wonders, however, whether it is still justified to subsume the
suspended existence and non-existence of purely fictional characters under the
heading of absence. It seems more appropriate to take suspended existence
andnon-existenceas the contrary ofposited existence, and to ascribeabsence
and presence (existential categories) to beings that are posited as existent
only. A centaur cannot be absent(nor present), since it does not belong to
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DEFINING IMAGINATION 143
the class of things posited as existent. This being so, the centaur (and any
other fictional being) can no longer be argued to function as a referent of a
picture representing something absent, and consciousness imagining a centaur
cannot be mapped onto the consciousness of a picture representing an external
referent or an original. The difficulty of forcing fiction and fantasy into
the rigid framework of pictorial representation becomes apparent again. At
the same time, an alternative approach to the imagination becomes manifest
in Sartres account: the suspension of belief in the reality of the imagined
world. In the remaining part of this essay, this alternative approach will be
traced back to Janets observations on obsessive behavior, notably the so-
called diminution of the reality function (la diminution de la fonction du reel)
apparent therein. This latter approach unveils a possibility of conceptualizingimagination differently than as a purely reproductive process of fabricating
imperfect copies of perceptual reality. Imagination can be theorized as an
activity of transcending the real and producing the unreal, wherein the subject
re-asserts its creative potential and freedom.10 Furthermore, it is no longer
necessary to stipulate that pictorial representations are a condition sine qua
nonof imaginary experiences: imagination theorized as suspension of belief
may but need not necessarily include visual content. Room is therefore open
for imaginary attitudes without images, for example, aesthetic appreciation
of fiction.
Consider Sartres remarks about suspension of belief in the cases of fiction
reading, as well as dreaming, and hallucination, before assessing Janets in-fluence on the formers views. When reading a novel, Sartre says, one adopts
an imaginary attitude with regards to the world represented in it. That is not
to say that one actually produces mental images to illustrate the narrative;
images appear rather when we cease reading or when our attention begins
to wander (les images apparaissent aux arrets et aux rates de la lecture)
(Sartre 1986, p. 126; 1983, p. 70)). Why then take reading to be an imaginary
attitude? It has to do with the fictional character of the world of the novel in
which the reader becomes engaged: the world enjoys a complete existence in
the unreal (Ibid.). The reader comes to believe in the world of the novel if
belief is defined as fascination without existential assumption (fascination
sans position dexistence) (Sartre 1986, p. 326; 1983, p. 197). For reading
is a sort of fascination and when I am reading a detective story I believe inwhat I am reading. But this does not mean in the least that I fail to look
upon the adventures of the detective as imaginary. (Ibid.) Not dependent on
a sequence of images, each of which would stand for an absent referent, the
imaginary experience of reading has more to do with enlarging the limits of
ones possible experience by living a life in the unreal.The intense engagement in a fictional world aligns the example of read-
ing with other imaginary experiences, such as dreaming and hallucination. A
dream is structurally similar to reading, in that it usually consists of a sequence
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144 BEATA STAWARSKA
of interrelated events unfolding in time. Hence every dream is a story (Sartre
1986, p. 322; 1983, p. 195), and it is frequently dreamt as a tale that is read
or narrated by someone (Sartre 1986, p. 320; 1983, p. 194). The feeling of
belonging to the story is however more intensely lived in a dream than in
a literary narrative, due to a more profound identification with a character
representing me in the dream that could ever be realized in aesthetic contem-
plation (Sartre 1986, p. 331; 1983, p. 200). In dreaming, the conscious self
ceases being an external spectator and turns into a captivated participant of
the unreal scenario. Yet despite this intensely lived participation in the dream
world, the positional character of the conscious act remains the same as in the
case of reading. The dreamer, as the reader of a novel, may be said to believe
in the dream story. However, that does not turn the content of the dream intoa reality posited as existent: the positional thesis of the imaginary conscious-
ness remains that of suspended existential belief.11 In fact, as Sartres analyses
demonstrate, the moment the dreaming consciousness starts attributing reality
to things, it necessarily wakes up.
Referring to a dream in which the red coloration of the sun light passing
across a screen was experienced as standing for blood, Sartre observes that
grasping the red light as blood in a dream does not mean that red light produces
a mental image of blood in consciousness; nor is red light apprehended directly
by the dreamer. It is the red light which is experienced as blood. It is the way
we have of apprehending it. (Sartre 1986, p. 317; 1983, p. 192). The dreamer
does notpositthe blood as something existent a dream is not a hallucinatoryperception. The object is simply graspedasifit were blood; the redcolorinvites
a comparison with blood without leading to a (false) perceptual identification
of the light with the bodily liquid. Sartre comments that in a dream, things are
grasped. . .not for what they are but as analogues of other realities. (Sartre
1986, p. 316; 1983, p. 191). He refers to certain dreams cited by Janet, which
clearly show how a successively repeated noise is experienced as standing
fora number of different objects but neverfor itself. Hence the noise of an
alarm clock is at first experienced as an analogue of the noise of a fountain, the
ringing of bells, the rolling of a drum, etc. Once we apprehend the striking
for what it is(that is, a succession of shrill and vibrant sounds) (Ibid.), i. e.
once we posit the striking as existent, we shift from the imaginary attitude to
the perceptual one and wake up (Sartre 1986, pp. 317318; 1983, p. 192).One might conclude from the above that Sartre should make a distinction
between dreaming and hallucination, the latter involving a (false) positional
belief in the reality of the hallucinatory world. Recall, however, that Sartre re-
gards imaginary activity as a free act of consciousness, wherein consciousness
re-asserts its creative potential. And as Dufrenne observes, this freedom to
posit the unreal implies that the positional act of the image-forming conscious-
ness is well aware (of) itself in other words, the imaginary cannot create an
illusion (Duffrenne 1987, p. 47). It follows that the imaginary consciousness
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cannot believe in the hallucinations it has itself produced, just as it cannot be-
lieve in the reality of the dream. The task taken up by Sartre in the discussion
of the Pathology of the imagination (Sartre 1986, pp. 285308; 1983, pp.
171186) is then to demonstrate that hallucination involves a consciousness
enchanted by its own production of (un)realities, unable to emerge from the
hallucinatory world just as it cannot decide to wake up from a dream, and yet
never believing in them in the way it believes in the world of perception.
Sartre challenges the possibility of a veritable hallucination primarily by
disputing the claim that a hallucinating person could attribute reality to the
hallucinatory vision in the same measure that she would posit the perceptual
world as existent. The hallucinating person cannot be said to oscillate between
these two equally real, from her, even though not from an external observerspoint of view, worlds. The hallucinating person does not gain a supplementary
reality cut off from direct access of non-pathological subjects, and to be in-
ferred from the overt behavior of the one who hallucinates. The hallucinating
person is rather a victim of a generalized weakening of the sense of the real
(affaiblissement du sens du reel), an alteration affecting the entire conscious-
ness which prevents her as much from positing the reality of the perceptual as
of the imaginary world (Sartre 1986, p. 293; 1983, p. 176). Referring to a case
of a motor hallucination of a man whose voice remains the same when others
speak to him but (who) knows when it is they who speak and when it is he
(Ibid.), Sartre comments that this patient might be just as unable to perceive
his speech normally when he attributes it to himself as when he claims that itoriginates from an external source. It is from the point of view of an external
observer only that the patients attribution of his speech to himself seems to be
a normal act of perception because it happens to be correct; in fact, the patients
perception is hallucinatory throughout this curious monologuea deux: the
patient hallucinates as much when he assumes that the words he is emitting
are his own as when he attributes them to another. (Sartre 1986, p. 294; 1983,
p. 177; translation corrected). This double inability to have veritable and false
perceptions applies not only to cases of motor but also of auditory and visual
hallucinations according to Sartre. In all cases, the perceptual world is dreamt
or fantasized by the patient in an equal measure as are his hallucinations.Without expressly crediting Pierre Janet for the above interpretation,
Sartres argument about the weakening of the sense of the real closely fol-lows the formers views on the generalized diminishment of the sense of
reality in obsession. Janet commented that the obsessive patients, whom he
also described as the scrupulous because of their attachment to minute even
though apparently banal details, have lost both a sense of reality and an ability
to fall victim to an illusion of reality, the latter being indispensable for false
positional belief or hallucinatory perception. They are generally incapable of
positing the content of their experience as real or existent, insofar as the neces-
sarymentaloperation enabling both perception of realityand illusion of reality
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146 BEATA STAWARSKA
has become diminished.12 Hence the pervasive feeling of the imaginary, the
unreal (le sentiment de limaginaire, de lirreel) accompanying the patients
perception both of the world and of their own selves (Janet, 1919, p. 297). This
unrealization results in the world being apprehended as if through a veil and
with a dream-like quality, the patient often feeling as if she were a personage in
a dream (Janet 1919, p. 288, 297). Janet found also that the so-calleddeja-vu
experience frequently noted amongst the obsessive population is but another
example of this disturbance of perceptual functions and not, as habitually
claimed, of memory. The deja-vu feeling is a negation of thepresentcharacter
of a perceived phenomenon rather than an affirmation of its past or elapsed
(passe) character, and as such exemplifies the generalized loss of reality in
obsession (Janet 1919, p. 296).The diminishment of the reality function, accompanied by unaffected self-
awareness as well as recurrent stereotyped thoughts and images, belong to
the clinical picture of obsessive behavior compiled by Janet; these features
provide also the point of departure for Sartres reflections on the imaginary
consciousness in hallucination. Insofar as the notion of the diminution of the
sense of reality represents the principal trait of the obsessive condition, it is not
surprising to find Sartre apply this condition as a paradigm for theorizing the
hallucinatorystates, the loss of reality beingsupposedly structurally analogous
in hallucination to the one observed in obsessive behavior (Sartre 1986, p.
295; 1983, p. 177). However, it should not be forgotten that Janet himself
wavered before qualifying the imaginary disturbances occurring in obsessionas complete full-blown hallucinations and regarded them rather as imperfect
pseudo-hallucinatory states due precisely to their lack of positional belief. This
difference reflects the divergence between Janets and Sartres views regarding
the possibility of veritable hallucinations accompanied by positional belief.The clinical category which regroups the symptoms of compulsive obses-
sion in Janets nosography bears the name of psychasthenia, and belongs to
the two major nosographic forms of mental disorder studied by Janet, the
latter being represented by hysteria. Without being able to compare the two
groups in detail in the limited scope of this paper, let me note that while Janet
(1999, p. 646) characterizes hysteria by a dissociation of personality and a
so-called narrowing of the field of consciousness (retrecissement du champs
de la conscience), such that hysteric symptoms can occur without the apparentawareness of the person executing them, in obsession, personal consciousness
remains unaffected, thus leading to a paradoxical combination of lucidity and
madness (une folie lucide, un delire avec conscience, une obsession con-
sciente). The patient is clearly aware of her compulsively recurring images
and thoughts and able to report their content in detail to the therapist, even
though unable to subject them to her control.13 Psychasthenia testifies there-
fore to a possible dissociation between consciousness and voluntary action,
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DEFINING IMAGINATION 147
demonstrating that consciousness may operate independently or even in a
direct antagonism to the precepts of the will. This lack of identity between
consciousness and the agency of the will advocated by Janet provides a critical
insight not only for Sartres understanding of pathological forms of imagina-
tion but also for the more general argument concerning the nature of con-
sciousness. According to Sartre, the egological center of voluntary action (I
will) is not a subject but rather an object external or transcendent to conscious
life.14
Consider some examples of imaginary experiences which combine this
loss of voluntary control with unaffected consciousness. One example, cited
in Limaginaire (Sartre 1986, p. 296; 1983, p. 178), is provided by Janets
patient Claire, who was tormented over the years by a frequently recurringvision of a naked man, or more precisely of the exposed masculine genitalia,
in the process of profaning holy bread. Another tormenting image is provided
by the patient On. . ., who has the vision of the soul emerging from the bottom
of his deceased uncle (Janet 1919, p. 10). These two examples of obsessive
thoughts enact unsettling juxtapositions of the spiritual and the holy with
the profane. Typically, however, obsessive images are much more banal and
stereotyped, and what is most distressing is not the content but rather the
frequency of the obsession. Sartre contended in fact that the limited variation
of content in obsessive phenomena, typicallyrepeating a fixed imaginary scene
or thoughtad infinitum, is in line with the poverty of content of hallucinatory
phenomena in general. Despite the apparent inexhaustible richness of imagesin hallucination, hallucinatory episodes tend to consist of minimal content, be
it a sequence of banal insults in auditory hallucinations or a limited number of
shapes and personages in visual hallucinations. This poverty of content lends
further support to the analogy between obsession and hallucination in Sartres
view (Sartre 1986, p. 295; 1983, p. 178).
The attractiveness of the pathological condition affectingconsciousness it-
selfin psychasthenia to Sartres phenomenology does not come as a surprise.
Unlike in hysteria, the psychasthenic condition does not take the form of dra-
matic crises intermittent with periods of relative tranquility, but consists rather
in continuous mental preoccupation with a given subject, punctuated simply
by moments of exasperation (Janet 1999, p. 640). The temporality of obses-
sion can therefore be equated with that of consciousness itself, and obsessioncan provide insight not only into imagination but also into conscious life in
general. Since the work of Janet, it has been recognized that the obsession is
not a strange body that occupies consciousness in spite of itself like a stone in
the liver. In fact, the obsessionis a consciousness; and consequently it has the
same traits of spontaneity and autonomy as does the rest of consciousness.
(Sartre 1986, p. 296; 1983, p. 178).Sartre believes that obsession unveils the so-called impersonal spontane-
ity as the dynamic force driving the consciousness to produce disquieting
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148 BEATA STAWARSKA
thoughts and images. This is what the works of Janet on psychasthenics show:
the tragic nature of the obsession is derived from the fact that the mind forces
itself to reproduce the object of which it stands in fear. There is no mechanical
reappearance of the haunting image nor a monoideism in the classical sense
of the term: but the obsession is willed, reproduced by a sort of dizziness
(vertige), by a spasm of spontaneity. (Sartre 1986, p. 241; 1983, p. 142).
Narratives of Janets patients confirm this experience of an upsurge of an im-
personal force as the motor of their obsession; one patient comments that it
is not me who thinks, who chooses the subject of these thoughts; it is rather
something that thinks in me and I do no more than feel what it thought in my
head. She addsthatit is more effective to resignto the flow ofimages and ideas
than to bring them to a halt, thus pointing to the feelings of loss of agency anddepersonalization which typically accompany the obsessive condition (Janet
1903, p. 266, my translation). Janet observed that this loss of personal control
over the course of ones mental states may lead to the attribution of ones inner
experience to external sources, with the patient reporting being under a direct
influence of foreign agents who make him think obsessive thoughts irrespec-
tively of her will (Janet 1999, p. 678). This syndrome of influence does
not, however, mask the origin of obsessive episodes within consciousness, as
Sartre notes, in accordance with Janet (Sartre 1986, p. 301; 1983, p. 181).
Consider an example of how mental associations can be formed in obses-
sion: a young man claims to be ill because he ate the bread coming from
the baker who was indicated to his mother by an individual whose wife diedon the same day on which he met a servant woman, the memory of whom
troubles him and incites to genital obsessions. Janet comments that such a
cascade of ideas leading from eating bread to the servant woman does not
contain a natural causeeffect sequence similar to the relation between flames
and fire; the arbitrary mental constructions are devised by the patient himself
in order to feed his obsession (Janet 1999, p. 646). Hence the patient both
suffers and perpetuates his obsessive state by connecting the per seunrelated
strings of ideas. He may be very well be aware of the unrealistic nature of
this endeavor and the improbability of his associations, and yet is unable to
bring their current to a halt.15 This compulsive mental productivity reported
by Janet provides inspiration for Sartres aforementioned notion of impersonal
spontaneity at work in hallucination: it is consciousness alone rather than anextrinsic source which lies at the basis of the pathology of imagination.
From the point of view of the etiology of obsession documented by Janet,
the liberation of consciousness impersonal spontaneity results from a gen-
eral weakening of the vital and central nervous functions, otherwise termed
nervous insufficiency, which correspond to the so-calledneurasthenicstate.
The origin of this state is said to be predominantly hereditary; however sec-
ondary causes, such as the intoxication of the organism resulting from contin-
ued malnutrition or a traumatizing event in the patients personal history, may
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play a considerable role as well. This weakening of nervous functions alone
does not yet explain the specificity of the obsessional disorder; the state of
energetic depletion is said to provide the embryonic form of numerous neu-
roses and even psychoses (Janet 1903, p. XI). The initial lowering of nervous
tension turns into a psychasthenic condition when it is accompanied by the
sense of personal inadequacy (incompletude), manifested by the feelings of
doubt, anxiety, and fear, which predispose one towards obsessions. As soon as
some abstract and general ideas or imaginary constructions, which go beyond
the initial diffuse feelings and are likely to center on a particular person or
problem, become attached to these feelings of inadequacy, a passage to the
clinical condition of psychasthenia proper occurs.
Janet defines the psychasthenic symptoms according to two correlated per-spectives, quantitative (or economic) and functional. The former refers to
the individual organization of the psychic energy, the latter to a hierarchi-
cal organization of psychic functions. Economically speaking, the obsessive
condition is characterized by an astheniaor weakness of the psyche (hence
psych-asthenia), specifically a lowering of the psychologicaltension. Janets
psychological economy distinguishes betweenforce, i.e. the quantity of dis-
posable energy, whether latent or manifest, andtension, i.e. the capacity to
utilize this energy at a higher or lower levelin the hierarchical system of mental
operations. In a non-pathological condition, there is an equilibrium between
disposable force and psychological tension such that the person is able to
channel her dynamic capital into normal action in the world. Should thebalance between the energy level and its disposal mechanism be disturbed, as
in the case of lowering of psychological tension in psychasthenia, the energy
will no longer be directed outwards to concrete action but wasted in the pro-
cess of compulsively recurring inner episodes, such as interminable mental
ruminations, abstract speculations, anguishing doubts, manias of verification,
precision and perfection.The superior psychological functions, which depend on an elevated level
of psychological tension, subsumed under the function of mental synthesis (la
synthese mentale), are perturbed as a resultof this energetic imbalance. Mental
synthesis is a function of adaptability to the changing environment which
integrates the elements provided by perception and memory. As such, mental
synthesis includes the aforementioned reality function, as well as the relatedpsychological abilities of will and attention. These high value operations of
mental synthesis are marked by the so-called co-efficient of reality, a term
adopted from Spencer, which designates action and knowledge of real events.
Following the principle of Janets psychologicalhierarchy which stipulatesthat
the higher the reality co-efficient of an act is, the sooner does it diminish at the
onset of psychasthenia, the operations of mental synthesis are the first to wane
in obsession (Janet 1903, p. 497). As a result of this suspension of superior
functions, inferior mental operations which can be fully exercised despite
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150 BEATA STAWARSKA
the lowering of psychological tension, such as non-task-directed emotions,
memory and fantasy, take over.
Janets hierarchical account facilitates a distinction between psychological
health and illness on the basis of a polarized top/bottom scale, which distin-
guishes between superior high tension activities accompanied by existential
belief and inferior low tension activities with existential belief suspended.
Insofar as reality makes a high demand on the individual psychic economy,
it is the reality function which gets affected in mental asthesia; paradoxically
then, it is not cognitive ability but concrete pragmatic action that receives
the most elevated place in this hierarchy of psychic functions. Based on this
hierarchization of mental and practical processes, it is not surprising that the
author occasionally devalues philosophical pursuits as an example of suchan inferior psychic activity, removed from the demands set by the real world
and derived rather from the pervasive feeling of uncertainty and doubt, which
fuels a quest for apodictic knowledge and motivates existential questions of
the type: does God exist? or why is there something rather than nothing?
(Janet 1903, p. 302). Based on observations of his psychasthenics preoccupied
with the abstract and shying the concrete, Janet concludes that cogitating is a
far lower achievement than real action (Janet 1919, p. 494).16
Following the diminishment of reality in psychasthenia, mental activity is
preserved intact but executed excessively, escaping the control of the will. Fre-
quent imaginary activity, including hallucination, is but a plastic expression
of this generalized liberation of mental productivity from personal control.Referring back to the case of the patient Claire, Janet comments that her
sacrilegious vision marks a culmination point of a longer process of men-
tal preoccupations with this religious subject, including prolonged studies
of divine anatomy in the church (Janet 1919, p. 64). Hence it is the sub-
jects own mental efforts that produce the image of profanation (Janet 1999,
p. 647). The visual character of this symbol confers some exteriority upon
it, yet it fails to appear as an element of the physical world nonetheless.
Hence the lack of belief in the existence of the visual scenario, which ap-
plies, in Sartres view, to all cases of hallucinatory behavior. Janet confines it,
however, to visual constructions in delirious obsession, where hallucinatory
representation is accomplished only partially, despite the apparent effort of
the subject to affirm the reality of what she sees. Janet speaks of a hallucina-tory mania (manie de lhallucination) to underscore these futile hallucinatory
efforts in obsession, in distinction from a veritable hallucination accompa-
nied by existential belief. The latter complete form of hallucination is typical
of hysteric disorders, in Janets view, where the imaginary vision attains the
richness and detail akin to actual visual perception (Janet 1919, pp. 501503).
As previously noted, this claim points to a limited analogy between Janets
and Sartres views on what typifies hallucination: it is Sartre, but not Janet,
who argues, firstly, that the content of hallucination is by definition poor and
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DEFINING IMAGINATION 151
schematic, and secondly, that hallucination is never accompanied by positional
belief.
Despite these divergences and potential difficulties in adopting Janets
views on obsession as a paradigm case for hallucination, it remains uncon-
testable that Janets observations provide a major source of inspiration for
Sartres thinking about the pathological forms of imaginary activity and feed
his account of imagination as a productive rather than merely reproductive
faculty. The lines of convergence between Janets account of obsessive behav-
ior and Sartres theory of imagination include the suspension of existential
belief and the related liberation of the impersonal consciousness from the
constraints of reality, which facilitates the spontaneous productivity of con-
sciousness, notably the imaginary production. It can be concluded thereforethat Janets views on the effects of the obsessive condition on consciousness
constructively influenced Sartres thinking about imagination, providing a ba-
sis for an alternative theory to the one based on pictorial representation, which
Sartre drew from Husserl. They are the source of an account of imagination
which emphasizes the creative and unrealizing potential of the imagination,
over against the primarily representational and reality-bound one contained in
the picture-family theory. As such they make room for a theory of imagination
which is not subservient to perception, but operates in relative independence
from perceptual experience. Henceforth, even though Husserl provides the
foundation for the prevailing theory of imagination as pictorial representa-
tion inLimaginaire, it is Janets clinical studies and theoretical observationson obsessive behavior that enrich the alternative current in Sartres thinking
about imagination as spontaneous and self-determined creativity, which un-
derpins both the pathological derivatives of imagination as well as its creative
expression in fantasy and fiction. It seems therefore valid to conclude from
this overview of Husserls and Janets impact on Sartre that his early study in
phenomenological psychology actively combines contributions drawn from
phenomenological as well as psychological disciplines, relying in equal mea-
sure on reflective and applied methods in an attempt to arrive at an exhaustive
definition of the imagination.
Notes
1. Some of my discussion of Husserls influence on Sartre was published previously in
Stawarska (2001).
2. Husserl, E. 1982. In his two books on the imagination, Sartre makes references also
to Husserls Logical Investigations, Cartesian Mediations and the lectures On the Phe-
nomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time.
3. According to Sartre, Humes distinction between impressions and ideas on the basis of
intensity illustrates the confusionbetween perception and imagination very well. Following
Hume, Those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence, we may name
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152 BEATA STAWARSKA
impressions. . .By ideas I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning. . ..
(Hume,Treatise; quoted in Sartre 1986, p. 18; 1983, p. 2).4. For further analysis of the interdependence of the three elements of a picture, see e.g.,
Bernet, Kern and Marbach 1993, pp. 151152.
5. See Claesens (1996, pp. 13035) discussion on the problem of material content of mental
pictures. Having put into question the possibility of an internal picture, Claesen con-
cludes: Dans lanalyse des imaginations externes, il faut [. . .] insister sur lessentialite
duBilddingpour leBildobjektet ainsi reconnatre la materialite de limage, image qui a le
pouvoir de representer un sujet. Pour ce qui est de limagination interne, cette theorie de
limagination est serieusement remise en question sil est vrai quon ne peut concevoir
une image-objet transcendante qui soit en meme temps pure ou immaterielle; si on suit ce
modele, alors une imagination interne est proprement impossible.
6. Translation corrected. Misleadingly, un donne physique was translated into English as
a psychic factor.7. This argument can best be presented by means of a standard-form categorical syllogism:
1. All pictures have a material content.
2. Mental image is a picture.
3. Therefore mental images have a material content.
Thanks to the syllogism, one can see more clearly where the logical necessitythat mental
images have material content lies. Insofar as mental images belong to the general class of
intuitive analogical representations of absent objects, they must be material, even though
their materiality is never given directly.
8. The question of what makes up this transcendent psychic content is studied by Sartre
in the section of the no longer certain but merely probable part ofLimaginaire(Part
Two: The Probable the nature of the analogue in the mental image). Sartres argumentis that affects and kinaestheses provide content of imaginary acts. Both affective and ki-
naesthetic acts are argued to possess a representational potential and to intend (affective
and kinaesthetic) analogues, which serve as a building block for the consciousness of an
image. Sartre implies that there is an intention of an analogical material discernible in
motility and emotions, just as there is a consciousness of a (physical and mental) ana-
logical material discernible in imagination; these rudimentary (affective and kinaesthetic)
proto-pictures are said to provide content for imaginary representations or mentalpictures
properly so-called.
9. A similar point has been made byKripke (1982, p. 24) about unicorns: I think that even if
archaeologists or geologists were to discover tomorrow some fossils conclusively showing
the existence of animals in the past satisfying everything we know about unicorns from
the myth of the unicorn, that would not show that there were unicorns.
10. Pour quune conscience puisse imaginer il faut quelle echappe au monde par sa nature
meme, il faut quelle puisse tirer delle-meme une position de recul par rapport au monde.
En un mot, il faut quelle soit libre (Sartre 1983, p. 353; 1986, p. 213).
11. Everything that happens in a dream is something I believe. I do no more than believe it:
that is, the objects are not themselves present to my intuition (Sartre 1983, p. 315; 1986,
p. 191.)
12. Non seulement ils [les scrupuleux] nont plus lapprehension de la realite veritable, mais
ils narrivent pas non plus a lillusion de la realite. Ce fait suffit a prouver. . . que le
trouble ne consiste pas dans une action insuffisante de la realite sur le sujet, mais dans une
insuffisance des operations mentales qui conduisent soit a la perception de la realite, soit
a lillusion de cette perception (Janet 1919, p. 448).
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DEFINING IMAGINATION 153
13. Les hysteriques ontperdu laction conscienteet personnelle,les psychastheniques nont
perdu que laction volontaire et libre. (Janet 1999, p. 698).
14. This argument is developed in Sartre (1972). For an overview, see Stawarska (2002). It
would be worthwhile to trace Janets influence on Sartres postulate of non-egological
consciousness as well, especially as Sartre directly refers to Janet to support his theory of
the monstrous freedom of consciousness in this text.
15. Lobsede. . .est tout pret a declarer son obsession ridicule; mais tout cela nempeche pas
quil sen preoccupe, quil y pense sans cesse. Il y croit donc dune certaine mani ere mais
il ny croit pas completement. (Janet 1999, p. 652).
16. Consider also this passage from Les Nevroses (Janet 1999, p. 774): Qui ne croirait, a
premiere vue, quun raisonnement syllogistique demande plus de travail cerebral que la
perception dun arbre ou dune fleur avec le sentiment de leur realite et cependant, je crois
que ce point de sens commun se trompe. Loperation la plus difficile, celle qui disparat
le plus vite et le plus souvent, dans toutes les depressions, est. . .
lapprehension de larealite sous toutes ses formes. Elle contient laction qui nous permet dagir sur les objets
exterieurs, laction surtout difficile, quand elle est sociale, quand elle doit sexercer, non
seulement surle milieuphysique, mais encoresur le milieusocial dans lequelnous sommes
plonges. . .
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