Preview

Russian Journal of Philosophical Sciences

Advanced search

Imagination and Fancy in Conservative Discourse: The Issues of Translation

https://doi.org/10.30727/0235-1188-2020-63-4-99-114

Abstract

Not uncommon for Russian translations of British philosophical classics is the problem of not conveying the notions of imagination and fancy properly. The purpose of this paper is to serve as a reminder of the fact that concepts of fancy and imagination began to grow apart as early as the first part of 18th century, and it is necessary to treat them accordingly for the translation to be correct. Very soon, the notion of imagination and the distinction between imagination and fancy began to be involved in the contemplation of political reality. Today it is the notion of political imagination that attracts researchers the most, providing a tool for explaining continuity and discontinuities in political process as well as left utopianism and conservative nostalgia. The awareness of the distinction between imagination and fancy could foster research activity in such fields as the history of ideas and intellectual history as well as studies in ideology and power. The distinction is examined on the basis of texts usually considered to be written by authors of conservative strand. It is an interesting fact, indeed, that it was conservatives who made the main contribution to the development of this distinction in English-language philosophy. Among them are Coleridge, who resolutely draw the line between fancy and imagination, and Burke with his appeal to the moral imagination. The kindred typology of imagination was proposed in 20th century by such thinkers as Irving Babbitt, T.S. Eliot and Russell Kirk. The importance of Kirk lies partly in that fact that he began the discussion of the conservative attitude to imagination and tried to frame it as a coherent narrative.

About the Author

Nikita S. Glazkov
National Research University Higher School of Economics
Russian Federation

Nikita S. Glazkov – postgraduate student at the School of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, National Research University Higher School of Economics.

Moscow



References

1. Brett R.L. (2018) Fancy & Imagination. London: Routledge.

2. Burke E. (1757) A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. London: R. and J. Dodsley.

3. Burke E. (1759) A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (2 nd ed.). London: R. and J. Dodsley.

4. Burke E. (1790) Reflections on The Revolution in France and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London. London: J. Dodsley.

5. Burke E. (1979) A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Moscow: Iskusstvo (Russian translation).

6. Burke E. (1991) Reflections on The Revolution in France and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London (E.E. Mal’tseva, Trans.). Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya. 1991. No. 6, pp. 114–121 (Russian translation).

7. Burke E. (1992) Reflections on The Revolution in France and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London (S. Wexler). London: Overseas Public Interchange (Russian translation).

8. Burke E. (1993) Reflections on The Revolution in France and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London (E.I. Gel’fand). Moscow: Rudomino (Russian translation).

9. Byrne W.F. (2006) Burke’s Higher Romanticism: Politics and the Sublime. Humanitas. Vol. 19, no. 1/2, pp. 14–34.

10. Coleridge S.T. (1817) Biographia Literaria. London: Rest Fenner.

11. Coleridge S.T. (1987) Selected Works. Moscow: Iskusstvo (Russian translation).

12. Eagleton T. (1990) The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

13. Engell J. (1981) The Creative Imagination. Enlightenment to Romanticism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

14. Furniss T. (1993) Edmund Burke’s Aesthetic Ideology. Language, Gender, and Political Economy in Revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

15. Hume D. (1826) The Philosophical Works of David Hume (Vol. 3). Edinburgh, London: Adam Black and William Tait, Charles Tait.

16. Hume D. (1996a) Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth (E.S. Lagutin, Trans.). In: Hume D. Works (Vol. 2, pp. 675–688). Moscow: Mysl’ (Russian translation).

17. Hume D. (1996b) A Treatise of Human Nature (S.I. Tsereteli, Trans.). In: Hume D. Works (Vol. 1, pp. 53–656). Moscow: Mysl’ (Russian translation).

18. Kirk R. (1960) The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot. Chicago: H. Regnery Co.

19. Kirk R. (2007) The Moral Imagination. The Russell Kirk Center. Retrieved August 11, 2019, from https://kirkcenter.org/imagination/the-moral-imagination/

20. Kirk R. (2013) Russell Kirk on the Moral Imagination. Vimeo. Retrieved August 11, 2019, from https://vimeo.com/70964676

21. Quinton A. (1978) The Politics of Imperfection. London: Faber and Faber.

22. Scruton R. (2015) Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. London: Bloomsbury.

23. Trilling L. (2008) The Liberal Imagination. New York: New York Review Books.

24. Whale J. (2000) Imagination Under Pressure, 1789–1832. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

25. Wolin S.S. (1954) Hume and Conservatism. The American Political Science Review. Vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 999–1016.

26.


Review

For citations:


Glazkov N.S. Imagination and Fancy in Conservative Discourse: The Issues of Translation. Russian Journal of Philosophical Sciences. 2020;63(4):99-114. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.30727/0235-1188-2020-63-4-99-114



Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.


ISSN 0235-1188 (Print)
ISSN 2618-8961 (Online)