The Imaginary Life

The Imaginary

This flow traces how Sartre develops the image’s distinctive mode of existence into an account of imaginary objects, conduct, pathology, and dreams.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

The Irreal Object The Irreal Object from "The Imaginary". A Presence That Cannot Be Reached The object as imaged Sartre describes imagination as a magical act that makes an object appear for consciousness while…

The Irreal Object from "The Imaginary". A Presence That Cannot Be Reached The object as imaged Sartre describes imagination as a magical act that makes an object appear for consciousness while…

A Presence That Cannot Be Reached The object as imaged Sartre describes imagination as a magical act that makes an object appear for consciousness while leaving it absent from practical reach. An imaged object is not a second physical thing alongside its real counterpart. Its space and time belong to its mode of appearance, not to the shared environment in which perceived objects interact. The cost of presence The imagined object can be moved or changed only through further imagining. Its apparent presence therefore carries an essential distance from ordinary existence.

Conduct Before the Irreal Conduct Before the Irreal from "The Imaginary". Feeling Without Real Contact The imaginary response People can love, hate, or fear an irreal object, but these responses do not arise through the object’s real…

Conduct Before the Irreal from "The Imaginary". Feeling Without Real Contact The imaginary response People can love, hate, or fear an irreal object, but these responses do not arise through the object’s real…

Feeling Without Real Contact The imaginary response People can love, hate, or fear an irreal object, but these responses do not arise through the object’s real causal power. Sartre distinguishes the feelings that help constitute an image from later reactions to it. Imaginary feeling can be intense, yet it lacks the unpredictable resistance and nourishment supplied by a real person or thing. The difference exposed When reality returns, an imagined relationship cannot simply continue unchanged. The real object exceeds the fixed knowledge and expectations that shaped its imagined counterpart.

Dream as Enclosure Dream as Enclosure from "The Imaginary". A World That Holds Its Dreamer The dream’s coherence Sartre argues that a dream is not simply a perception mistakenly accepted as real.

Dream as Enclosure from "The Imaginary". A World That Holds Its Dreamer The dream’s coherence Sartre argues that a dream is not simply a perception mistakenly accepted as real.

A World That Holds Its Dreamer The dream’s coherence Sartre argues that a dream is not simply a perception mistakenly accepted as real. It is an enclosed imaginative attitude in which events appear as a story and each object carries the atmosphere of a world. The dreamer’s ordinary access to reality has receded, so the dream’s internal developments can feel compelling and fated. Awakening as a change Reflection or an imposed real stimulus can break the enclosure. The transition is not a correction within one shared world but a shift from imagining to realizing.

Opening of Part IV

Early in Part IV, Chapter 2

Final chapter of Part IV