Autor: Caringella, Paul

Buch: Eric Voegelins's Significance for the Modern Mind

Titel: Voegelin: Philosopher of Devine Presence

Stichwort: Imagination; von d. partizipatorische Erfahrung (It-reality) zum Symbol, imaginative perversion

Kurzinhalt: balance, Wahrheit, Symbole als Antwort auf den Apell d. Realität, Mensch als kreativer Partner, Traum der Allmacht; von d. sich enthüllenden Realität -> (falsche) Wahrheit, die d. Realität bestimmt; Faust

Textausschnitt: Voegelin introduces at this point 'the neutral force' of imagination which can either aid in the balance or produce imbalanced images of reality. 'A thinker must remain aware of his consciousness as permanently engaged in balancing the structuring forces, in the personal, social, and historical dimensions of the process. ... but is a neutral force inasmuch as it can also produce imbalanced and distorted images of reality'
()
Truth has its reality in the symbols engendered by the quest. [...] The symbols [...] arise from the human response to the appeal of reality, and the response is burdened with its character as an event in the reality to which it responds.
()
At this point it will be helpful to introduce the term 'imagination' into the analysis. The event, we may say, is imaginative in the sense that man can find his way from his participatory experience of reality to its expression through symbols. [...] There is no truth symbolized without man's imaginative power to find the symbols that will express his response to the appeal of reality; but there is no truth to be symbolized without the comprehending It-reality ... Through the imaginative power of man the It-reality moves imaginatively toward its truth.
()
By virtue of his imaginative responsiveness man is a creative partner in the movement of reality toward its truth; and this creatively formative force is exposed to deformative perversion, if the creative partner imagines himself to be the sole creator of truth.
()
The distance inherent in the metaleptic tension can be obscured by letting the reality that reveals itself in imaginative truth imaginatively dissolve into a truth that reveals reality.
()
'The imaginative perversion of participatory imagination into an autonomously creative power,' Voegelin goes on, 'has remained a constant in history.