Racionalidad filosófica y figuras simbólicas

This work pays attention to the debt of abstract rationality to the iconic and symbolic. From a critical perspective towards a philosophy based in the clear and the distinct, this paper tries to connect image and concept. The first section studies the imagery in the formation of philosophical ideas, having in mind thinkers such as Plato, Plotinus and Kant. The second section, titled «The Imaginal Schematism in Thought», adopts a genetic or poietic perspective of the image; which is considered in itself a source of thought. The author proposes an archeology of thought, in which it is not sufficient an analysis based on logical concepts and language. For that reason it will be necessary to turn to a topology, where space will be understood as the form of thought. The rise and unfold of the image, considered as a form of space, will be determinants in the beginning and development of thought. The image of the circle, essential in monist systems, and the image of the mirror, understood as the reflection of the same or like the menacing double, will be discussed as examples that acknowledge the figurative aspect of representations

L’idole au regard de la philosophie des images

L’idole est une image paradoxale : image suprême, autosuffisante, elle inaugure aussi la mort de l’image qui ne vit que d’un rapport de dissemblance dans la ressemblance. Toute la philosophie de l’image en Occident, grecque (chez Platon), chrétienne (dans l’incarnation), moderne (dans l’esthétique du sublime), n’a peut-être fait que commenter ce paradoxe en reprenant sans cesse le patient travail de classification et de hiérarchisation des images afin de les sauver de leur contrefaçon idolâtre.The Idol is a paradoxical image : it is the ultimate, selfsufficient image, but it also marks the death of the image, which lives only by a subtle dissimilarity within similarity. The occidental philosophy of image, be it Greek (as illustrated by Plato), Christian (as shown in incarnation), or modern (the aesthetics of the sublime), may have been a mere comment on this very paradox, ceaselessly working on a patient classification and hierarchy of images in order to salvage them from their idolatrous counterfeiting

Transfiguration et défiguration du corps souffrant : Les métamorphoses de l’idéal de santé physique dans les arts plastiques

La représentation de la laideur et de la souffrance du corps humain ont fait l'objet d'une stylisation pour la rendre conforme à l'idéal classique du beau. L'art contemporain tente au contraire de transgresser cette idéalisation pour saisir le pathos même de la vie du corps. Mais en poussant ainsi à l'extrême cette expérience plastique, ne touche-t-on pas aux limites de la représentation artistique ?Representations of ugliness and sufferance of the human body have been subjected to stylization to comply with the classic ideal of beauty. Contemporary art tries, on the other hand, to break away from this ideal to capture the very pathos of the body's life. But are we not reaching to the limits of artistic representation by thus pushing to the extreme this art's experience

Bachelard, une anthropologie de l’homme intégral

Bachelard displays throughout his epistemological and esthetical work a particular anthropology. However this anthropology has never been systemically structured in a book but has been only fragmented in his analyses on the formation and transformation of concepts and images. The bachelardian man has a complex nature that mobilises every dimension of the subject: his body and his mind but also his affectivity, his will and his imagination. It is this image of an integral man that we will try to appropriate in this paper

Crisis de Europa, ¿crisis de un imaginario?

The construction of an European Union or European Community, which begun in the middle of the 20th century, knows today disappointments, drifts, which sometimes incite people to doubt about their realization and effectiveness. The debates question too technocratic ways, an absence of political identity, often near to utopia, forms of impotence, etc. which amplify political and diplomatic crises with the backdrop of poorly resolved economic and financial policies. Are these legal issues and arguments sufficiently relevant? Why such an innovative process, such a wide and collective project is lacking in faith, beliefs, dreams, symbols and myths, that in history has always accompanied great collective adventures, empires orrevolutions? What, then, is this imaginary of the European peoples? Isn 't Europe suffering from this maladjustment of the imaginary? Wouldn 't Europe need a minimal spatial imagery, precise representations of its borders, and the fact of an uncertain political geography in many respects? Historically, in addition, Europe is not marked and haunted by a myth of hypertrophied imperial sovereignty (the last emperor was Napoleon), which could serve as a new performative matrix, but whose traumatic memories in the democratic age lea ve people hesitant and fearful? Briefly, doesn 't Europe evo/ve among a few or too man y imaginary?La construcción de una unión o comunidad europea, comenzada a mediados siglo XX, conoce hoy día decepciones, derivas, que incitan algunas veces a los pueblos a dudar de su realización y de su eficacia. Los debates ponen en cuestión vías demasiado tecnocráticas, una ausencia de identidad política, frecuentemente próxima a la utopía, formas de impotencia, etc. que amplifican las crisis políticas y diplomáticas con el fondo de las políticas económicas y financieras mal resueltas. ¿Estos temas y argumentos jurídico-administrativos son suficientemente pertinentes? ¿Por qué un proceso tan innovador, un proyecto tan amplio y colectivo está falto de fe, de creencias, de sueños, de símbolos y de mitos, que en la historia ha acompañado siempre las grandes aventuras colectivas, imperios o revoluciones? ¿Cuál es entonces este imaginario de los pueblos europeos? ¿Europa no sufre por esa inadaptación de los imaginarios? ¿Europa no precisaría de un imaginario espacial mínimo, de representaciones precisas de sus fronteras, del hecho de una geografía política en muchos aspectos incierta? ¿Históricamente, además, Europa no está marcada y embrujada por un mito de soberanía imperial hipertrofiada (el último emperador era Napoleón), que podría servir de nueva matriz performativa, pero cuyo recuerdos traumáticos en la edad democrática dejan a los pueblos dubitativos y temerosos? Brevemente, ¿Europa no evoluciona entre pocos o demasiados imaginarios

The State as Contractor or Cultural Educator ?

In France, state cultural policy faces a choice of strategies, each with a certain measure of central planning. The forms and effects of these strategies can be analysed. The difference lies in their approach to freedom and the risk inherent in all artistic creation. Some thought should perhaps be given to the idea of an alternative policy which would emphasize education of taste and the publics active participation in art. There would be difficulties along the way, but its advantage would be to augment art's potential as a sphere where men recognize other men.La politique culturelle de l'État en France est confrontée à plusieurs stratégies, plus ou moins dirigistes, dont on peut analyser les formes et les effets, et qui diffèrent par leur conception de la liberté et du risque inhérent à la création artistique. Ne conviendrait-il pas de penser une politique alternative qui interviendrait davantage du côté de l'éducation du goût et de la participation active du public à l'art ? Même si cette voie n'est pas sans difficultés, elle rendrait peut-être davantage à l'art sa capacité d'être un espace de reconnaissance des hommes entre eux

Une poétique alchimique et cosmique : vigne, vin, alcool chez Gaston Bachelard

Le vin comme d’autres alcools et drogues distille un imaginaire culturel de la substance végétale, dont les polarités opposées semblent le signe d’un archétype. Né des propriétés naturelles et symboliques de la vigne, le vin est le fruit d’une habile fermentation qui allie travail de substances et travail du vigneron. De la production à la consommation, le vin est le fruit d’une dialectique subtile de contraires, eau et vin, terre et ciel, or et sang, chaud et frais, universel et singulier, largement déployée dans la rêverie, comme l’illustre Gaston Bachelard. On peut même élargir cette bipolarité jusque dans les rites sociaux où coexistent les contraires du dionysisme/christianisme sacré et de l’ivresse noachite avilissante. Si le vin est inséparable dans la mythologie de Dionysos/Bacchus, ce dieu de l’ivresse est semblable alors à Janus, divinité aux deux visages.As many other alcohols and drogues, wine distils a cultural imaginary of the vegetable substance, whose opposite polarities seem to be the sign of an archetype. Sprout from the natural and symbolic properties of the vineyard, wine is the fruit of an experienced fermentation process that puts together transformation of substances and the wine-grower’s expertise. From production to consumption, wine is the fruit of a subtle dialectic of contraries such as water and wine, Earth and sky, gold and blood, hot and cool, universal and singular. All this dialectic has been largely developed in reverie by the eminent Gaston Bachelard.We could even expand this polarity to social rites in which coexists the opposition between the Dionysus cult/ holy Christianism and the Noachite degrading inebriation.If wine is inseparable from the image of Dionysus/Bacchus, this God of the inebriation is alike to Janus, as God of the duality

Imaginaires diaboliques, mythes millénaristes et violences religieuses

Diabolic Imaginaries, Millenarian Myths and Religious Violence. The current phase of millenarism reactivation in the wake of Islamic fundamentalism shows clearly the strength of the imaginary of Evil. In these mythic scenarios, Evil is substantialised, loathed, even before being aimed at as an enemy to be destroyed. These activist beliefs sink their roots in an ancient monotheistic background of demonization and millenarian expectations about the coming of the purifiers of the world. This paper goes back to the sources and figures of this religious and political imaginary to propose new frames of understanding of their contemporary resurgences

AS FORMAS DE EXPRESSÃO DO IMAGINÁRIO E AS ESTRUTURAS PARADOXAIS DA LINGUAGEM SIMBÓLICA DAS IMAGENS

The research of the symbolic universe is asymptomatic, because it never ends. This is the theme developed by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Wunenburger in this article *. To Wunenburger, imagination engenders a framework of highly differentiated images that causes a distinction between reproductive imagery, imagery and imagination variational transcendental. The image therefore is a sensitivity field that promotes a  "pathos", but also the meanings of thought, the "logos", which itself induces and carries. A symbolization of this type does not compare to a conceptual logic.A pesquisa do universo simbólico é assintomática, porque nunca alcança um ponto final. Este é o tema desenvolvido pelo filósofo bachelardiano Jean-Jacques Wunenburger neste artigo*. Para Wunenburger, a imaginação engendra um quadro de imagens altamente diferenciadas que provoca uma distinção entre imageria reprodutiva, imaginário variacional e imaginário transcendental. A imagem, pois, participa da sensibilidade ao provocar nela um “pathos”, mas também do pensamento pelas significações, o “logos”, que ela mesma porta e induz. Uma simbolização desse tipo não se compara a uma lógica conceitual