dimension of each type of image (its “essence” as image) remains the
same, justifying our referring to each as a type of image rather than as a
perception or a concept. It is the “material” aspect of images that varies
from class to class.^15
In the course of moving from my mental image of Pierre to his
photograph and then to his caricature, Sartre describes a process of
what we may callincreased concretization. It is the last instance that has
“life.” With the caricature “I regain Pierre” (Imaginary 17 ). The
material object functions as ananalogonwhen it is viewed imagina-
tively. Simply perceived, the caricature is a set of lines on a sheet of
paper. Viewed imaginatively (or “aesthetically,” as will be said of
artworks), the lines serve as vehicles to suggest Pierre’s face. They
function as an analogon just so long as they are regarded in the
imaginary attitude. With that attitude removed, they return to their
“real,” that is perceptual, state. As we shift from portraits to oneiric to
mental images, the search for the “material” component becomes
increasingly difficult. But Sartre assigns a “material” element even
to the mental image. What makes this move difficult is the fact that
the portrait and the caricature are perceptual objects prior to having
been “irrealized” by the imaginative intention. Not so the mental
image: “A mental image gives itself immediately as an image. This is
because the existence of a psychic phenomenon and the meaning that
it has for consciousness are one” (Imaginary 19 ). He immediately
explains in a note: “I am not ignoring the fact that these observations
oblige me to deny entirely the existence of the unconscious.” But he
adds: “Here is not the place to discuss this.” That discussion will take
place inBeing and Nothingness.^16
Sartre summarizes the foregoing in the following definition of
“image”:
(^15) Still, we should caution at the outset that imaging consciousness is seldom if ever pure. In its
lived occurrence, it is a synthesis of information drawn from perception and reflection
directly or from memory that in turn incorporates conceptual and emotional dimensions.
Thus, my imagined friend or enemy, for example, though it may ideally be “value neutral,”
by the very choice of the term, carries a “pro” or “con” attitude. To say that we must
distinguish each component of that synthesis is obvious. That is what Sartre is doing here
and inThe Emotions. But as one moves from the abstract “toward the concrete,” these
16 components coalesce into the image of “this” person.
Imaginary 197 ,n. 13.
110 Consciousness as imagination