The Legacy of Henry Corbin: An interesting new essay from Russia

"...the Imagination (or love, or sympathy, or any other sentiment) induces knowledge, and knowledge of an 'object' which is proper to it..."

Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was a scholar, philosopher and theologian. He was a champion of the transformative power of the Imagination and of the transcendent reality of the individual in a world threatened by totalitarianisms of all kinds. One of the 20th century’s most prolific scholars of Islamic mysticism, Corbin was Professor of Islam & Islamic Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Teheran. He was a major figure at the Eranos Conferences in Switzerland. He introduced the concept of the mundus imaginalis into contemporary thought. His work has provided a foundation for archetypal psychology as developed by James Hillman and influenced countless poets and artists worldwide. But Corbin’s central project was to provide a framework for understanding the unity of the religions of the Book: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. His great work Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi is a classic initiatory text of visionary spirituality that transcends the tragic divisions among the three great monotheisms. Corbin’s life was devoted to the struggle to free the religious imagination from fundamentalisms of every kind. His work marks a watershed in our understanding of the religions of the West and makes a profound contribution to the study of the place of the imagination in human life.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

An interesting new essay from Russia

Understanding Imagination: Towards a New Humanitarian Paradigm

ALEKSANDR SAUTKIN

Murmansk Arctic State University, Russia

Key words: imagination, image, sensual world, anthropological traject, mundus imaginalis.

Summary

The article deals with the problem of imagination interpreted in a broad historical and philosophical

perspective. It is shown that European metaphysics have for a long time neglected imagination in favour of reason. In contrast to this position, the necessity of considering imagination in a new way is postulated – as a leading creative force of the human being. In this connection, the ideas of Henri Corbin and Gilbert Durand are analysed as a possible source of new ways of humanitarian discourse.