The World and Its Negation

The Imaginary

This flow follows the book’s culminating argument that imagining requires a world to be constituted and simultaneously held at a distance.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

The Image as Negation The Image as Negation from "The Imaginary". A Different Thesis of Existence Real and imagined objects Sartre returns to the contrast between perception and imagination: perception encounters its object…

The Image as Negation from "The Imaginary". A Different Thesis of Existence Real and imagined objects Sartre returns to the contrast between perception and imagination: perception encounters its object…

A Different Thesis of Existence Real and imagined objects Sartre returns to the contrast between perception and imagination: perception encounters its object as present, while imaging consciousness posits absence, nonexistence, elsewhere, or no existential commitment. These are different ways of relating to an object, not extra judgements pasted onto an otherwise perceptual image. The problem deepens To imagine is therefore not merely to add a faculty to consciousness. It raises the question of what consciousness must be in order to suspend the real object’s presence.

The Situation Motivates an Image

Imagining From a Situation A world as ground An imagined object can appear only against a world that consciousness already apprehends as a meaningful whole. The imagined absence of Pierre, for example, depends on a situation in which his presence is missing. Imagination does not float free of reality: the concrete situation motivates which object is imagined and in what way. The reciprocal relation The world supplies the ground that an image denies, while the image makes a particular sense of that situation explicit. Realizing and imaging are distinct, yet connected orientations.

Freedom in the Cogito Freedom in the Cogito from "The Imaginary". Imagination and Freedom Beyond the given Sartre argues that consciousness can imagine because it can surpass the real and hold it at a distance.

Freedom in the Cogito from "The Imaginary". Imagination and Freedom Beyond the given Sartre argues that consciousness can imagine because it can surpass the real and hold it at a distance.

Imagination and Freedom Beyond the given Sartre argues that consciousness can imagine because it can surpass the real and hold it at a distance. This freedom is not arbitrary fantasy; particular situations motivate particular acts of imagining. Imagination makes negation concrete by presenting something that is not part of the actual situation. A foundational function The conclusion presents imagination not as an optional extra but as a manifestation of consciousness’s freedom. The capacity to imagine reveals consciousness’s ability to exceed what is simply given.

Opening of the Conclusion

Middle of the Conclusion, Section I

Closing pages of the Conclusion