First published in 1940, Sartre's The Imaginary is a cornerstone of his philosophy. Sartre had become acquainted with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl in Berlin and was fascinated by his idea of the "intentionality of consciousness" as a key to the puzzle of existence. Against this background, The Imaginary crystallized Sartre's worldview and artistic vision. Here he presented the first extended examination of the concepts of nothingness and freedom, both of which are derived from the ability of consciousness to imagine objects both as they are and as they are not. These ideas would drive Sartre's existentialism and his entire theory of human freedom, laying the foundation for his masterwork Being and Nothingness three years later. This new translation by Jonathan Webber rectifies flaws in the terminology of the first translation and recaptures the essence of Sartre's phenomenology. Webber's perceptive new introduction helps to decipher this challenging, seminal work, placing it in the context of the author's work and the history of philosophy.
Author
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre, normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre, was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. He was a leading figure in 20th century French philosophy. He declined the award of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age." In the years around the time of his death, however, existentialism declined in French philosophy and was overtaken by structuralism, represented by Levi-Strauss and, one of Sartre's detractors, Michel Foucault.
