Productive Imagination

Philosophy

Social Imaginaries

Series Editors: Suzi Adams, Paul Blokker, Natalie J. Doyle, John W. M. Krummel, and Jeremy C. A. Smith

"This welcome volume explores the conceptual history of productive imagination by focusing on the development of the concept from its prefiguration in antiquity to its modern articulation in and after Kant. Special attention is paid to the romantic, phenomenological, and hermeneutical traditions, with the main reference authors being F. Schlegel, Novalis, Dilthey, and Ricoeur, as well as Cassirer and Heidegger." ---Gunter Zoller, professor of philosophy, University of Munich

Although the concept of productive imagination plays a fundamental role in Kant, German Idealism, Romanticism, Phenomenology, and Hermeneutics, the meaning of this central concept remains largely undetermined. Its significance is, therefore, all-too-often either inflated or underrated. The articles collected in this volume trace the development of productive imagination through the history of philosophy, identify the various meanings ascribed to it by different philosophical frameworks, and raise the question anew concerning its philosophical significance. Special attention is given to the historical background that underlies the emergence of productive imagination in modernity; to Kant's concept of productive imagination; and to the further development of the concept in German Idealism, Wilhelm Dilthey, Edmund Husserl, Ernst Cassirer, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Paul Ricoeur. In Productive Imagination, a group of leading scholars present a systematic and comprehensive reference tool for anyone working in the fields of social imaginaries.