The phenomenological term “imaginal” was coined and introduced into the French language by Henry Corbin (1903-1978). Throughout his work, Corbin used the “imaginal” as his fundamental concept, as the very foundation of a Weltanschauung. Etymolo-gically, this new term was derived from the Latin phrase mundus imaginalis. As for its meaning, it is synonymous with several Persian and Arabic technical terms, such as alam al-mithal (the world of images, archetypical ideas), malakut (the subtle world of the souls), barzakh (interworld), (...) hurqalya (the world of the celestial Earth, of celestial corporeality), na-koja-abad (the land of nowhere). These technical terms taken from theosophical literature have a meaning very close to that of the term “imaginal.” They translate contemplative experience arising from the theophanic imagination or agent imagination (imaginatio vera). From the point of view of location, they designate the qualitative space of this imagination (mundus imaginalis). (shrink)

Estudo teórico-conceitual que procura desenvolver uma análise contemporânea da cultura e das relações sociais a partir de imagens. Com motivo das mudanças nas sociedades capitalistas, interessa-nos refletir sobre as inter-relações entre essas transformações e o surgimento de novas práticas culturais que produzem novos exercícios do visual, da estética e do imaginal. Em suma, propomos um exercício teórico que tenta produzir novos conceitos para pensar e refletir criticamente sobre a estética e a produção visual das imagens no mundo social. Palavras-chave: (...) Visualidade; Consumo; Identidades. (shrink)

Lo scopo fondamentale di questo saggio è affrontare il nesso tra politica e immaginazione per mezzo del concetto di immaginale, inteso come ciò che è fatto di immagini. La strategia è quella di aggredire l’intreccio di politica e immaginale attraverso un duplice movimento, dal con­cetto di immaginale a quello di politica e viceversa, per poi passare a un’analisi delle sue tra­sfor­mazioni nell’epoca globale.The aim of this article is to tackle the nexus of politics and imagination through the concept of (...) class='Hi'>imaginal, understood as simply what is made of ima­ges. The main strategy consists then in tackling such a nexus through a double movement, from the concept of imaginal to that of politics and vice versa. In conclusion, I also analyse their transformations. (shrink)

The ability to judge spatial relations from perspectives that differ from one's current body orientation and location is important for many everyday activities. Despite considerable research on imaginal perspective taking, however, detailed computational accounts of the processes involved in this ability are missing. In this contribution, I introduce Smart (Spatial Memory Access by Reference Frame SelecTion) as a computational cognitive model of imaginal perspective taking processes. In assuming that imaginal perspective taking is governed by reference frame selection (...) for memory access and subsequent motor activation, Smart is able to explain and simulate key findings on human imaginal perspective taking. In addition to providing novel insight into the mechanisms underlying imaginal perspective taking, Smart also has several implications for our view on spatial memory, more generally. In particular, Smart supports the idea that enduring spatial representations are essentially orientation-free and that spatial representations are best viewed as flexible combinations of representation structures and reference frames. (shrink)

Imagination has always been a mysterious issue for modern philosophy and psychology. In this paper, however, I will not deal with modern theories of imagination; instead, I will suggest an alternative notion of imaginal power by stepping back toward Persian illuminative thought within which we may glimpse a hint of a transcendent concept of imagination as the source of human subjectivity and its power to create the object and the world. My objective here is to extend some noetic aspects (...) of this concept and extract further conclusions theoretically. To this end, I will first introduce a brief account of the noetic characteristic of the Illuminationist perspective of the imagination, then I outline aspects of its efficiency which may shed some light on the modern debate on the subject and its relation to the object. (shrink)

Watson reported moderate correlations between the Iowa Sleep Experience Survey and self-report measures of dissociation and schizotypy. Subsequent investigations reported similar, although somewhat more modest, correlations between the ISES and measures of dissociation and schizotypy, as well as with measures of absorption and negative affect. The present study tested subjects in conditions in which the measures of sleep experiences were administered with other measures in either the same or a different test context. We determined that sleep experiences were associated with (...) measures of dissociation, absorption, and schizotypy. We closely replicated Watson and found that the ISES correlations with other measures were not affected by the test context. We suggest that Watson’s hypothesized common domain of unusual cognitive and perceptual experiences may be underpinned by common ties to imaginative experiences. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Cybernetics, Reflexivity and Second-Order Science” by Louis H. Kauffman. Upshot: This commentary reflects broadly on the concept of eigenform and reflexive domains, focusing on the idea that second-order science is neither the same as nor completely distinct from ordinary living.

En este trabajo, concebido como breves ejercicios, intentamos pensar la importancia de la Metafísica, desde los conceptos de Espacio Imaginal, del fenomenólogo de la religión, Corbin y de Espacio Interior, del matemático Thom, pensando que tal reflexión nos ayudaría a comprender la realidad del asiento del Imaginario, del Ideario y de la Memoria Colectiva de las Sociedades, ya que cada una de esas dimensiones actúa según la lógica espacial. Thinking Metaphysics from "Imaginal Space" and "Inner Space" Short exercises.This (...) paper, conceived as short exercises, is intended to think about the importance of metaphysics, from the notions of Imaginal Space of the phenomenologist of religion, Henry Corbin and Inner Space, of the mathematician René Thom. Thinking that such reflection would help us understand the reality of the place of the Imaginary, Ideology and Collective Memory of Societies, as each of these dimensions acts as the spatial logic. (shrink)

The Hollywood fiction places the spectators in an imaginal world, allows to actualize the mythologies which crossed the ages and to approach the representation of the dreams. The cinematographic device puts the spectators in an intermediary position between the sensible and the intelligible and creates, from this in-between, a new vector of fiction. Hollywood brings the public back to an original world where the moving image of reality pushes the creation of a mythological and dreamlike narrative. Thanks to psychoanalysis (...) and cinema, mythology and dreams, which are fundamental properties of the human mind, have been revisited and their representation has taken new forms. Hollywood has made an aesthetic adaptation of them by inscribing them in a new form of fictional narration that adds a space of communication between men outside the senses and the word in an attempt to approach and circumscribe what could constitute the inexpressible dimension of the human condition. (shrink)

This book describes what an “art of multiculturalism” could be and how in turn multiculturalism could be conceived as a form of art. It focuses on the early and middle work of Indian-born U.S. writer Bharati Mukherjee, in particular on her understanding of the “fusion” of literature and painting as a tool to inspire the creation of a “new global society” by empowering minorities through fostering and multiplying “differences in unity” and “unities in difference”. The book includes, in condensed ways, (...) an explanation of Mukherjee’s use of ancient Indian painting techniques for postmodern writing; and it provides a short introduction to the relation between multiculturalism, postmodernity and “imaginal politics”. The book is written in an easy to read style accessible to all interested in the topic: high school and university students and teachers; those generally interested in the interface between literature, the arts and politics; and specialists in multicultural studies and global and international studies. The book is particularly suited to use in teaching. (shrink)

Right brain-damaged patients with unilateral neglect, who ignore left-sided visual events, may also omit left-sided details when describing known places from memory. Modulating the orienting of visual attention may ameliorate imaginal neglect. A first step toward explaining these phenomena might be to postulate that space-related imagery is a cognitive activity involving attentional and intentional aspects.

This paper deals with the theoretical concepts of image and imagery as used by the foremost imaginal psychologists. Attributing primary epistemological status to image and imagery, imaginal psychology school developed a new theory of image and imagery, questioning the older thesis on the derivative and secondary epistemological status of the image. Using Jung’s concept of the autonomous psyche of an essentially archetypal nature, Hillman started to question Jung’s concept of the Self as a central archetype symbolizing a sort (...) of disguised traditional monotheism (the Christian God, the Jewish Yahweh etc.) like Freud’s sexuality (id) or central cultural myth (the Oedipus myth). Imaginal psychology defends essential sovereignty and the equality of all images and the resultant polytheist psychology. Jungian studies set out it this direction, giving birth to parallel developments to imaginal psychology in various fields. Derrida’s and Feyerabend’s rejection of an ultimate referential frame was not identical to but corresponds to Hillman’s and Vannoy Adam’s discovery that it is fantasy that rules the psyche. (shrink)

This article explores the effect that communications technology has on hegemonic power. The first section establishes a theoretical framework combining Foucault’s carceral archipelago theory with Chiara Bottici’s concept of the social imaginal describing the medium through which inter- and trans-subjective imagination occurs. The remainder employs this framework to examine how four technological innovations (print media, radio, television and Internet) impact the (re)production of discursive hegemonic ideology, integrating a variety of historical and contemporary theories on public discourse and ideological dominance. (...) I conclude by arguing that each case demonstrates a dialectic pattern that explains the techno-social evolution of the carceral archipelago. (shrink)

According to Rorty, philosophy is most of time the result of a contest between an entrenched vocabulary, which has become a nuisance, and half-formed new vocabulary which vaguely promises great things. In this paper, I will explore the contest between the entrenched vocabulary of imagination (and ‘the imaginary’ as its necessary counterpart) and a half-formed vocabulary that promises a lot of interesting things: the vocabulary of the ‘the imaginal’. After introducing the concept of the imaginal, I will move (...) on to show its force and, in particular, the role it plays in contemporary politics and in so-called post-Fordist capitalism. (shrink)

This article explores the implications of Balibar’s strategic decision to add Freud to the series of the thinkers of the transindividual. This move, I argue, both illuminates the other philosophers’ contribution to our understanding of transindividuality, but also creates some tensions within the triad Spinoza, Marx, Freud. After exploring both aspects, the reciprocal tensions and the reciprocal illumination, I will move on to analysing the relationship between the transindividual and the imaginal, as both concepts signal a questioning of the (...) dichotomy ‘individual versus society’ and thus can be seen as the result of the same movement of thought. (shrink)

To imagine is to form a mental representation that does not aim at things as they actually, presently, and subjectively are. One can use imagination to represent possibilities other than the actual, to represent times other than the present, and to represent perspectives other than one’s own. Unlike perceiving and believing, imagining something does not require one to consider that something to be the case. Unlike desiring or anticipating, imagining something does not require one to wish or expect that something (...) to be the case. // -/- Imagination is involved in a wide variety of human activities, and has been explored from a wide range of philosophical perspectives. Philosophers of mind have examined imagination’s role in mindreading and in pretense. Philosophical aestheticians have examined imagination’s role in creating and in engaging with different types of artworks. Epistemologists have examined imagination’s role in theoretical thought experiments and in practical decision-making. Philosophers of language have examined imagination’s role in irony and metaphor. // -/- Because of the breadth of the topic, this entry focuses exclusively on contemporary discussions of imagination in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition. (shrink)

Retraction Note to: Topoi 26:221–229 DOI 10.1007/s11245-007-9015-yThe author has retracted this article published in Topoi Volume 26, Issue 2, pages 221-229, DOI: 10.1007/s11245-007-9015-y because it contains passages from the previously published manuscript by Mikel Dufrenne The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience , without acknowledging the source. The author apologizes to the Journal and readers as well as the author of the original work.

An influential objection to the epistemic power of the imagination holds that it is uninformative. You cannot get more out of the imagination than you put into it, and therefore learning from the imagination is impossible. This paper argues, against this view, that the imagination is robustly informative. Moreover, it defends a novel account of how the imagination informs, according to which the imagination is informative in virtue of its analog representational format. The core idea is that analog representations represent (...) relations ‘for free,’ and this explains how the imagination can contain more information than is put into it. This account makes important contributions to both philosophy of mind, by showing how the imagination can generate new content that is not represented by a subject’s antecedent mental states, and epistemology, by showing how the imagination can generate new justification that is not conferred by a subject’s antecedent evidence. (shrink)