IMAGINATION IN MODERN HISTORY OF ETHICS

2002 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 12610032
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: 倫理学
• Research Institution: IWATE UNIVERSITY
• Principal Investigator: IKEDA Shigekazu IWATE UNIVERSITY, FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, PROFESSOR, 人文社会科学部, 教授 (50193199)
• Project Period (FY): 2000 – 2002
• Keywords: IMAGINATION / HISTORY OF ETHICS / NEO-PLATONISM / DESCARTES / PASCAL / HOBBES / ROUSSEAU / ADAM SMITH

Research Abstract

First I studied the situation about the imagination in contemporary ethics. We can see an antinomy in the problem of ethics. Therefore I'd like to find the origin of this antinomy in modern history of ethics In this report I'd like to describe the history of the "imagination" from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century. Neo-Platonism, for example Marcilio Ficino, appreciated the value of imagination very highly. The imagination was to said to contribute to all virtues. But in the seventeenth century, Descartes, Pascal and Hobbes criticized the imagination for many reasons. They disclosed the dark side of the imagination. In the eighteenth century Rousseau developped these thoughts and systematically criticized the civilization. Contrary to this stream, English and Scottish thinkers from Schaftesbury to Adam Smith defended the modern civilisation and modern imagination. Especially for Adam Smith, the imagination is the major factor of the sympathy which is the foundation of the morality. But there are some splits and contradictions in the thought of Adam Smith. These contradictions can explain the reason of the transfiguration of imagination in the nineteenth century. In the future, I'd like to survey this history of the imagination from the nineteenth century to now.