Mark Antony Jalalum

In contradistinction to the prevailing view that Husserl’s phantasy is reproductive (RP), I demonstrate that productive phantasy (PP) can be discerned in Husserliana XXIII (Hua XXIII). PP, I argue, is not confined to reproducing intentional acts and re-presenting intentional objects. Rather, it operates beyond these limits. More precisely, PP (a) creates and intends fictional objects, (b) opens the possibility of conceiving phantasy as bearing intersubjective and cultural dimensions, (c) modifies what is given in perception and carries one into the worlds of play and fiction, and (d) supplies what is otherwise lacking in a historical account. In this light, Hua XXIII presents four distinct forms of PP: reine Phantasie (pure phantasy), Bildbewusstsein (image consciousness), perzeptive Phantasie (perceptual phantasy), and historical phantasy. I further maintain that these forms can be understood as a progression, that is, a development of phantasy from (1) a purely subjective intentional act inaccessible to others, to (2) an act that carries an intersubjective element and implies cultural dimension, and finally to (3) an act that explicitly manifests intersubjective and cultural dimensions. Implicit in these functions is a potential contribution to the shaping and reshaping of symbols and narratives, historical and otherwise, across time. This potential opens a way of conceiving phantasy as more than the reproduction of intentional acts and re-presentation of intentional objects.

The role of imagination in philosophy and thinking has been variously understood but also obscured by an ambiguity. This ambiguity arises from the fact that imagination, as an agency of human mind, is both employed and downplayed in philosophical inquiry. I argue that this ambiguous status of imagination can be apprehended in the works of Plato, Aristotle, Pico and Kant. I also suggest that their conceptions of imagination are shaped by its function as a “mediator” between the senses and reason. By examining the views of imagination in evidence in these thinkers, I aim to show that imagination has had a complex and ambivalent role in the Western metaphysical tradition. However, I also claim that Kant’s radical rethinking of imagination as the transcendental faculty of synthesis opens up new possibilities for a more positive appreciation of imagination in philosophy, especially in the field of phenomenology. To achieve these goals, I will briefly revisit the classical accounts of imagination. In so doing, I reappraise its position in classical Western metaphysics and open up, albeit only preliminarily, a possibility for a renewed evaluation of its role in philosophy and thinking in light of the post-Kantian developments such as Husserlian phenomenology.

The history of western philosophy, with the exception of Aristotle and Kant, presents a treatment of imagination that can be called reproductive, meaning, reproductive of an original. Put differently, imagination is often understood to be responsible for reproducing images, and therefore, has nothing productive in it. With this background in mind, I briefly demonstrate that some initial positive and promising accounts of imagination can already be apprehended in Hegel's "Psychology, the Mind" in the Encyclopedia and in Husserl's Logical Investigations. I further contend that Derrida and Ricoeur worked off Hegel's and Husserl's insights into imagination in what they demonstrated. Derrida, on the one hand, implicates imagination in the ideality operative in signs as they are utilised in the to-and-fro of communicative discourse. Ricoeur, conversely, argues that thought and imagination are intricately related in the symbol, in thought as it is involved in endeavors of imagination in utopias and literary fiction. Moreover, in both thinkers, an attempt can be seen to link imagination to language through expanding the way metaphor is understood, from a singular word, as in Aristotle's, to full-blown statements, with a subject and a predicate. Imagination enables one to penetrate through the statement's literal meaning to the metaphorical meaning. This claim approximates imagination to language and moves it effectively away from perception, from it being conceived as a residue of perception. As such, in Derrida and Ricoeur, there is a continuity and an increasing attempt to link imagination and language, hence a positive appraisal of imagination. Keywords: Derrida, Ricoeur, imagination, metaphor, language

The concept of anticipation, on the one hand, has received a considerable treatment in classical phenomenology, particularly in Husserl. The Zhuangzi, on the other hand, has not been explored with the help of Husserl’s concept of anticipation. Broadly construed, anticipation, due to its association with robust proclivity to seeing and conjuring up possibilities issuing from a phenomenon, shall have no place in the Zhuangzi. Against such backdrop, I argue that—albeit the Zhuangzi does not develop an explicit discourse on anticipation—a delimited form of anticipation (‘d-anticipation’), that is, one which is inspired by Husserl’s concept of anticipation evident in his genetic phenomenology, can work in concert with the thoughts articulated in the Zhuangzi. I demonstrate this via examining death, desire, and freedom evident in the Zhuangzi. That ‘d-anticipation’ can work in concert with the thoughts articulated in the Zhuangzi can be apprehended in a variety of ways. Firstly, it can be seen in our natural response to death and the way in which we handle desires. Secondly, it points to Zhuangzi’s reductionistic manner of appreciating the richness of reality. Thirdly, it offers a way in which we can live life according to our nature. Fourthly, it points to an exercise of freedom which opens up the possibility of transcending conventional standards. Fifthly, it is inherently constitutive of the process of comportment with the Dao. Finally, it is in essence constitutive of a phenomenon or circumstance. In setting out to demonstrate these contentions, I seek to show that ‘d-anticipation’ can fill in a lacuna brought about by the negative appraisal of anticipation in the Zhuangzi and can assume a pivotal role in one’s comportment with the Dao.