Le réalisme de l’imaginaire chez Bachelard et Ricœur

Abstract

This article examines the concept of productive imagination in the philosophies of Bachelard and Ricœur, tracing its roots to Kant’s notion of imagination as a power of the real rather than mere reproduction. Against traditional views that subordinate imagination to perception, both thinkers emphasize its creative, transformative role, especially through language and metaphor. Ricœur develops a semantic theory of metaphor that generates new meaning and reconfigures reality, while Bachelard focuses on a material and dynamic imagination rooted in lived experience and poetic language. Both converge in rejecting a simple opposition between real and unreal, proposing instead a “surreal” dimension in which imagination transfigures reality and reveals it more deeply. Ultimately, imagination is shown to possess a form of truth, capable of redescribing the world and disclosing reality as dynamic, active, and in the process of becoming.