Improvisation is the Non-Thetic Outwardness of the Imagination Open Access

Isseks, Marshall Aaron (2010)

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Abstract

Abstract
Improvisation is the Non-Thetic Outwardness of the Imagination
By Marshall A. Isseks
"Improvisation is the Non-Thetic Outwardness of the Imagination" attempts to
phenomenologically understand the improvisational form of consciousness. We are met
at once with a difficulty: if all consciousness is consciousness of something, and all
introspection and imagination is met with nothing but facts and the real (insofar as we
cannot imagine something with qualities not once in-the-world due to our existence
preceding our essence), is it possible to speak of true, legitimate creation or is it that the
memory of our betters is keeping us on our feet? When one improvises, our imaginations,
filled with content strictly tied to the past, is let out into the world through created,
worked matter at the same rate of its being conceived; the improvised project exists
nowhere outside of itself and is therefore the most transparent of praxes. With a
corresponding, unique form of consciousness that is not only pre-reflexive but is
extemporaneous in its intentionality, to improvise is to compose without projection, a
phenomenon thus far unaccounted for in Husserlian phenomenology. There is no part of
the product of an improvisation that remains yet to be completed because its product is
itself unfolded with its subject. And yet, paradoxically, it leads to completion, not simply
to an end (terminus). Special consideration will also be given to social ontology and the
philosophical vs. the literary.

Table of Contents

Contents

An Introduction..………………………………………………………………………1

I. The Imaginary Chapter…………………………………………………………...…3

A. From the Certain to the Now to the Not Yet……………………………………...............6

B.The Non-Place of the Imaginary "In-the-World"………………………………..............13

C. From Presence to Transcendence………………………………………………...................15

D. The Necessity of Our Contingency and the Contingency of Our Necessity…...20


II. The Jazz Group In Fusion:

A. From Imaginary Object to Bond of the Group………………………………................22

B. The Group vs. The Gathering…………………………………………………......................26

C. The Storming of the Bastille………………………………………………….....................…28

D. Towards an Opposition…………………………………………………........................………33

E. Responsibility…………………………………………………………...........................………...36

F. The Group's Laws are Under No One's Jurisdiction But Their Own…….....……..39

G. The Present Phenomenology of the Jazz Group…………………………...........……..40

H. The Unspoken, Temporal Oath…………………………………………....................………42

I. One…Two…One…Two…A-One, Two, One, Two, Three Four-…………............…...42

III. E xistentialism is an Improvisationalism:

A. Improvisation is our Imagination's Non-Thetic Outwardness………….......………46

B. The Improvisational, Social Ontology of the Jazz Group………………….........……49

IV. The Situation of the Writer in 2010 and The Philosophy of the Secret:

A. Is the Touch From Writer to Reader a Real Relation?.................................52

B. Rhythm as Lived Experience……………………………………………….....................…..54

C. It Don't Mean a Thing if it Aint Got That Swing……………………….............………56

D. The Median Point Between Praxis and the Practico-Inert…………………......…...62

E. The Sense of an Ending……………………………………………………......................……64

A Conclusion………………………………………………………………….......................…………72

Works Cited and Consulted…………………………………………………...............…………75

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