MindPapers: 5.1g. Imagination

Blaauw, Martijn (2006). Belief and pretense: A reply to Gendler. Metaphilosophy 37 (2):204-209. (Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: In cases of imaginative contagion, imagining something has doxastic or doxastic-like consequences. In this reply to Tamar Szabó Gendler's article in this collection, I investigate what the philosophical consequences of these cases could be. I argue (i) that imaginative contagion has consequences for how we should understand the nature of imagination and (ii) that imaginative contagion has consequences for our understanding of what belief-forming mechanisms there are. Along the way, I make some remarks about what the consequences of the contagion cases are for the relation between knowledge and imagination

Bogdan, Radu J. (2005). Pretending as imaginative rehearsal for cultural conformity. Journal of Cognition and Culture 5 (1-2):191-213. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links | Edit)

Casey, Edward S. (1976). Imagining: A Phenomenological Study. Indiana University Press. (Cited by 36 | Google | More links | Edit)

Casey, Edward S. (1977). Imagining and remembering. Review of Metaphysics 31 (December):187-209. (Cited by 3 | Google | Edit)

Casey, Edward S. (2003). Imagination, fantasy, hallucination, and memory. In J. Philips & James Morley (eds.), Imagination and its Pathologies. MIT Press. (Google | Edit)

Casey, Edward S. (1971). Imagination: Imagining and the image. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 31 (June):475-490. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links | Edit)

Casey, Edward S. (1978). Imagining, perceiving, and thinking. Humanitas 14 (May):173-196. (Google | Edit)

Church, Jennifer (2003). Depression, depth, and the imagination. In J. Philips & James Morley (eds.), Imagination and its Pathologies. MIT Press. (Google | Edit)

Currie, Gregory (2002). Desire in imagination. In Tamar S. Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Conceivability and Possibility. Oxford University Press. (Cited by 6 | Google | Edit)

Currie, Gregory (2002). Imagination as motivation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 102 (3):201-16. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links | Edit)

Currie, Gregory (1995). Imagination as simulation: Aesthetics meets cognitive science. In Martin Davies & Tony Stone (eds.), Mental Simulation. Blackwell. (Cited by 29 | Google | Edit)

Currie, Gregory (2000). Imagination, delusion and hallucinations. In Max Coltheart & Martin Davies (eds.), Pathologies of Belief. Blackwell. (Cited by 21 | Google | More links | Edit)

Currie, Gregory & Ravenscroft, Ian (2002). Recreative Minds: Imagination in Philosophy and Psychology. Oxford University Press. (Cited by 90 | Google | More links | Edit)

De Mey, Tim (2006). Imagination's grip on science. Metaphilosophy 37 (2):222-239. (Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: In part because "imagination" is a slippery notion, its exact role in the production of scientific knowledge remains unclear. There is, however, one often explicit and deliberate use of imagination by scientists that can be (and has been) studied intensively by epistemologists and historians of science: thought experiments. The main goal of this article is to document the varieties of thought experimentation, not so much in terms of the different sciences in which they occur but rather in terms of the different functions they fulfil. I argue that thought experimentation (and hence imagination) plays a role not only in theory choice but in singular causal analysis and scientific discovery as well. I pinpoint, moreover, some of the rules governing the use of thought experiments in theory choice and in singular causal analysis, that is, some of the criteria they should meet in order to fulfil those functions successfully

Dilworth, John B. (2008). Imaginative Versus Analytical Experiences of Wines. In Fritz Allhoff (ed.), Wine and Philosophy. Blackwell. (Google | Edit)

Abstract: The highly enjoyable experiences associated with drinking good wines have been widely misunderstood. It is common to regard wine appreciation as an analytical or quasi-scientific kind of activity, in which wine experts carefully distinguish the precise sensory qualities of each wine, and then pass on their accumulated factual knowledge to less experienced wine enthusiasts. However, this model of wine appreciation is seriously defective. One good way to show its defects is to provide a better and more fundamental scientific account of what is involved in wine appreciation. In order to do so, I outline a novel, evolutionarily based theory of perceptual consciousness that explains why there must be imaginative as well as analytical kinds of experiences of wines. In addition, imaginative wine experiences, unlike typical imaginative artistic experiences, may be shown to involve highly individualistic, improvisatory elements that help to give wine drinking a unique place among the recreational arts

Doggett, Tyler & Egan, Andy (2007). Wanting things you don't want: The case for an imaginative analogue of desire. Philosophers' Imprint 7 (9):1-17. (Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: You’re imagining, in the course of a different game of make-believe, that you’re a bank robber. You don’t believe that you’re a bank robber. You are moved to point your finger, gun-wise, at the person pretending to be the bank teller and say, “Stick ‘em up! This is a robbery!”

Flew, Antony G. N. (1956). Facts and 'imagination'. Mind 65 (July):392-399. (Google | Edit)

Gendler, Tamar Szabó (2006). Imaginative contagion. Metaphilosophy 37 (2):183-203. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: The aim of this article is to expand the diet of examples considered in philosophical discussions of imagination and pretense, and to offer some preliminary observations about what we might learn about the nature of imagination as a result. The article presents a number of cases involving imaginative contagion: cases where merely imagining or pretending that P has effects that we would expect only perceiving or believing that P to have. Examples are offered that involve visual imagery, motor imagery, fictional emotions, and social priming. It is suggested that imaginative contagion is a more prevalent phenomenon than has typically been recognized

Goldie, Peter (2005). Imagination and the distorting power of emotion. Journal of Consciousness Studies 12 (8-10):127-139. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: _In real life, emotions can distort practical reasoning, typically in ways that it is_ _difficult to realise at the time, or to envisage and plan for in advance. This fea-_ _ture of real life emotional experience raises difficulties for imagining such expe-_ _riences through centrally imagining, or imagining ‘from the inside’. I argue_ _instead for the important psychological role played by another kind of imagin-_ _ing: imagining from an external perspective. This external perspective can draw_ _on the dramatic irony involved in imagining these typical cases, where one_ _knows outside the scope of the imagining what one does not know as part of the_ _content of what one imagines: namely, that the imagined emotion is distorting_ _one’s reasoning. Moreover, imagining from an external perspective allows one_ _to evaluate the imagined events in a way that imagining from the inside does not._

Goldie, Peter (2006). Wollheim on emotion and imagination. Philosophical Studies 127 (1):1-17. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links | Edit)

Harris, Paul L. (1995). Imagining and pretending. In Mental Simulation. Cambridge: Blackwell. (Cited by 7 | Google | Edit)

Ishiguro, Hilde (1966). Imagination. In British Analytical Philosophy. London,: Routledge & K Paul,. (Cited by 6 | Google | Edit)

Joyce, P. (2003). Imagining experiences correctly. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103 (3):361-370. (Google | Edit)

Keyser, Cassius J. (1911). The asymmetry of the imagination. Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 8 (12):309-316. (Google | More links | Edit)

Kind, Amy (2001). Putting the image back in imagination. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (1):85-110. (Cited by 6 | Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: Despite their intuitive appeal and a long philosophical history, imagery-based accounts of the imagination have fallen into disfavor in contemporary discussions. The philosophical pressure to reject such accounts seems to derive from two distinct sources. First, the fact that mental images have proved difficult to accommodate within a scientific conception of mind has led to numerous attempts to explain away their existence, and this in turn has led to attempts to explain the phenomenon of imagining without reference to such ontologically dubious entities as mental images. Second, even those philosophers who accept mental images in their ontology have worried about what seem to be fairly obvious examples of imaginings that occur without imagery. In this paper, I aim to relieve both these points of philosophical pressure and, in the process, develop a new imagery-based account of the imagination: the imagery model

Modell, Arnold H. (2003). Imagination and the Meaningful Brain. Bradford Book/MIT Press. (Google | More links | Edit)

Morley, James (2005). Introduction: Phenomenology of imagination. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 4 (2). (Cited by 8 | Google | Edit)

Neuman, Matthias (1978). Towards an integrated theory of imagination. International Philosophical Quarterly 18 (September):251-275. (Google | Edit)

Nichols, Shaun (2004). Imagining and believing: The promise of a single code. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 62 (2):129-39. (Cited by 8 | Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: Recent cognitive accounts of the imagination propose that imagining and believing are in the same “code”. According to the single code hypothesis, cognitive mechanisms that can take input from both imagining and from believing will process imagination-based inputs (“pretense representations”) and isomorphic beliefs in much the same way. In this paper, I argue that the single code hypothesis provides a unified and independently motivated explanation for a wide range of puzzles surrounding fiction

Nichols, Shaun (2002). Imagination and the puzzles of iteration. Analysis 62 (3):182-87. (Cited by 4 | Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: Iteration presents opposing puzzles for a theory of the imagination. The first puzzle, noted by David Lewis, is that when a person pretends to pretend, the iteration is often preserved. Let’s call this the puzzle of ‘pre- served iteration’. At the other pole, Gregory Currie has noted that very often when we pretend to pretend, the iteration does collapse. We might call this the puzzle of ‘collapsed iteration’. Somehow a theory of the imagination must be able to address these two puzzles. I argue that an empirically inspired cognitive theory of the imagination (Nichols & Stich 2000) can accommodate both puzzles

Nichols, Shaun (2006). The Architecture of the Imagination: New Essays on Pretence, Possibility, and Fiction. Oxford University Press. (Cited by 2 | Google | Edit)

Nigel, Thomas (1998). Imagination, eliminativism, and the pre-history of consciousness. Consciousness Research Abstracts 3. (Google | Edit)

Abstract: Classical and medieval writers had no term for consciousness in anything like the modern sense, and their philosophy seems not to have been troubled by the mind-body problem. Contemporary eliminativists find strong support in this fact for their claim that consciousness does not exist, or, at least, is not an appropriate scientific explanandum. They typically hold that contemporary conceptions of consciousness are artefacts of Descartes' (now outmoded) views about matter and his unrealistic craving for epistemological certainty. Essentially, they say, our belief in consciousness is a residue of once pressing, but now irrelevant, intellectual tensions between religion and the rising new science of the Early Modern period. With the attempts of Descartes and his successors to resolve these tensions, Western thought began down a track toward the conceptual cul-de-sac of the "hard problem". Plausibly, the problem will only be (dis)solved, and the onward march of science assured, when we are able to shake off the pervasive influence of the Cartesian tradition in a way that goes far beyond the mere rejection of dualism. But when we do so, eliminativists contend, the distinctively Cartesian notion of consciousness will simply drop out of our world-picture, like phlogiston or the vital entelechy

Noordhof, Paul (2002). Imagining objects and imagining experiences. Mind and Language 17 (4):426-455. (Cited by 5 | Google | More links | Edit)

O'Brien, Lucy F. (2005). Imagination and the motivational role of belief. Analysis 65 (285):55-62. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links | Edit)

Pendlebury, Michael J. (1996). The role of imagination in perception. South African Journal of Philosophy 15 (4):133-138. (Google | Edit)

Philips, J. & Morley, James (eds.) (2003). Imagination and its Pathologies. MIT Press. (Google | Edit)

Rabb, J. Douglas (1975). Prolegomenon to a phenomenology of imagination. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 36 (September):74-81. (Google | More links | Edit)

Russow, Lilly-Marlene (1978). Some recent work on imagination. American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (January):57-66. (Cited by 2 | Google | Edit)

Russow, Lilly-Marlene (1980). Towards a theory of imagination. Southern Journal of Philosophy 18:353-370. (Cited by 1 | Google | Edit)

Schellenberg, Susanna (online). Comments on Tyler doggett and Andy Egan's "wanting things you don't want". (Google | More links | Edit)

Shorter, J. M. (1952). Imagination. Mind 61 (October):528-542. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links | Edit)

Silverman, Hugh J. (1978). Imagining, perceiving, and remembering. Humanitas 14 (May):197-207. (Google | Edit)

Snoeyenbos, Milton H. (1977). On the concept of imagination. Darshana International 17 (October):34-39. (Google | Edit)

Stevenson, Leslie F. (2003). Twelve conceptions of imagination. British Journal of Aesthetics 43 (3):238-59. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: The ability to think of something not presently perceived, but spatio-temporally real. (2) The ability to think of whatever one acknowledges as possible in the spatio-temporal world. (3) The liability to think of something that the subject believes to be real, but which is not. (4) The ability to think of things that one conceives of as fictional. (5) The ability to entertain mental images. (6) The ability to think of anything at all. (7) The non-rational operations of the mind, that is, those explicable in terms of causes rather than reasons. (8) The ability to form perceptual beliefs about public objects in space and time. (9) The ability to sensuously appreciate works of art or objects of natural beauty without classifying them under concepts or thinking of them as useful. (10) The ability to create works of art that encourage such sensuous appreciation. (11) The ability to appreciate things that are expressive or revelatory of the meaning of human life. (12) The ability to create works of art that express something deep about the meaning of life

Taylor, Paul (1981). Imagination and information. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 42 (December):205-223. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links | Edit)

Thomas, Nigel J. T. (1999). Are theories of imagery theories of imagination? Cognitive Science 23 (2):207-245. (Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: [John Heil, Professor of Philosophy at Davidson College, and author of _Perception and Cognition_ (California, 1983), _The Nature of True_ _Minds_ (Cambridge, 1992), & _Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction_ (Routledge, 1998).]

Thomas, Nigel J. T. (1999). Are theories of imagery theories of imagination? An active perception approach to conscious mental content. Cognitive Science 23 (2):207-245. (Cited by 117 | Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: Can theories of mental imagery, conscious mental contents, developed within cognitive science throw light on the obscure (but culturally very significant) concept of imagination? Three extant views of mental imagery are considered: quasi-pictorial, description, and perceptual activity theories. The first two face serious theoretical and empirical difficulties. The third is (for historically contingent reasons) little known, theoretically underdeveloped, and empirically untried, but has real explanatory potential. It rejects the "traditional" symbolic computational view of mental contents, but is compatible with recent *situated cognition* and *active vision* approaches in robotics. This theory is developed and elucidated. Three related key aspects of imagination (non-discursiveness, creativity, and *seeing as*) raise difficulties for the other theories. Perceptual activity theory presents imagery as non-discursive and relates it closely to *seeing as*. It is thus well placed to be the basis for a general theory of imagination and its role in creative thought

Thomas, Nigel J. T. (online). Imagination. Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind. (Google | Edit)

Thomas, Nigel J. T. (1997). Imagery and the coherence of imagination: A critique of white. Journal of Philosophical Research 22 (April):95-127. (Cited by 5 | Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: This article defends tradition and common sense against a widespread and rarely questioned contemporary philosophical orthodoxy that underpins the entrenched and exorbitant "lingualism" of so much 20th century thought, and leads the way to extreme doctrines like cognitive relativism and eliminative materialism. It also plugs what might otherwise have seemed to be a significant hole in the argument of myÂ Are Theories of Imagery Theories of Imagination? (which I regard as my main positive contribution so far to the understanding ofÂ the mind). For a relatively brief overview of the situation in cognitive theory and consciousness studies, as I see it, see A Stimulus toÂ the Imagination. Click here to view the full article: Imagery and the Coherence of Imagination: a Critique of White. Earlier drafts of this article, one entitled "The White Images of Imagery and Imagination: A Critique and an Alternative", were formerly available on the net. Please make any citations to the published version. - N.J.T.T

Thomas, Nigel J. T. (1998). Imagination, eliminativism, and the pre-history of consciousness. Consciousness Research Abstracts 3. (Cited by 4 | Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: Classical and medieval writers had no term for consciousness in anything like the modern sense, and their philosophy seems not to have been troubled by the mind-body problem. Contemporary eliminativists find strong support in this fact for their claim that consciousness does not exist, or, at least, is not an appropriate scientific explanandum. They typically hold that contemporary conceptions of consciousness are artefacts of Descartes' (now outmoded) views about matter and his unrealistic craving for epistemological certainty. Essentially, they say, our belief in consciousness is a residue of once pressing, but now irrelevant, intellectual tensions between religion and the rising new science of the Early Modern period. With the attempts of Descartes and his successors to resolve these tensions, Western thought began down a track toward the conceptual cul-de-sac of the "hard problem". Plausibly, the problem will only be (dis)solved, and the onward march of science assured, when we are able to shake off the pervasive influence of the Cartesian tradition in a way that goes far beyond the mere rejection of dualism. But when we do so, eliminativists contend, the distinctively Cartesian notion of consciousness will simply drop out of our world-picture, like phlogiston or the vital entelechy

Thomas, Nigel J. T. (2003). Imagining minds. Journal of Consciousness Studies 10 (11):79-84. (Google | More links | Edit)

Weinberg, Jonathan M. & Meskin, Aaron (2006). Imagine that! In Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Blackwell Publishing. (Google | Edit)

Weinberg, Jonathan M. & Meskin, Aaron (2006). Puzzling over the imagination: Philosophical problems, architectural solutions. In Shaun Nichols (ed.), The Architecture of the Imagination: New Essays on Pretence, Possibility, and Fiction. Oxford. (Google | More links | Edit)

White, Alan R. (1988). Imagining and pretending. Philosophical Investigations 11 (October):300-314. (Cited by 1 | Google | Edit)

White, Alan R. (1989). Imaginary imagining. Analysis 49 (March):81-83. (Cited by 1 | Google | Edit)

White, Alan R. (1990). The Language of Imagination. Cambridge: Blackwell. (Cited by 27 | Google | Edit)

White, Alan R. (1987). Visualizing and imagining seeing. Analysis 47 (October):221-224. (Cited by 1 | Google | Edit)

White, Alan R. (1986). Ways of speaking of imagination. Analysis 46 (June):152-156. (Google | Edit)

Woody, M. J. (2003). The unconscious as a hermeneutic myth: A defense of the imagination. In J. Philips & James Morley (eds.), Imagination and its Pathologies. MIT Press. (Cited by 1 | Google | Edit)

5.1a	Pain [118]

5.1b	Pleasure [53]

5.1c	Emotions [342]

5.1d	Dreams [63]

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