Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-30T05:37:06.731Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Imagination is only as rational as the purpose to which it is put

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2008

Andrew Shtulman
Andrew Shtulman
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041. shtulman@oxy.eduhttp://faculty.oxy.edu/shtulman/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Byrne's criteria for considering imagination rational do not accord with standard notions of rationality. A different criterion – that is, the correspondence between an inference strategy and its domain of application – is offered and illustrated with recent work on possibility judgment. This analysis suggests that, although imagination can be put to rational purposes, imagination itself should not be considered rational.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 30 , Issue 5-6 , December 2007 , pp. 465 - 466
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Byrne, R. M. J. (2005) The rational imagination: How people create alternatives to reality. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1993) Consciousness explained. Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1973) Counterfactuals. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Moss, J. & Case, R. (1999) Developing children's understanding of the rational numbers: A new model and an experimental curriculum. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 30(2):122–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shtulman, A. & Carey, S. (2007) Improbable or impossible? How children reason about the possibility of extraordinary claims. Child Development 78(3):1015–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Siegler, R. S. (1996) Emerging minds: The process of change in children's thinking. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, C., Solomon, G. E. A. & Carey, S. (2005) Never getting to zero: Elementary school students' understanding of the infinite divisibility of number and matter. Cognitive Psychology 51:101–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stalnaker, R. C. (2003) Ways a world might be. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar