ABSTRACT
What has become of the concept of imagination in the postmodern era? In our Civilization of the Image might we not expect to find imagination accorded a privileged place by contemporary philosophers? The very opposite is the case. Right across the spectrum of structuralist, post-structuralist and deconstructionist thinking, one notes a common concern to dismantle the very notion of imagination. Where it is spoken of at all, it is subjected to suspicion or denigrated as an outdated humanist illusion spawned by the modern movements of romantic idealism and existentialism. The philosophical category of imagination, like that of ‘man’ himself, appears to be dissolving into an anonymous play of language. For many postmodern thinkers, it has become little more than the surface signifier of a linguistic system.
