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RETRACTED ARTICLE: On the illuminationist approach to imaginal power: outline of a perspective

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This article was retracted on 06 February 2015

Abstract

Imagination has always been a mysterious issue for modern philosophy and psychology. In this paper, however, I will not deal with modern theories of imagination; instead, I will suggest an alternative notion of imaginal power by stepping back toward Persian illuminative thought within which we may glimpse a hint of a transcendent concept of imagination as the source of human subjectivity and its power to create the object and the world. My objective here is to extend some noetic aspects of this concept and extract further conclusions theoretically. To this end, I will first introduce a brief account of the noetic characteristic of the Illuminationist perspective of the imagination, then I outline aspects of its efficiency which may shed some light on the modern debate on the subject and its relation to the object.

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Notes

  1. For the School of Persian illuminative philosophy, see the following sources in French and English: Corbin (1971), Nasr (1963) and Ziai (1990, 1996a, b).

  2. Following Henry Corbin, I use the term ‘imaginal’, instead of ‘imaginary’ or ‘imaginative’ to distinguish the distinctive characteristic these masters stress from what one finds in the Western tradition by the name of imagination. See Corbin’s (1976), pp. 3–4. Historically speaking, it was Farabi who introduced this faculty or power in philosophical discourse (see Farabi 1983, p. 73); Ibn-Sina expanded this power in his philosophy (see Ibn Sina 1404 al-Tabi’iyyat, p. 6, Kitab al-Nafs, p. 212); Ikhwan al-Safa (1957), vol. 2. 269 ff, vol. 4, 12ff, approached this faculty very carefully; but the major figures in this field before Mulla Sadra were (a) Sohravardi who brought a very subtle theory of this power as well as an extraordinary explanation of the specific ontological kind of disjunctive imagination (khayal munfasil) (see Sohravardi 1976, also, Mulla Sadra 1981, vol. 1, p. 302) and its world as Mundus Imaginalis extensively in his works, also (b) Ibn ‘Arabi who elaborated this kind of imagination and pushed it to its extremes; application of such a theory appeared then in Mir Damad (1356/1977); and was finally revived by Mulla Sadra (see Mulla Sadra 1981, vol. 6, p. 295, also vols. 3 and 8). For more information in English see Corbin (1981) and Chittick (1989, 1995).

  3. Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 3, pp. 475–479, 482–485. The illuminative theory considers for the imaginal a separate level in the ontological world which really exists outside man and over the material world, exactly between the intellectual world and the material world; this ontological level is called the “Eighth Continent” throughout the Illuminative literature. Though this fundamental principle is presupposed and hinted here occasionally, it will not be discussed in this paper; for more information see Corbin (1981).

  4. Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 3, pp. 219; 300–301.

  5. Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 3, p. 362.

  6. By ontetic I mean that which is not only ontological or existential in the Western sense, but also fuzzy and hierarchical. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Khatami#The_Ontetic_Philosophy; also see Khatami (2004), http://iranianstudies.org/khatami's%20book.htm.

  7. Mulla Sadra (1981), vol.6, p. 194. This theme is also developed in vol. 3 in regard to the soul.

  8. Very interestingly, Sohravardi and his followers argue that time will be spatialized inside man. However, he does not unify the imaginal power or imagination with space. See Corbin (1981) and is Creative Imagination, op. cit., and Corbin (1960); also Shayegan (1990), book 5, ch. 7.

  9. Presence here is ontetic and in its turn indicates the triple net of existence, consciousness, and time. Cf., Sohravardi (1976), vol. 1, p. 322; also Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 1. I use this term in this sense throughout this paper. As seen, it indicates human temporality and inner time but not the same as time or temporality.

  10. Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 1, p. 263.

  11. Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 8, p. 115.

  12. Knowledge by presence (‘ilm huduri), cf., Sohravardi (1976), vol. 1, p. 322, also 454ff.

  13. Sadra believes that the imaginal faculty creates the object from within itself and then expresses it. See Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 1, p. 302, also vol. 8, 114ff.

  14. It is worth noting that the idea of the imaginal power as my presence must be purified and distinguished from the unconscious as the latter is absent and can be discovered only through my presence. There is within me an imaginal power, as presential consciousness or knowledge by presence of what I am by nature, and which could be examined by psychology. My unconscious composes the self's bedrock, which must be brought to light and to which I am bound to acquiesce. Aside from the fact that it appears only to someone who takes it up into his life, it is possible that it is not certainly my presence, which resides in what I do, not in what I am. I am indeed my presence in which I am ontologically joined to the primitive forms of life.

  15. A reason for this is that I with my presence am the one who is capable of giving credit to the others and discovering a hidden dimension in their actions.

  16. Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 8, p. 214; Sadra gives the imaginal power secondary names so far as a very specific aspect of this power is concerned; for example he calls it musawwirah when its figurative, formative and illustrative aspect is observed. See Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 8, p. 215.

  17. As hinted above, the imaginal expression comes along with the creation of the object by the imaginal power through which the object first expressed as it is.

  18. The imaginal power as reflection grasps the particular meaning (ma‘ani juz‘iyyah). See Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 8, pp. 215–217.

  19. This is a direct conclusion from Sadra’s thesis of the ontetic creativity of the soul. Cf. Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 8, 221ff., also see vol. 4, pp. 23, 60–63.

  20. The illuminative tradition argues for the imaginal body, or the body taken as imaginal (badan mithali); an idea completely neglected in modern thought. For the idea in detail in a European language see Corbin (1960).

  21. These bodily powers appear for Sadra through substantial motion in which the body gradually becomes imaginal and spiritual. See Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 3.

  22. Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 8, p. 114.

  23. Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 8, 475ff.

  24. These two conditions are not clearly confirmed in the traditional literature on the imaginal power, however they are inspired by Mulla Sadra, see Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 6, p. 295.

  25. Mulla Sadra (1362/1983), Sura Yasin, pp. 43–44

  26. This is what Sadra accepts from Ibn Sina (1404), tabi‘iyyat, vold. 6, p. 147, see Mulla Sadra (1981), vol. 8, p. 214.

  27. This is why naming is not only, as in ordinary speech, a way of echoing the object or becoming its captive but also a way of possessing the object.

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  1. The University of Tehran, 16 Azar Street, Enghelab Ave., Tehran, Iran

    Mahmoud Khatami

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  1. Mahmoud Khatami
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Correspondence to Mahmoud Khatami.

Additional information

This paper has been written in English by the author for publication in this issue of Topoi.

The author has retracted this article published in Topoi Volume 26, Issue 2, pages 221-229, DOI : 10.1007/s11245-007-9015-y because it contains passages from the previously published manuscript by Mikel Dufrenne The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience (Northwestern University Press, 1973), without acknowledging the source. The author apologizes to the Journal and readers as well as the author of the original work.

An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11245-015-9305-8.

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Khatami, M. RETRACTED ARTICLE: On the illuminationist approach to imaginal power: outline of a perspective. Topoi 26, 221–229 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-007-9015-y

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