JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

Imagination and emotion103But it is not at all the real Peter who, on the contrary, if he were given as present or asplaced on the edge of reality by empty but presentifying intentions (for instance, if Iheard his steps outside the door), would be a part of the situation: this Peter in relationto whom the situation becomes defined is exactly the absent Peter.The imaginary thus represents at each moment the implicit meaning of the real. Theimaginative act itself consists in positing the imaginary for itself, that is, in making thatmeaning explicit—as when Peter as an image rises suddenly before me—but thisspecific positing of the imaginary will be accompanied by a collapsing of the worldwhich is then no more than the negated foundation of the unreal. And if the negation isthe unconditioned principle of all imagination, it itself can never be realized except inand by an act of imagination. That which is denied must be imagined. In fact, the objectof a negation cannot be real because that would be affirming what is being denied—butneither can it be a complete nothing, since it is something that is being denied. So theobject of a negation must be posited as imaginary. And this is true for the logical formsof negation (doubt, restriction, etc.) as it is for its active and affective forms (defence,consciousness of impotence, of deprivation, etc.).Now we are at the point of understanding the meaning and the value of the imaginary.The imaginary appears “on the foundation of the world”, but reciprocally allapprehension of the real as world implies a hidden surpassing towards the imaginary.All imaginative consciousness uses the world as the negated foundation of the imaginaryand reciprocally all consciousness of the world calls and motivates an imaginativeconsciousness as grasped from the particular meaning of the situation. The apprehensionof nothingness could not occur by an immediate unveiling, it develops in and by thefree succession of acts of consciousness, the nothingness is the material of the surpassingof the world towards the imaginary. It is as such that it is lived, without ever beingposited for itself. There could be no developing consciousness without an imaginativeconsciousness, and vice versa. So imagination, far from appearing as an accidentalcharacteristic of consciousness, turns out to be an essential and transcendental conditionof consciousness. It is as absurd to conceive of a consciousness which did not imagineas it would be to conceive of a consciousness which could not realize the cogito.SKETCH FOR A THEORY OF THE EMOTIONS[. . .] emotion is not the accidental modification of a subject who is surrounded by anunchanged world. It is easy to see that no emotional apprehension of an object asfrightening, irritating, saddening, etc. can arise except against the background of acomplete alteration of the world. For an object to appear formidable, indeed, it must