Prolegomenon to a Phenomenology of Imagination J. Douglas Rabb Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 36, No. 1. (Sep., 1975), pp. 74-81. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8205%28197509%2936%3A1%3C74%3APTAPOI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O Philosophy and Phenomenological Research is currently published by International Phenomenological Society.
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DISCUSSION PROLEGOMENON TO A PHENOMENOLOGY OF IMAGINATION My purpose in this paper is threefold. First, I wish to present a critical account of the phenomenological analysis of the imagination. Secondly, I wish to suggest one type of possible solution to some of the difpiculties I find in this sort of account of imagination. Finally, in overcoming the aforementioned difficulties I hope to cast some light on the concept of intentionality which I believe to be a concept central to phenomenological description. In my critical examination of the phenomenology of imagination I shall rely primarily on the account presented by Fraser Cowley in his book A Critique of British Empiricism. My justification for examining, in some detail, this work rather than, say, Jean-Paul Sartre's L'lmaginaire is, first, that Cowley unlike Sartre, is writing specifically for the English-speaking reader and against the background of British philosophy. And secondly, although he acknowledges his indebtedness to Sartre,' I believe that the arguments of A Critique o f British Empiricism are intended to stand on their own and are in no way dependent upon the validity of Sartre's arguments, from which admittedly some of Cowley's are derived. It would, I think, be a blatant misreading of Cowley to regard his book as simply a commentary on Sartre. Unfortunately Cowley seems to have been read, at least by some, in this rather unsatisfactory way. For example Alastair Hannay in his book Mental Images - a Defence seems simply to dismiss Cowley by saying "My points in mitigation of Sartre's critique of Hume in this section apply equally to Fraser Cowley's somewhat uncritical rehearsal of it in Chapter 4 of his A Critique of British E m p i r i c i ~ m . " Although ~ Cowley is presenting an account of the imagination which undoubtedly could be described as Sartrian, it is quite wrong to regard any of his arguments as simply an "uncritical rehearsal" of Sartre's. This sort of approach would overlook a phenomenological analysis of imagination which is not only more developed than Sartre's but also more intelligible, at least to a philosopher raised in the British analytic tradition. In fact, I suggest that Fraser Cowley's A Critique of British Empiricism can, and hopefully will, do for continental phenomenology what A. J. Ayer's 1
2
F. Cowley, A Critique o f British Empiricism. (London, 1968). Pp. ix & 24. A. Hannay, Mental Images - a Defence. (London, 1971). P. 137. This is Hannay's
only mention of Cowley although he devotes an entire chapter to Sartre.
Language, T r u t h a n d Logic once did for the Logical Positivism of the Vienna circle. A concept central to phenomenological analysis in Cowley's sense is 'reflexive awareness.' I begin, therefore with a brief discussion of reflexive or phenomenological awareness. It is important to note a t the outset that reflection is not introspection in the 'offical sense' of inner observation on a par with 'extra~pection.'~ In fact, as Cowley points out, it is not observation at all:
.
But reflexion is not a higher order act . . . It is not observation . . The object is the object of experience in the ordinary sense - the tree that one sees, for instance. An experience becomes reflexive; reflexion makes explicit what is implicit in it, it is the prise de conscience, not the observation of another object.4
In other words, when I am reflexively aware of seeing, say, a tree, I am aware not only of the tree but also of the fact that I am seeing the tree. This is what is meant by reflection making explicit what is implicit in experience. As indicated in the above quotation, reflection is not, in any sense, a higher order act. In fact, Cowley stresses the point that, though it is important, the reflexive act is common to all of us, and not something which only phenomenologists engage in: Reflexion, or self-awareness merely makes explicit what is implicit, in the sense that we take it for granted. If reflexion were not commonplace, we could not use or understand the countless ordinary words which refer to and describe, not only what is the case in the world, but our experience of it, and words such as "here" and "now" which have no meaning apart from our experience of embodied being, being a body.5
I have noted that reflection cannot properly be called 'observation.' It follows, of course, that that of which we are reflexively aware cannot be an object of observation. This central point, however, requires further clarification. The reason Cowley does not wish to allow reflection to be regarded as observation is that in order to observe, in the primary sense of that term, one must be bodily present, the observed must be visible, the observer using his eyes, etc.: Reflexion is not observation, at least not in the ordinary sense. It is only by being a body that one can observe anything from anywhere. To be aware of oneself is to be aware of the body one is. The only sense in which one can literally observe it is the sense in which one can see a certain amount of it. .6
.
Op. cit., Cowley. Pp. 126-134.
Ibid., pp. 193-194.
Ibid., p. 135.
6 Ibid., p. 74.
3 4 5
Cowley explicitly warns us against misdes.cribing reflection as the observation of an object: It is often spoken of as a consciousness of being conscious, as if the being conscious were an object. But when we are, for example, reflexively aware of seeing something, if we were not effectively seeing something we could not be aware of seeing it. What we see does not cease to be the object, else we would To be aware of seeing is to be aware of seeing with one's not be seeing. eyes, and of seeing that thing over there and visible.7
..
Given his account of reflection, it is not surprising that Cowley, in his reflexive analysis of imagination and mental imagery, denies that mental images are objects. In fact, to regard the mental image as a kind of intramental object is to be guilty of what both Sartre and Cowley call the illusion of immanence?
...
...
The mental image is hypostatised as an intra-mental entity This is what Sartre calls the illusion of immanence, the belief that the objects of consciousness are in consciousness, in the mind, as if the mind were a container. The use of the word "contents" in this connection probably derives from it.9
Cowley argues that when we become reflexively aware of imagining something we are not inspecting an intramental object called a mental image; rather we are aware of a certain kind of consciousness of something. The image, as Sartre says, is a consciousness of , an imaging, an imaging consciousness, and since it is just an imaging there is nothing 'in" the image but what ones actually images. Hence it cannot be examined and scrutinised as a picture can be, for there is nothing to scrutinise or examine.10
Of course, this imaging o r imagining consciousness is necessarily intentional. That is, it must be a consciousness of something. - According to Cowley we are nevei aware of simply forming an image per se. Rather we become reflexively aware of an imaging consciousness of an 'x,' where 'x' is any thing or situation existent or nonexistent, actual or possible, present or absent, etc. As Cowley puts it: An image is an imaging, a consciousness of, a mode of intending or meaning an object. As Sartre says: When I imagine my friend Peter, it is Peter I am imagining; when I have an image of Peter, it is Peter himself that I mean. To image or imagine him is to mean or intend that very man in person.11
..
I suggest that this aspect of the phenomenological analysis of imagination runs into serious difficulties. Having abandoned the concept of a mental image, how is it to distinguish the different forms of imagination usually distinguished in terms of the presence 7 Ibid., p. 73.
a Jean-Paul Sartre, L'lmaginaire. (Paris, 1940). P. 16.
9 0 p . cit., Cowley, p. 12.
10 Ibid., p. 31.
11 Ibid.,
p. 198.
o r absence of imagery? Though I agree that "to think in images is not t o contemplate . . . intramental entities,"'* there is, surely, a phenomenological difference between imageless thought and thinking in images; between the case of imagining something, in which we would not be tempted to speak of images, and the case of visualizing something, in which we would be so tempted. In both cases, however, what is meant or intended is not an image, but what is imaginedthe person, thing, or situation. In neither case are we contemplating a mental image; rather we are conscious of what we are imagining. Nevertheless, it makes sense in one case, but not in the other, to claim to be able to contemplate the image as such, as opposed to what it is an image of. In other words, we can, when picturing or visualizing something, contemplate a mental image, though we need not and, indeed, normally do not. What we are normally interested in is the thing, person, or situation imagined. However, there is surely a difference between picturing 'x' and imagining 'x' but not picturing it. In both cases we mean or intend 'x,' but in the case of picturing or visualizing it we can, though we need not, contemplate the image we have formed of 'x.' It can, for example, be described as hazy, feeble, and lacking in detail, or as clear, vivid, steady, and detailed. The point I wish to emphasize is that there is a distinction between 'visualizing' and 'imagining' in the sense explained, between thinking in images and imageless thought. If the concept of a mental image is analyzed as nothing but a consciousness of something, how can this distinction be made? The short answer to this question may be thought to be, simply, that the one is an imaging consciousness while the other is an imagining consciousness. Certainly both Sartre and Cowley would say that to become aware of a mental image of something is simply to become reflexively aware of imaging that thing. My question, however, still arises, though in a slightly different form. How does the phenomenological description of an imaging consciousness of something differ from the phenomenological description of an imagining consciousness of that thing? It is tempting, though, of course, quite wrong, to answer that the imaging consciousness of something involves the f o v i n g or having of a mental image, or images, of that thing, whereas the imagining consciousness does not. There are, I suggest, even more serious problems with what I shall call, for want of a better name, the imaging consciousness interpretation of imagery. A brief example will suffice to illustrate the 12 Ibid.,
p. 34.
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PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH
sort of difficulties I have in mind. If asked to visualize the Cheshire cat of Lewis Carroll fame, there is no difficulty in doing so. Further, if asked to imagine his body fading away so that only his head remains, a typical Cheshire trick, this too is not difficult. Now suppose you visualize a quite ordinary cat. Suppose further, that part of the image you form grows dull, becomes faint, vague, feeble, and eventually disappears completely, so that all you are left with is a fairly vivid image of the cat's head. At least this is how the experience might be described in ordinary language. Note that, in this case, you are not imagining a Cheshire cat doing one of his typical Cheshire tricks. You are, rather, imagining a quite ordinary cat, though you are having difficulty in, as it were, 'holding' the complete image of it. How can this sort of distinction be drawn in the imaging consciousness interpretation of imagery? As Cowley says it must be a consciousness of something. Are both the above cases to be described as an imaging consciousness of a cat without a body? The example of the Cheshire cat may certainly be described in this way. But what of the other case? It is, surely, consciousness of a quite ordinary cat, just as a portrait of a person showing only his head'and shoulders is a portrait of that person and not a depiction of how he would look after a rather serious amputation. In the case of the image of the ordinary cat, then, the vagueness, fleetingness, etc. are, surely, descriptions of the image, not of the cat. In'the Cheshire example, they are descriptions of the cat, but they are not normally so. Not only can the imaging consciousness interpretation of imagery not account for the above difference in what we are conscious of, it also, I suggest, cannot account for the phenomenological similarities in the above example. In ordinary language, these similarities are similarities of the images in both cases. Although we mean in the one case a Cheshire cat, and in the other an ordinary cat, there is a sense in which we do, in fact, have the same image in both casesi.e., a fading cat image. I am suggesting, then, that the imaging consciousness interpretation of imagery is inadequate because, although it does, perhaps, offer an alternative description of a simple case of picturing something, it cannot account for all the phenomenological similarities and differences of which we can become reflexively aware. Of course, it serves no purpose to claim that we cannot have these experiences simply because the theory which we wish to hold is unable to cope with them. It must be noted that I am not arguing that a more traditional description in terms of reifications, such as mental images, is any more
adequate. It most certainly is not, as an understanding of the implications of reflexive awareness makes perfectly clear. Although I submit that the sort of phenomena I have described is not in the least uncommon, I do admit, indeed insist, that my description, as it stands, is guilty of the illusion of immanence. What is needed, then, is a more sophisticated account of the phenomena inadequately described above, which is consistent with Cowley's point that awareness of this sort of experience is reflexive. In conclusion, I wish to suggest one possible way in which such an account might be developed. Thus far I have accepted uncritically Cowley's assumption that an imaging consciousness is intentional-that it must be a consciousness of something. But what, precisely, is meant by this claim? I suggest that the term 'of' is used in two quite different senses in expressions like 'an imaging of 'x.' ' The most common sense is, of course, the one in which the phrase introduced by the word 'of' denotes the thing imagined. Here the value of the variable 'x' in 'an imaging consciousness of 'x' ' may be anything from 'Peter in Paris' to 'a dragon terrorizing the, city of London.' I shall call this sense of 'of' the 'referential-of' or the 'intentional-of.' The second, less recognized sense of 'of' in expressions like 'an imaging of 'x' ' is one in which the word 'of' introduces a phrase which serves to explain, or at least further describe, the process or activity indicated by the verb it follows-in this case the verb 'imaging.' Some examples of parallel expressions in which 'of' is used to perform a similar function will help to elucidate this point. In the expressions 'the dancing of a waltz' and 'the jumping of a leap' the terms 'waltz' and 'leap' simply describe more precisely, the sort of activity the respective verbs indicate is occurring. The first expression tells us not only that there is dancing occurring, but also that this dancing is of a certain type, viz., a waltz as opposed to some of the more energetic varieties. Similarly, the jumping is in the manner of a leap rather than, say, a hop or a spring or a bound. The terms 'waltz' and 'leap' function in the above expressions as, what may be called, subordinate connate accusatives. They are subordinate in generality to their verbs. This is why they give us more information about the activity in question. They are connate accusatives because they are intimately bound up with the activities they are accusatives of. They are, in fact, nothing but more specific descriptions of the activity in question. It is helpful t o contrast the connate accusative with what may be called an alien
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PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH
accusative.13 Examples of the latter would be, 'the jumping of a fence, a ditch, etc.,' or 'the striking of an anvil' as opposed to 'the striking of a blow.' I am suggesting, then, that the second sense of 'of' in expressions like 'an imaging or imagining of 'x' ' is one in which 'of' introduces a connate accusative. This sense of 'of' I shall call the 'appositive-of' or the 'of' of apposition.14 In this sense of the word, 'of' introduces a phrase which functions in much the same way as does any noun in apposition. Take, for example, the following sentence: 'That famous French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, is the author of L'lmaginaire.' Here of course, the proper name 'Jean-Paul Sartre' stands in apposition to the noun phrase 'that famous French philosopher.' The statement, obviously, does not indicate that two people, a famous philosopher and Jean-Paul Sartre, collaborated in writing L'Imaginaire. Rather, it indicates that that famous French philosopher, who happens to be Jean-Paul Sartre, is the author of the book in question. Similarly, when 'of' is used in its appositive sense in expressions such as 'an imaging or imagining of 'x' ' the phrase introduced by 'of' does not denote the object imagined. It is not an alien accusative. It indicates, rather, what sort of imaging or imagining is taking place. In other words, it is a further description of the imaging or imagining. It indicates, as it were, the manner in which the imaging is occurring, or what sort of imagining is taking place.15 The distinction between imagining and visualizing, which I made above in terms of the presence or absence of imagery, can now be made, without falling into the illusion of immanence. Indeed, it is even possible to talk about the consciousness of an image, provided that it is recognized that this consciousness is reflexive, and that the word 'of' is the appositive-of. It introduces a phrase which indicates what form or species of imagining is occurring, viz., visualizing or imaging as opposed to, say, imagining that something is the case, or supposing, or pretending, etc. But, what of the phenomenological similarities and differences illustrated by my examples of the image of the Cheshire cat doing one of his typical Cheshire tricks, and the 13 This sort of distinction is drawn by: C. J. Ducasse, Nature, Mind and Death. (La Salle, 1951). Pp. 2541, and S. Alexander, Space, Time and Deity. (London, 1920). Vol. 1, pp. 12 f . 14 The expression 'the 'of' of apposition' is derived from G. I?. Stout. Cf. "The Nature of Mental Activity," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. Vol. VIII, (1907-08). Pp. 253-254. l5My analysis of imagery is more fully worked out in "Imaging: An Adverbial Analysis," Dialogue, Vol. XIV, No. 2, June, 1975.
so-called fading image of the quite ordinary cat? Stated briefly, the differences are differences of the alien accusatives of the verb imaging, the similarities, similarities of the connate accusatives. If this paper were, like Sartre's L'lmaginaive, divided into sections headed 'Le certain' and 'Le probable,' I would be the first to admit that my concluding speculations should not appear in that section entitled 'Le certain.' J. DOUGLAS RABB. LAKEHEAD UNIVERSITY.
