Mind's World: Imagination and Subjectivity from Descartes to Romanticism (Literary Conjugations)

Imagination is unruly. It creates the mind's world, linking the sensory realm to the realm of the intellect by oscillating between mind and body, self and world, ideal and real. It has been construed as both essential to rational thought and as a dangerous impediment to it. Alexander Schlutz demonstrates that this ambivalence in conceptions of imagination informs fundamental philosophical and aesthetic projects of European modernity. By analyzing the discourse about imagination in the philosophical systems of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, and Fichte, as well as in the works of the Romantic poet-philosophers von Hardenberg (Novalis) and Coleridge, who champion discourse about imagination as a prime aesthetic and poetic principle, Schlutz explores how the imagination is haunted by the presence of the faculty's dark twin, fantasy, which is conceived as a danger (rather than a supplement) to human rationality and hence threatens to undermine the Cartesian subject that is grounded in rational, logical thought. Alexander M. Schlutz is associate professor of English at John Jay College, City University of New York. Winner of the 2009 International Conference on Romanticism's Jean-Pierre Barricelli Award for the best book in Romanticism studies As the mental faculty that mediates between self and world, mind and body, the senses and the intellect, imagination is indispensable for modern models of subjectivity. From Ren Descartes's Meditations to the aesthetic and philosophical systems of the Romantic period, to think about the subject necessarily means to address the problem of imagination. In close readings of Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Hardenberg (Novalis) and Coleridge, and with a sustained return to the origins of the discourse about imagination in Greek antiquity, Alexander Schlutz demonstrates that neither the unity of the subject itself, nor the unity of the philosophical systems that are based on it, can be conceptualized without recourse to imagination. Yet, philosophers like Descartes and Kant must deny imagination any such foundational role because of its dangerous connection to the body, the senses and the unruly passions, which threatens the desired autonomy of the rational subject. The modern subject is simultaneously dependent upon and constructed in opposition to imagination, and the resulting ambivalence about the faculty is one of the fundamental conditions of modern models of subjectivity. Schlutz's readings of the Romantic poet-philosophers Coleridge and Hardenberg highlight that also their texts are not free of fears about the faculty's disruptive potential and its connection to the body. While imagination is now openly enlisted to produce the aesthetic unity of subjectivity, it still threatens to unravel and destroy a subject that needs to keep the body and its desires at bay in order to secure its rational and moral autonomy. The dark abyss of a self not in control of its thoughts, feelings, and desires is not overcome by the philosophical glorification of the subject's powers of imagination. Winner of the 2009 International Conference on Romanticism's Jean-Pierre Barricelli Award for the best book in Romanticism studiesAs the mental faculty that mediates between self and world, mind and body, the senses and the intellect, imagination is indispensable for modern models of subjectivity. From René Descartes's Meditations to the aesthetic and philosophical systems of the Romantic period, to think about the subject necessarily means to address the problem of imagination. In close readings of Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Hardenberg (Novalis) and Coleridge, and with a sustained return to the origins of the discourse about imagination in Greek antiquity, Alexander Schlutz demonstrates that neither the unity of the subject itself, nor the unity of the philosophical systems that are based on it, can be conceptualized without recourse to imagination. Yet, philosophers like Descartes and Kant must deny imagination any such foundational role because of its dangerous connection to the body, the senses and the unruly passions, which threatens the desired autonomy of the rational subject. The modern subject is simultaneously dependent upon and constructed in opposition to imagination, and the resulting ambivalence about the faculty is one of the fundamental conditions of modern models of subjectivity.Schlutz's readings of the Romantic poet-philosophers Coleridge and Hardenberg highlight that also their texts are not free of fears about the faculty's disruptive potential and its connection to the body. While imagination is now openly enlisted to produce the aesthetic unity of subjectivity, it still threatens to unravel and destroy a subject that needs to keep the body and its desires at bay in order to secure its rational and moral autonomy. The dark abyss of a self not in control of its thoughts, feelings, and desires is not overcome by the philosophical glorification of the subject's powers of imagination. "As the mental faculty that mediates between self and world, mind and body, the senses and the intellect, imagination is indispensable for modern models of subjectivity. From Rene Descartes's Meditations to the aesthetic and philosophical systems of the Romantic period, to think about the subject necessarily means to address the problem of imagination. In close readings of Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Hardenberg (Novalis) and Coleridge, and with a sustained return to the origins of the discourse about imagination in Greek antiquity, Alexander Schlutz demonstrates that neither the unity of the subject itself, nor the unity of the philosophical systems that are based on it, can be conceptualized without recourse to imagination. Yet, philosophers like Descartes and Kant must deny imagination any such foundational role because of its dangerous connection to the body, the senses and the unruly passions, which threatens the desired autonomy of the rational subject. The modern subject is simultaneously dependent upon and constructed in opposition to imagination, and the resulting ambivalence about the faculty is one of the fundamental conditions of modern models of subjectivity. Schlutz's readings of the Romantic poet-philosophers Coleridge and Hardenberg highlight that also their texts are not free of fears about the faculty's disruptive potential and its connection to the body. While imagination is now openly enlisted to produce the aesthetic unity of subjectivity, it still threatens to unravel and destroy a subject that needs to keep the body and its desires at bay in order to secure its rational and moral autonomy. The dark abyss of a self not in control of its thoughts, feelings, and desires is not overcome by the philosophical glorification of the subject's powers of imagination."--Publisher description Introduction Epistemology, metaphysics, and rhetoric : contexts of imagination Aristotle, Phantasia, and the problem of epistemology Plato, the neoplatonists, and the vagaries of the sublunar world Phantasia and ecstatic knowledge A more skillful artist than imitation Dreams, doubts, and evil demons : Descartes and imagination Mediatio prima : certainty, the cogito, and imagination Imagination in the rules Meditatio secunda : the world of the cogito Descartes, Montaigne, and Pascal Analogies and enthusiasm Excogitations : fabulating the cogito The reasonable imagination : Immanuel Kant's critical philosophy Imagination in the limits of pure reason Dreamers and madmen : imagination in the anthropology Natural art and sublime madness : imagination in the critique of judgment The highest point of philosophy : Fichte's reimagining of the kantian system The logics of positing intellectual intuition and the absolute subject Ecstasy, inspired communication, and philosophical genius Light, dusk, and darkness : the reconciliation of opposites The metaphysics of oscillation and the truth of imagination Reason fixations : arresting imagination A system without foundations : poetic subjectivity in Friedrich von Hardenberg's Ordo inversus A system without foundations Fantasy and the body Divine law and abject subjectivity : Coleridge and the double knowledge of imagination Divine imagination The abyss of the empirical self Coda: Imagining ideology. Contents......Page 7 Acknowledgments......Page 10 Introduction......Page 14 1. Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Rhetoric: Contexts of Imagination......Page 26 2. Dreams, Doubts, and Evil Demons: Descartes and Imagination......Page 47 3. The Reasonable Imagination: Immanuel Kant’s Critical Philosophy......Page 91 4. The Highest Point of Philosophy: Fichte’s Reimagining of the Kantian System......Page 151 5. A System Without Foundations: Poetic Subjectivity in Friedrich von Hardenberg’s ORDO INVERSUS......Page 173 6. Divine Law and Abject Subjectivity: Coleridge and the Double Knowledge of Imagination......Page 225 Conclusions......Page 266 Notes......Page 274 Bibliography......Page 318 Index......Page 326