The term 'presentation' (phantasia in Greek; Vorstellung in the German philosophical tradition; Gegenwärtigung in phenomenology) occupies a structurally pivotal position across several registers of the depth-psychology corpus. In Stoic moral psychology, as elaborated by Inwood and corroborated by the ancient sources preserved in Cicero and John of Damascus, presentation names the initiating moment in any sequence of mental events leading to action: it is the percept that arises in the hegemonikon and to which rational assent is either granted or withheld. The ethical weight of the concept turns entirely on this juncture between stimulus and response — a point of no small consequence for theories of impulse, responsibility, and the sage's invulnerability to passion. Thompson and phenomenological psychology sharpen the distinction between presentational experience (Gegenwärtigung), in which the object is given in its very being, and re-presentational experience (Vergegenwärtigung), in which it is given as phenomenally absent and mentally evoked — a distinction that maps directly onto perception versus memory and imagination. Berry, citing Jung, extends this into depth-psychological territory: every psychic process observable as such is essentially theoria, that is, a presentation, and its analytic reconstruction is at best a variant of the same presentation. Together these traditions reveal 'presentation' as the hinge between world and psyche, between appearing and knowing, between impulse and freedom.
In the library
16 passages
Phenomenologists thus draw a crucial distinction between intentional acts of presentation (Gegenwärtigung) and of re-presentation (Vergegenwärtigung)... in perceptual experience the object is given as present in its very being.
This passage establishes the foundational phenomenological distinction between presentation as the direct givenness of the object in perception and re-presentation as the mentally evoked absence characteristic of memory and imagination.
Thompson, Evan, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, 2007thesis
To return to the presentations which initiate any sequence of mental events leading to action... the relationships among presentation, assent, the imperatival aspect of impulse, and the predicates which we are told are the principal object of impulse.
Inwood identifies presentation as the trigger-event in Stoic action theory, whose relationship to assent and impulse constitutes the central problem of Stoic moral psychology.
Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, 1985thesis
Passion is a sensible activity of the appetitive faculty, depending on the presentation to the mind of something good or bad.
John of Damascus formalises the Stoic-inflected schema in which passion is defined as a sensible activity wholly dependent upon a preceding presentation that classifies its object as good or evil.
John of Damascus, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016thesis
It is sensation that causes a passion, which is called presentation, to arise in the soul, and from presentation comes notion.
This passage traces the epistemic-affective chain from sensation through presentation to notion and finally to discriminative thought, locating presentation as the second moment in the soul's cognitive sequence.
John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 2021thesis
Apparently all of these various lekta 'subsist dependent on presentations' as Diogenes Laertius puts it... a lekton is that which subsists with a rational presentation.
Inwood argues that in Stoic logic every propositional entity (lekton) subsists in dependence on a presentation, making the presentation the material substratum upon which rational content is built.
Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, 1985thesis
Every psychic process, so far as it can be observed as such, is essentially theoria, that is to say, it is a presentation; and its reconstruction—or 're-presentation'—is at best only a variant of the same presentation.
Citing Jung, Berry argues that all psychic process is fundamentally presentational, and that the analytic re-presentation of experience is not a deeper truth but merely another version of the original showing.
Berry, Patricia, Echo's Subtle Body: Contributions to an Archetypal Psychology, 1982thesis
In a brute beast this follows directly upon the stimulus of a presentation... But in a human being the impulse does not exist without a mental act of assent.
The passage distinguishes animal from human response to presentation by introducing assent as the specifically rational mediation that makes human beings accountable for their impulses.
Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, 1985supporting
It is only when a presentation occurs to the mind... the idea that human psychology might involve both representational images and propositional entities in the mind, the latter spelling out the content of the former.
Inwood traces the Stoic dual-layer model of mind — perceptual image paired with propositional lekton — back to Platonic precedent, showing presentation as the empirical base from which discursive thought proceeds.
Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, 1985supporting
No animal can refrain from seeking to get a thing that is presented to its view as suited to its nature... so the mind cannot refrain from giving approval to a clear object when presented to it.
Cicero's Academic source presents the cataleptic presentation as one that compels assent, using the analogy of biological appropriation (oikeion) to argue for the involuntary character of clear perceptual evidence.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting
Whatever object comes in contact with him in such a way that the presentation is probable, and unhindered by anything, he will be set in motion.
This passage articulates the Carneadean probabilist position: in the absence of a cataleptic presentation, the probable and unimpeded presentation suffices as a guide to action for the wise person.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting
The stimulative nature of the presentation and the sage's awareness of it... any action would be the result of assent and that whether or not it was done was not in the hands of the source of the presentation but in those of the recipient.
Inwood defends Chrysippus against Plutarch's charge by insisting that the causal power of a stimulative presentation does not determine the action, since assent — and hence responsibility — remains with the recipient.
Brad Inwood, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, 1985supporting
Tum illum ita definisse, ex eo quod esset, sicut esset, impressum et signatum et effictum... si eiusdem modi esset visum verum quale vel falsum.
Cicero reports Zeno's definition of the cataleptic presentation as that which is impressed, sealed, and moulded from what is — the locus of the Stoic-Sceptic controversy over whether a true presentation can be indistinguishable from a false one.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting
Your being, maybe all Being, is precisely 'how' it appears to be, the how of just-so Sein, declaring who and what and where each event is.
Hillman's phenomenological claim that being is identical with its manner of appearing implicitly endorses a presentational ontology in which the image as it presents itself is the primary datum of soul.
Hillman, James, The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling, 1996supporting
Duo placet esse Carneadi genera visorum... alia visa esse probabilia, alia non probabilia.
Carneades' two-tier division of presentations into those that can and cannot be grasped, and those that are and are not probable, establishes the Academic epistemological framework for acting under uncertainty.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), -45supporting
Closer to our modern conception of a realistic presentation than anything else that has come down to us from antiquity... its precise and completely unschematized fixation of the social milieu.
Auerbach's use of 'presentation' here belongs to literary aesthetics rather than psychology, but illuminates how the term carries the sense of immediate, unmediated showing across both domains.
Auerbach, Erich, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, 1953aside
Their function is graphic dramatization (illustratio) of a given occurrence, or at times the presentation of great political or moral ideas; in either case they are intended as the rhetorical bravura pieces of the presentation.
Auerbach's discussion of historiographical presentation as rhetorical illustratio offers a parallel context in which presentation serves the showing-forth of meaning through enacted form.
Auerbach, Erich, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, 1953aside