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Political Imagination – Contributions to a Christian Vision of Politics
Matyas Szalay
Abstract
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: On the one hand, contemporary politics is so overwhelmed by imagination that there is a risk for politics to be dissolved into mere creative communication. On the other hand, in an age when politics is reduced to simple administration, there is little room for imagination and the new possibilities it brings. By illuminating the ambiguous nature of the imaginative act I would like to show how a Christian vision of politics may help to understand both sides of this paradox.
THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: There are two radically distinct ways to carry out imagination depending on the subject’s fundamental attitude. Thus I will elaborate through a phenomenological analysis how this difference is present in all dimension of political imagination concerning the following essential criteria: a) the focus on the intentional object, b) methodology, c) temporal structure.
THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: If the act of fantasy is really that negative in all these aspects why do philosophers prefer it to the act of imagination? I argue that historically speaking the pivotal point is the Kantian philosophy and it is the Kantian heritage that influenced Feuerbach to lay the new fundaments of political fantasy.
RESEARCH RESULTS: Through interpreting a crucial passage of Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity I show that the way Kant and Feuerbach transformed the concept of a receptive and obedient imagination focused on the Christian mystery are fatal for political philosophy.
CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: I insist that contemporary Christian politics is once again on a cross‑road, either it remains captivated by fantasy or it gets liberated by becoming true imagination. Imagination is centered on the mystery that illuminates the whole sphere of politics in all of its horizontal and vertical dimensions and thus allows for a radically new beginning of political reflection.
Keywords
Imagination ; Fantasy ; Politics ; phenomenology ; eschatology
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