Aesthetic Imaginary: Rethinking the “Comparative”

Abstract

"My coinage of the term 'aesthetic imaginary' follows the line of a few thinkers in a field that I would like to call 'imaginary studies': Cornelius Castoriadis’s social imaginary, Michèle Le Dœuff’s philosophical imaginary, and Marguerite La Caze’s analytical imaginary. The space and the opportunity here do not grant me much room to explain what the different kinds of imaginary mean and potentially imply, and also descant on the points of engagement that aesthetic imaginary might have with them; this is something that I shall undertake to accomplish elsewhere. However, within the spatial restrictions of this paper, I will try to bring out the nature and philosophy of my proposition and expand on the intricacies that aesthetic imaginary produces in our understanding of the notion of the 'comparative.'"