Abstract

One of the dominant themes of Souriau’s research is the problematization of the poetic act, the creative gesture through which man becomes demiurge, founder of being. Through his opposition to the Bergsonian aesthetic of the creative élan, as well as through his critique of dynamical schema theory, Souriau attempted to define the creative act – the poetic act – as an ordered, ascending process which leads to position of a being (the artwork) in its patuity, ie with an objective degree of reality. In doing so, Souriau redefines the ontology of the creation, coming to elaborate an original theory of the virtual and its actualization, which leads towards an enigmatic and superior existential level which he defines as supra-existential.