Overview

Is it merely an accident of English etymology that ‘imagination’ is cognate with ‘image’? Despite the iconoclasm shared to a greater or lesser extent by all Abrahamic faiths, theism tends to assert a link between beauty, goodness and truth, all of which are viewed as Divine attributes. Douglas Hedley argues that religious ideas can be presented in a sensory form, especially in aesthetic works. Drawing explicitly on a Platonic metaphysics of the image as a bearer of transcendence, The Iconic Imagination shows the singular capacity and power of images to represent the transcendent in the traditions of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam. In opposition to cold abstraction and narrow asceticism, Hedley shows that the image furnishes a vision of the eternal through the visible and temporal.

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9781441172174

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[An] extraordinarily rich exploration of our image-making tendencies, understood as responses to a meaningful and value-laden world ... This is a book that constantly challenges us with reminders of possibilities for thinking beyond the narrow range of much recent philosophy and theology. Impressively learned but highly readable, it does not merely discuss the intellectual imagination, but stimulates it as well. - Religious Studies Review

The Iconic Imagination is a textured text. Reminiscent of George Steiner, Hedley weaves history, philosophy, theology, literature, psychology, and more throughout each chapter ... [It] holistically images various features of human life, and affirms vital academic interdisciplinarity ... The Iconic Imagination merits reading, reflection, argument, and rereading. - Reading Religion [An] extraordinarily rich exploration of our image-making tendencies, understood as responses to a meaningful and value-laden world ... This is a book that constantly challenges us with reminders of possibilities for thinking beyond the narrow range of much recent philosophy and theology. Impressively learned but highly readable, it does not merely discuss the intellectual imagination, but stimulates it as well. - Religious Studies Review

Author Information

Douglas Hedley is Reader in Hermeneutics and Metaphysics and Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge, UK. A past President of the European Society for the Philosophy of Religion, he is the author of Coleridge, Philosophy and Religion (2000), Sacrifice Imagined (2011) and Living Forms of the Imagination (2008).

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