Despite its controversial standing in psychoanalytic discussion and the absence of a coherent theoretical foundation, the concept of sublimation is indispensable in that it encompasses issues bearing on a reconciliation of the tensions between intrapsychic and extrapsychic (Ricoeur), psychic imagination and social imagination (Castoriadis), sexuality and spirituality, and reason and instinct (Loewald). The author attempts to counteract this theoretical deficit by giving the discussion a philosophical dimension. Proceeding from a discussion (and rejection) of Kant's distinction between genesis and validity, he draws upon the term sublimation