The Meanings of "Imagine" Part I: Constructive Imagination

Philosophy Compass 8 (3):220-230 (2013)
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Abstract

In this article , I first engage in some conceptual clarification of what the words "imagine," "imagining," and "imagination" can mean. Each has a constructive sense, an attitudinal sense, and an imagistic sense. Keeping the senses straight in the course of cognitive theorizing is important for both psychology and philosophy. I then discuss the roles that perceptual memories, beliefs, and genre truth attitudes play in constructive imagination, or the capacity to generate novel representations that go well beyond what's prompted by one's immediate environment

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Neil Van Leeuwen
Georgia State University

Citations of this work

Explaining Imagination.Peter Langland-Hassan - 2020 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Imagination.Shen-yi Liao & Tamar Gendler - 2019 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The Two Faces of Mental Imagery.Margherita Arcangeli - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 101 (2):304-322.

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References found in this work

The Language of Thought.Jerry A. Fodor - 1975 - Harvard University Press.
The Modularity of Mind.Robert Cummins & Jerry Fodor - 1983 - Philosophical Review 94 (1):101.

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