Bryanik Nadezda
Abstract: The article considers the phenomenon of imagination in terms of cognitive activity. The approach was implemented in the philosophy of the modern time. The author refers to epistemological concepts of imagination, which were developed by Hume, Kant, and Hegel. For the first time in contemporary Russian literature on the history of philosophy and epistemology, the author provides a comparative analysis of these concepts. Both continuity and significant differences are found in the works of the representatives of empiricism and rationalism in classical epistemology. Similarity of the attitudes of both types is presented in the recognition of irrational imagination, as well as in its role in the mechanism of cognition. Difference in attitudes marks the initial statements of philosophers: Hume builds cognitive-psychological version of imagination; Kant creates epistemological-knowable concept of this phenomenon; Hegel includes imagination into phenomenology of spirit. According to the author, the above-mentioned approaches in the philosophy of modernity are potentially important for the ontological, philosophical, psychological, and epistemological interpretation of imagination in nonclassical philosophy. In revealing features and functions of imagination in the mechanisms of cognition, those philosophers used several categories – productive/reproductive, associating imagination, idea-representation, the power of imagination, fantasy, etc. Despite of the obvious role of imagination in the different kinds of cognitive activity, nowadays the epistemological nature of this phenomenon remains unsolved. The analysis presented in the article makes the author to conclude that the reason for this is the denial of the irrational nature of the imagination.
Keywords: imagination; productive/reproductive/associating imagination; rational/irrational; sensual/ rational; classical epistemology.