On Social Imaginary

In the history of western philosophy, Plato and Aristotle are the first people who discovered the imagination as a fundamental constituent of human consciousness. Plato found replicate negative imagination, and Aristotle discovered associative reproductive imagination and original creative imagination. Later, theory of imagination meet its further development along associative reproductive imagination on the basis of rationalism philosophy represented by Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz and empiricism philosophy represented by Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley and Hume. As for Kant, not only did he hold the associative reproductive imagination theory, but also further developed original creative imagination, namely the productive imagination. Then the following philosophers and thinkers developed Kant’s creative imagination with the main manifestations of Sartre’s negative creative imagination and Cornelius Castoriadis’s "ex nihilo" creative imaginary. Castoriadis’s creative imaginary not only developed personal imagination, but also lead his theory to the social-historical field, forming the instituting social imaginary. However, he put the imagination theory to the extreme and embarrassed state. This needs us to study the theory of social imaginary using Marx’s theory of practice.After reviewing the history of ideas of imagination and social imaginary, the author defines the social imaginary as the activity which people represent (reflect) and create (construct) reality in the form of image and concept representation in the production practice and social life. Its deep connotation is embodied in a bi-direction movement process between the objectification and non-objectification of human competence and essential power, and its goal is "naturalization of human being" and "humanization of nature" internalized in self-development of the material. The production "of human", as a cultural phenomenon, is a static presentation of social imaginary. After defining the social imaginary and analyzing its deep connotation, the author comprehensively explores the basic structure, function character and general meaning of the social imaginary. Specifically speaking, the structure of social imaginary consists of four aspects:the basic factor structure of subject-medium-object, the gradation structure of subject of individual imaginary-the collective imaginary-human imaginary, the content structure of object of implement imaginary-system imaginary-concept imaginary and the time dimension structure of past imaginary-realistic imaginary-future imaginary; the function character of social imaginary includes such several aspects as creation character, criticalness character, value tendency character and identity character; moreover, the general meaning of social imaginary is embodied mainly in its close relationship with history, tradition and culture.After a comprehensive analysis of its basic determination, the author studies the practical generation of social imaginary. The author holds the notions that ontology and epistemology of the western traditional philosophy is essentially a rational metaphysics, which have different characters such as abstractness, transcendence and the timelessness and occult creation of social imaginary. The establishment of Marx practical view embodies the huge changes of thinking modes in the history of western philosophy, which places social imaginary in a concrete, historical and living social reality. Social imaginary is generated and realizes its own transcendence and creation on the basis of practice. Meanwhile, social imaginary is also restricted by many factors in the process of its practical generation. That is to say, social imaginary only realizes its transcendence and creation under the comprehensive influence of perceptual activity, mode of production, ideology and social communication. Specifically, perceptual activity is the foundation of social imaginary generation, mode of production is the driving force of social imaginary changes, ideology is the normative power of social imaginary generation, and social communication is the means of social imaginary expansion.In the end, after studying the practical generation of social imaginary, the author explores its historical transmutation. The author believes that the level and style presented by social imaginary are different in every historical stage due to the difference of the development level of productivity and mode of production in every society. Specifically, the primitive society presented "self-denial" social imaginary, agricultural society mainly presented the "dependent" social imaginary, and industrial society mainly presented "independent-materialized" social imaginary. In contemporary society, people’s Consciousness and imaginary, on one hand, have been independent of the bondage of the tradition, on the other, are enslaved by "things". People’s imaginary is enslaved again in contemporary society under the dominant of social relationship which are materialized, instrumental reason and ideological illusion, losing its own freedom. Based on the historical style and contemporary representation of social imaginary, the author believes that the current social imaginary is on the way towards the "free and autonomous" type of communism by sublating the alienation. However, what we should do is to criticize the irrational factors in reality and keep a limitless expectation of the future on the basis of practice, and this is a transcendent expectation based on contemporary reality.