imachination - further approaches

The notion imachination occurs very seldom- mainly in a French context. The definition of the found concepts differs. Study a collection of further concepts in litterature, humanities or media arts found in books or in the WWW: (more...)

A very interesting approach is Zweifel’s and Pfister’s approach “Pornosophie & Imachination”. For them the notion of imachination relates the philosophies of LaMettrie, Diderot and de Sade. LaMettrie’s conception of the human being as a machine (“L’homme machine”) is conceived as a liberation act of metaphysical constraints for the human spirit. The human being is physically restricted by the laws of nature, but the imagination becomes a place of freedom. The erotic excesses of the Marquis de Sade are understood not as scenarios, which should be transmitted into the physical world, but interpreted as an evaluation of Imachination: His literature almost written in prison is just an essay to explore the limits of an imagination freed by machinist processes.

It is a remarkable conception especially in our days. At present the human self-comprehension is confronted with internal and external machines. Outside the individual is challenged with computing machines. Inside it is faced with the biochemical processes of neural structures in the brain and the cellular genetic protein processes. The notion of imachination could help to discover the bizarreness, how an amount of 1013 cells can develop self-consciousness and even a feeling of freedom.


challenges for the human self-comprehension

Pornosophie & Imachination
LaMettrie, Diderot, de Sade
Michael Pfister & Stefan Zweifel 
Matthes & Seitz
ISBN 3882218363283  

theoretical links: 

www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/gallica/Chronologie/
18siecle/LaMettrie/met_hom0.html
original French text of "L'Homme Machine"
www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/LaMettrie/
English biography of Julien Offray de La Mettrie and translation of "L'Homme Machine"
Dialektische Liebschaften: German critique of "Pornosophie & Imachination" by Thomas Willems