Organized by the Languages, Literatures, Societies, Transborder and International Studies (LLSETI) at USMB and the Association of Public School Philosophy Teachers, the 2025–2026 series of philosophy lectures, titled “Imagination, the Imaginary, and the Image,” begins this Wednesday, December 17, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. with the theme: “Imagination According to Paul Ricoeur.” This lecture will take place in Room 3 at the University of Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB) administration building in Chambéry. It is open to the public and does not require registration.
About the conference
The recent publication of Paul Ricoeur’s lectures at the University of Chicago (1975) allows us to rediscover a clear reflection on the imaginative faculty in human beings and how philosophers have addressed it. While it is materially impossible to cover the entirety of Ricoeur’s work, this presentation will attempt to capture the originality of the author’s analysis of what constitutes the fundamental faculty of human knowledge and affectivity.
How can the concepts of the tableau and fiction help us understand the image, the imagination, and the imaginary?
This lecture will be led by Pascal Bouvier, professor emeritus at USMB and the LLSETI laboratory.
About the annual cycle "Imagination, the Imaginary, and Image."
To imagine is to bring absent realities into the present. Myths and religions have used this method, and the arts and sciences use it to understand, scrutinize, and also criticize, in order to protect themselves, if necessary, from the vertigo of madness. Because of this assumption of the unknown into which we plunge to find something new again and again, our imaginations, our imaginations, our images, can lead us just as easily to nightmares as to new dawns. This is what we must imagine in order to move towards the better, progress towards the beautiful, hope for the just, against the fear that subjugates us to what is or to false dystopian hopes.
LEARN MORE
- Program for the 2025-2026 philosophy lecture series
- LLSETI laboratory website
- Contact: Pascal Bouvier, member of the LLSETI laboratory and organizer of this conference series