放在中國傳統與歐洲傳統之間的框架看，想像的問題有高度的變樣。從柏拉圖與亞里斯多德起，想像便被賦予相反的功能。現代的康德則給想像力一個特殊位置：先驗想像力連結了感性與知性，在美學中也有想像力的遊戲。謝林則以「內化形構」或「一體化形構」概念來標示想像力的哲學建構。當代的巴修拉認為詩意象可連結自然中的物質元素與人類創作生產，提出一種想像的形上學，人類藉著想像參與宇宙的生成變化。視覺、聽覺、觸覺甚至呼吸都不是從主體到對象的方向而已，這些都可反轉而肯定宇宙尺度下的交互主體性。自然之中有可逆性，但這種可逆的提示也是想像的，故而想像作用不是再現，而是變形。想像賦予的視域乃是開放的，能帶出語言的更新。詩意象將知覺影像變形時，以某種非實在設置世界，這種非實在豐富了世界的意義而不是減損其意義。想像形上學可以簡化為宇宙性的感應，自然與人性不是在此感應中對象化，而是相互蘊含。在中國傳統中，似乎沒有對想像的直接討論。但「象」字卻是易經詮釋中一個通用而基本的概念語彙，相較之下，莊子不措意於建立（宇宙的或倫理的）象的體系，而是呼應老子「大象無形」的論點逆轉象的功能。但莊子自己使用許多想像修辭來表述價值與意義的轉換。兀者或不材大木的意象質問著效用的態度而考慮自然中的無用。逍遙遊的想像旅程指出這種將自己投入宇宙大化的方式。如此，想像保留自然的位置，使得政治、社會上被扭曲中的人得以恢復其生動性。在此對比中，儘管意識到想像的不確定性，本文試著勾勒出不同的處世方式。藉著與現代主體性的操縱模式保持距離，想像的一種可能規定不再是落入概念網絡中，而是觸發不同的生活方式，尤其是在宇宙中的生活。

Inscribed in the context of contrast between the Chinese tradition and the European tradition, the problem of imagination is seen in a highly variable perspective. Ever since Plato and Aristotle, the imagination is endowed with different and even opposite functions. In the Modern age, Kant gave a specific position to the imagination: the transcendental imagination to link the sensibility and the understanding, the play of imagination in the aesthetics. It was Schelling who represented a most important role by proposing the Ein-bildung or Ineinsbildung as a philosophical construction by imagination. Bachelard in the contemporary time elaborated on a metaphysics of imagination, by considering the poetic image which relates the material elements in nature to the human poiesis. In Bachelardean idea, the imagination evokes the human being to participate in a cosmic becoming and ordering. A vision, a hearing, a touch and even a respiration are not from the subject to the object, they can be reversed in order to confirm an intersubjectivity in cosmic scale. There is reversibility in Nature. This evocation is also imaginary, so that the function of imagination is not representation but deformation. The horizon given by imagination is an open horizon that can lead to an innovation of language. By deforming a perceptive image, the poetic imagination institutes a world with a certain unreality which can enrich the meanings of the world instead of diminishing it. This metaphysics of imagination can be summarized as a view of cosmic correspondences by means of which nature and humanity are no longer objectifying, but implying each other. In the Chinese tradition, there is no straightforward psychological discussion of the function of the imagination. But "image" or emblem as a central way of seeing the world can be found in the Yi-Jing (Book of Mutation) interpretation. Instead of searching a hermeneutic order in establishing a system of images-cosmic and ethical at the same time, Zhuangzhi had reversed the function of image in echo to the idea of Laozhi that the most relevant image is without figure or form. But Zhuangzhi himself used lots of imaginary discourses to designate his idea of transformation of value and of meaning. The images of the handicapped or the huge strange trees are this kind of images that urges the human habitude of utility to be replaced by a natural uselessness. The imaginary journey described by Zhuangzhi, i.e. the ultimately free wandering, indicates a way to throw oneself into the becoming of nature. Thus imagination can restore the vitality to the socially and politically distorted human life by keep open the place of Nature. In this contrast, meanwhile being conscious of the original uncertainty of imagination in relation to its conceptual determination, we try to elaborate a different way of situating ourselves in the world. Kept in distance with the manipulation view of modern subjectivity, an approach to a possible determination of imagination is not catch it again in the conceptual cage, but to activate a different way of living, especially living in the cosmos.