Imagining a Life: On Imagination and Identity

A reflective study on the role of imagination in constructing the subjective of self involves both the theme of the representation and that of the imagination as a common speculative practice. In this paper, the author will proceed from a speculative overview around the issue of personal identity to a hermeneutical analysis onto certain uses of imagination in some of the most recent scientific researches. The aim is to (re-)determine which anthropological(-philosophical) model should be regarded as better mirroring the current scientific advancements in recognising the function of imagination in personal identity determination. The author proposes here that Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy of the capable human being offers a productive approach to the dialectic of experience, imagination and self-representation in the human identity development. Ricoeur’s philosophical anthropology reveals the profound and constitutive intertwining between the mind and body, reality and imagination, self-representation and social interaction, relation and recognition.