Poetics of imagining : from Husserl to Lyotard

Abstract

This book offers a rigorous and accessible account of the major theories of imagination in modern European thought. It analyses the contributions made to our understanding of the imaginary life by phenomenology (Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Bachelard), hermeneutics (Heidegger, Ricoeur) and postmodernism (Vattimo, Kristeva, Lyotard). The book asks such questions as: what is imagination? What is the relationship between aesthetics and ethics in a contemporary civilization dominated by the image? Are the claimsof artistic creativity and moral responsibility compatible?