Le surcroît d’imagination dans le récit. Comment Husserl apporte un complément aux vues de Ricœur

Authors

  • Pol Vandevelde Marquette University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/errs.2023.634

Keywords:

Ricœur, Narrative, Imagination, Phantasma, Husserl

Abstract

I examine why and in what sense imagination is present in a narrative of real facts or events. I present the problem as stated by Paul Ricœur when he introduces the three genres of “the Same,” “the Other,” and “the Analogous” in order to explain how a narrative can render facts and events “as they really happened.” For the solution I appeal to Edmund Husserl’s notion of “phantasma,” which he sees as the support for pure imagination, as when I imagine a centaur. The phantasma plays in pure imagination the same role as sensations in perception. I argue that a narrative has a phantasma—what it allows us to visualize and experience when reading an account—and that this phantasma is analogous to the sensations of perceptions that first observers had of these facts and events. There is thus, first, no radical difference between perception and imagination: both include a moment of “mere presentation” through sensations or phantasma, respectively. And, second, the imaginative component of a narrative allows the brute facts and events to be “experienced” again in the mode of the “as if.”

References

Elizabeth Behnke, « On the Deep Structure of World-Experiencing Life », Études phénoménologiques/Phenomenological Studies, vol. 2 (2018), 21-45.

Edmund Husserl, Idées directrices pour une phénoménologie et une philosophie phénoménologique pures, t. I Introduction générale à la phénoménologie pure, éd. Paul Ricœur (Paris : Gallimard, 1950, coll. « Tel »).

—, Phantasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung. Zur Phänomenologie der anschaulichen Vergegenwärtigung, Texte aus dem Nachlass (1898-1925). Husserliana 23, ed. Eduard Marbach (La Haye : Martinus Nijhoff, 1980) [abrégé Hua 23].

—, Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band, zweiter Teil Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. Ursula Panzer (La Haye : Martinus Nijhoff, 1984).

Primo Levi, Si c’est un homme, trad. Martine Schruoffeneger (Paris : Julliard, 1987).

Henri Maldiney, Regard, parole, espace [1973] (Lausanne : L’âge d’homme, 1994).

Marc Richir, « The Role of Phantasia in the Theatre and Novel », trad. Jonathan Bechtel, in Pol Vandevelde (dir.), Phenomenology and Literature. Historical Perspectives and Systematic Accounts (Würzburg : Königshausen & Neumann, 2010), 199-207.

Paul Ricœur, L’homme faillible, in Finitude et culpabilité (Paris : Aubier, 1960).

—, « The Function of Fiction in Shaping Reality », Man and World, vol. 12 (1979), 123-141.

—, Temps et récit (Paris : Seuil, vol. 1, 1983 ; vol. 2, 1984 ; vol. 3, 1985).

—, Essais d’herméneutique, t. II Du texte à l’action (Paris : Seuil, 1986).

—, Soi-même comme un autre (Paris : Seuil, 1990).

—, « Life in Quest of Narrative », in David Wood (ed.), On Paul Ricœur. Narrative and Interpretation (Londres : Routledge, 1991).

—, La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli (Paris : Seuil, 2000).

—, Lectures on Imagination, ed. George H. Taylor, Robert W. Sweeney, Jean-Luc Amalric et Patrick F. Crosby (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, ouvrage à paraître en 2024).

—, L’imagination, trad. Jean-Luc Amalric (Paris : Seuil, ouvrage à paraître en 2024).

John Searle, Intentionality. An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge/New York : Cambridge University Press, 1983).

Jorge Semprun, L’écriture ou la vie (Paris : Gallimard, 1994).

George H. Taylor, « Ricœur’s Philosophy of Imagination », Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, vol. 16 (2006), 93-104.

Pol Vandevelde, « The Challenge of the “Such As It Was”. Ricœur’s Theory of Narratives », in David Kaplan (ed.), Reading Ricœur (Albany : SUNY Press, 2008), 141-162.

—, « Le fondement ontologique du récit selon Ricœur. Mimesis, dette et attestation », Studia Phaenomenologica, vol. XIII (2013), 244-59.

—, « The Enigma of the Past. Ricœur’s Theory of Narrative as a Response to Heidegger », in Scott Davidson et Marc-Antoine Vallée (eds), Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in Paul Ricœur. Between Text and Phenomenon (Dordrecht : Springer, 2016), 123-39.

—, « How Husserl’s and Searle’s Contextual Model Reformulates the Discussion about the Conceptual Content of Perception », in Roberto Walton, Shigeru Taguchi et Roberto Rubio (eds), Experiential Reason. Husserl on Perception, Affectivity, and Volition (Dordrecht : Springer, 2017), 57-76.

—, « From Faillibility to Fragility. How the Theory of Narrative Transformed the Notion of Character of Faillible Man », in Scott Davidson (ed.), A Companion to Ricœur’s Faillible Man (Lanham : Lexington Books, 2019), 145-162.

—, The Ethics of Interpretation. From Charity as a Principle to Love as a Hermeneutic Imperative (New York/Londres : Routledge, 2023).

Downloads

Published

2023-07-17

Issue

Vol. 14 No. 1 (2023)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Pol Vandevelde

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.


Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

    1. The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.

    2. Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.

    3. The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons 4.0 License (Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works), or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
      1. Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
      2. Noncommercial—other users (including Publisher) may not use this Work for commercial purposes;
      3. No Derivative Works—other users (including Publisher) may not alter, transform, or build upon this Work,with the understanding that any of the above conditions can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.

    4. The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

    5. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a pre-publication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.

    6. Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.

    7. The Author represents and warrants that:

      1. the Work is the Author’s original work;
      2. the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
      3. the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
      4. the Work has not previously been published;
      5. the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
      6. the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
         
    8. The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.