THE LAND OF TRUTH OF THE UNDERSTANDING AND THE THREATENING WATERS OF REASON: MARITIME SOURCES FOR A KANTIAN METAPHOR

The central issue of my presentation concerns the roles of imagination in Kant. Imagination engages its figurative power both empirically, unifying the manifold of different perceptions in images, reproducing representations by selecting the way in which they combine together, and transcendentally, in both determining and reflective judgments. I begin by considering first imagination as an active function of sensibility, and then examine its role in serving the understanding, before analysing its involuntary play which generates fantasy, daydreams and illusion, and which poses the problem of controlling our power of imagination. Then I consider the interplay between imagination and ideas of reason, note that for Kant reason forms an idea as a focus imaginarius, highlighting both the illusory and the regulative sides of their relationship. With these roles in view, I finally turn to appreciate the immanent role played by imagination in the adventures‘ of reason.