The aim of our “discussion remark” is not to present a critical review on the book written by S.Geniusas, a brilliant study notable by its extreme painstakingness, historical sensitivity and terminological
accuracy, but rather to delve deeply into the origins of phenomenological understanding of productive
imagination, i.e., to turn “back to Kant”, given in Saulius Geniusas’ book (the first chapter) for introductory reason. We proceed from S.Geniusas remark that productive imagination establishes a relation between different abilities, reconciles the antagonism between them and, in this respect, exercises
a pro-creative function. We reveal that it is this pro-creative element of productive imagination that
brings it closer to time (as indicated by Viktor Molchanov, a prominent Russian phenomenologist, in his study of 1988) and serves as the basis for gaining new knowledge. Imagination acts as a limit for
reflection, however, it gets revealed only through reflecting, and, thus, it proves to be connected with
a fundamental layer of consciousness, which appears both as an object and as a means of describing
reflection, i.e., as time. The convergence, or rather, identification, of time with imagination lies in the
very fact that both of them exercise an objective function: time — as a possibility for semantic definition of objectivity, imagination — as a basis for a possibility of any knowledge. Moreover, imagination
turns out to be a source of a paradox and, ultimately, the only thing that explains self-cognition.