In this paper, I provide an account of the role of the associative function of the imagination in causal cognition for Kant. I consider, first, Kant’s treatment of the imaginative faculty in the student notes to Kant’s lectures on anthropology in the 1770s, with the aim of working up a more-or-less comprehensive taxonomy of its various sub-faculties. I then turn to Kant’s account of the activity of the imagination, particularly in accordance with the law of association, in (...) the theory of cognition presented in the notes, and show that Kant, apparently in spite of Hume, takes the result of this activity as the basis for causal cognition. I then contend that Kant’s treatment of affinity in the A edition Deduction is animated precisely by his concern to shore up his previous account of causal cognition against Hume’s sceptical challenge. (shrink)

Cognitive models of social anxiety disorder suggest that memory biases for negative social information contribute to symptoms of social anxiety. However, it remains unclear whether memory bias...

This paper puts forward an account of imaginative immersion. Elaborating on Kendall Walton’s thesis that imagining aims at the fictional truth, it first argues that imaginings are inherently rule- or norm-governed: they are ‘regulated’ by that which is presented as fictionally true. It then shows that an imaginer can follow the rule or norm mandating her to imagine the propositions presented as fictional truths either by acquiring explicit beliefs about how the rule (norm) is to be followed, or directly, without (...) acquiring such beliefs. It proceeds to argue that to the extent that an imaginer follows this rule (norm) without holding such beliefs, she is more immersed in her imaginings. The general idea is that immersion in an activity is a matter of following rules or norms that apply to that activity without explicitly thinking about how to follow them, that is, without ‘doxastic mediation.’ Lastly, the paper shows that this thesis can explain various features associated with imaginative immersion, such as the sort of attentiveness it involves, the emotional response it generates, and its relation to spoilers. (shrink)

How are we to understand the phenomenology of imagining? Attempts to answer this question often invoke descriptors concerning the “vivacity” or “vividness” of our imaginative states. Not only are particular imaginings often phenomenologically compared and contrasted with other imaginings on grounds of how vivid they are, but such imaginings are also often compared and contrasted with perceptions and memories on similar grounds. Yet however natural it may be to use “vividness” and cognate terms in discussions of imagination, it does (...) not take much reflection to see that these terms are ill understood. In this paper, I review both some relevant empirical literature as well as the philosophical literature attempt to get a handle on what it could mean, in an imaginative context, to talk of vividness. As I suggest, this notion ultimately proves to be so problematic as to be philosophically untenable. (shrink)

The point of this paper is to reveal a dogma in the ordinary conception of sensory imagination, and to suggest another way forward. The dogma springs from two main sources: a too close comparison of mental imagery to perceptual experience, and a too strong division between mental imagery and the traditional propositional attitudes (such as belief and desire). The result is an unworkable conception of the correctness conditions of sensory imaginings—one lacking any link between the conditions under which an (...) imagining aids human action and inference and the conditions under which it is veridical. The proposed solution is, first, to posit a variety of imaginative attitudes—akin to the traditional propositional attitudes—which have different associated correctness (or satisfaction) conditions. The second part of the solution is to allow for imaginings with “hybrid” contents, in the sense that both mental images and representations with language-like constituent structure contribute to the content of imaginings. (shrink)

The picture of moral development defended by followers of Aristotle takes moral cultivation to be like playing a harp; one gets to be good by actually spending time playing a real instrument. On this view, we cultivate a virtue by doing the actions associated with that virtue. I argue that this picture is inadequate and must be supplemented by imaginative techniques. One can, and sometimes must, cultivate virtue without actually performing the associated actions. Drawing on strands in Buddhist philosophy, I (...) explain several methods of moral development that rely on imagination and visualization rather than overt action. These techniques are essential in cases where cultivating virtue the way one practices the harp is impossible. In particular, I focus on single-event virtues, first-time virtuous acts, and morally dangerous situations. (shrink)

Violence, as a concept, has shaped most of human history and discourse. Over the centuries, the concept has gone through dynamic evolutions and should be understood in relation to diverse agents such as nation, nostalgia, and culture. Modern society’s tendency to impede and constrain overt forms of violence has paved the way for covert forms to exist in socio-cultural spheres. Cultural violence is one such realization where aggression gets exercised covertly through heterogenous mediums such as language, regulations, mass media, and (...) most importantly cultural practices. Its topological structures can be traced in national imagination and a sense of cultural nostalgia originating out of it, that ultimately formulates cultural “otherness.” In Gandhian philosophy, the absence of physical aggression is insignificant, if not complemented with the eradication of violence from the cultural and intellectual strata. Gandhi’s critique of exclusive nationalism and narrowness is reflective of a distinct kind of cultural topology that generates structural violence and with the due course of history it gets legitimacy to exert power over the cultural binary it constructed. The fundamental questions of the paper are associated with assessing the role of national imagination and cultural imperatives in germinating the structures of violence in culture, exclusive nationalism, and Gandhian reconsideration of peace in the context of covert violence in the material and intellectual realms. (shrink)

In this essay, I attempt to interpret the educational philosophy of John Dewey in a way that accomplishes two goals. The first of these is to avoid any reference to Dewey as a propagator of a particular scientific method or to any of the individualist and cognitivist ideas that is sometimes associated with him. Secondly, I want to overcome the tendency to interpret Dewey as a naturalist by looking at his concept of intelligence. It is argued that ‘intelligent experience’ is (...) the basic concept of education. I suggest how this concept should be understood. I propose to look at it as an interplay between the faculties of imagination and judgment. (shrink)

In this essay, I attempt to interpret the educational philosophy of John Dewey in a way that accomplishes two goals. The first of these is to avoid any reference to Dewey as a propagator of a particular scientific method or to any of the individualist and cognitivist ideas that is sometimes associated with him. Secondly, I want to overcome the tendency to interpret Dewey as a naturalist by looking at his concept of intelligence. It is argued that ‘intelligent experience’ is (...) the basic concept of education. I suggest how this concept should be understood. I propose to look at it as an interplay between the faculties of imagination and judgment. (shrink)

In this essay, the focus is not on what imagination is but rather on what it is like. Rather than exploring the various accounts of imagination on offer in the philosophical literature, we will instead be exploring the various accounts of imaginative experience on offer in that literature. In particular, our focus in what follows will be on three different sorts of accounts that have played an especially prominent role in philosophical thinking about these issues: the impoverishment view (...) (often associated with Hume), the will-dependence view (often associated with Wittgenstein), and the nonexistence view (often associated with Sartre). While there are important insights to be drawn from each of these views, each seems to me to be importantly flawed in various ways. As I will suggest, close examination reveals that none of them gives us an adequate account of the character of imaginative experience. Ultimately, in the final section of this paper, I briefly explore what their failure teaches us about the project of giving an account of imaginative experience. (shrink)

Imagination has always been recognised as an important faculty of the human soul. As mediator between the senses and reason, it is rooted in philosophical and psychological-medical theories of human sensation and cognition. Linked to these theories was the use of the imagination in rhetoric and the arts: images had not only an epistemological role in transmitting information from the outside world to the mind's inner eye, but could also be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience. (...) In this tradition, with Cicero and Quintilian as its auctoritates, images were used to arouse and manipulate the emotions. Both traditions had to be revalued in the seventeenth century with the advent of a mechanist, Cartesian picture of human cognition and the physical world. In spite of their usual suspicion of imagination, which was commonly associated with illusions, dreams and fiction, seventeenth-century philosophers realised that the imagination also had its place in mathematical, scientific and philosophical thinking. This volume, number XII in the series Groningen Studies in Cultural Change, offers the papers presented at a workshop on imagination, organised by the editors in September 2002. It covers both the philosophical-psychological as well as the humanist-rhetorical traditions, discussing key figures such as Kilwardby, Lorenzo Valla, Leon Battista Alberti, Agricola, Gianfrancesco Pico, Erasmus, Paracelsus, Kepler, Bacon, Suarez, Descartes and Spinoza, but also treating hitherto neglected texts and writers such as Nicholas of Amsterdam and Jean Lemaire de Belges. By focusing on the ever-shifting ideas of the imagination as a philosophical and rhetorical tool, this volume not only deepens our understanding of its central theme but also sheds new light on the thought and writings of these and other authors. (shrink)

: Extreme pain and suffering are associated with depression as well as tissue damage. The impossibility of imagining any feelings of pain and suffering intersect with two matters: the kind of imagining involved, and the nature of delusions. These two correspond to the sequence of the following discussion, in which it is contended first that feelings of pain and suffering resist being imagined in a certain, key way, and second that, given a certain analysis of delusional thought, this precludes the (...) possibility of delusional affections while allowing delusions about affections. Keywords: Pain; Imagination; Delusion; Affection; Feelings Dolore immaginato e dolore illusorio Riassunto: Dolore estremo e sofferenza sono solitamente associati a depressione e danni tissutali. L’impossibilità di immaginare il provare dolore e sofferenza dipende da due fattori: il tipo di immaginazione coinvolta e la natura dell’illusione. Questi due fattori saranno trattati in parallelo nell’analisi che qui si propone, in cui si discuterà in primo luogo come il provare dolore e sofferenza oppongano resistenza all’essere immaginati in un certo modo e in secondo luogo come, secondo una certa analisi del pensiero illusorio, questo preclude la possibilità di affezioni illusorie mentre consente illusioni circa le affezioni. Parole chiave: Dolore; Immaginazione; Illusioni; Affezione; Sensazioni. (shrink)

In this paper we intend to show that in Memory, History, Forgetting, Paul Ricœur articulates memory and history through imagination. This philosopher distinguishes two main functions of imagination: a poetical one, associated with interpretation and discourse, and a practical and projective one that clarifies and guides our actions. In Memory, History, Forgetting, both functions of imagination are present, but are associated with different aspects of memory. The first one is present especially in the phenomenology of the cognitive (...) dimension of memory; the second one is developed in the analysis of the abuses of artificial memory, while their convergence is described in the section on the abuses of natural memory. Besides the similarities in the way these functions of imagination operate in Oneself as Another and in Memory, History, Forgetting, we will show some important differences between these two works and we will propose reasons for these differences. Keywords: Poetical Imagination, Practical Imagination, Abused Memory, Ideology, Utopy. Résumé Dans cet article nous souhaiterions montrer que, dans La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, l’imagination productrice est ce qui permet d’articuler la mémoire et l´histoire. Ricœur distingue deux principales fonctions de l’imagination: l’une, poétique, associée à l’interprétation et au discours ; l’autre pratique et projective, qui éclaire et oriente nos actions. Dans La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, ces deux fonctions de l’imagination sont présentes mais elles sont associées à des aspects différents de la mémoire. La première est surtout présente dans la phénoménologie de la dimension cognitive de la mémoire, la seconde apparaît dans l’analyse des abus de la mémoire artificielle, et l’articulation entre ces deux fonctions se trouve enfin décrite dans la section concernant l’abus de la mémoire naturelle. Outre les similitudes dans la façon dont ces fonctions de l’imagination opèrent dans Soi-même comme un autre et dans La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, nous essaierons de montrer qu’il existe cependant certaines différences importantes entre ces deux œuvres en tentant d’en expliciter les raisons. Mots-clés: Imagination poétique, imagination pratique, mémoire abusée, idéologie, utopie. (shrink)

La philosophie de David Hume entend rompre avec une théorie classique des facultés, redessinant la place que l'imagination joue dans notre vie psychique et déployant ainsi une géographie mentale inédite. Instrument privilégié de son scepticisme philosophique, cette théorie de l'imagination pose cependant autant de questions qu'elle n'en résout, du fait même qu'associant imagination et conception, elle se voit chargée de rendre compte de tendances contradictoires au sein de l'esprit humain. Une clarification terminologique et conceptuelle permet alors, faute (...) de résoudre ces tensions, d'éclairer les nouveaux enjeux proposés par une telle approche. (shrink)

Imagination has been the focus of much philosophical inquiry in recent decades. Although it plays an essential role in linking emotional engagement with ethical experience, imagination has received comparatively little attention in film-philosophy. In this article, I argue that imagination plays an essential role in linking emotional engagement with moral-ethical experience. Drawing on phenomenological, cognitive and aesthetic perspectives, I focus on perceptual imagining and suggest that an account of embodied cinematic imagination — encompassing both perceptual/sensory and (...) propositional/cognitive imagining — is especially relevant to theorizing cinematic experience. The interplay of first-person empathic and third-person sympathetic perspectives is another essential feature of our emotional and ethical engagement with cinema. By synthesizing ‘bottom-up’ sensory, affective responses to audiovisual images, with ‘top-down’ cognitive processes associated with mental simulation, an account of embodied cinematic imagination can explain how emotional engagement and ethical responsiveness work together in our experience of audiovisual narratives. (shrink)

In this reply to my reviewers, I touch upon Husserl’s notion of fantasy. Whereas Kant positions fantasy outside the scope of his own work, Husserl brings it back. The importance of this notion lies in freeing imagination from the tight link to images, as for Husserl imagination is an activity that functions as a “quasi perception.” Ihde and Stiegler enrich Husserl’s analysis of imagination with various aspects of technology: Ihde shows how changes in the technologies that mediate (...) our imagination will necessarily change our imagination; Stiegler broadens Husserl’s analysis of retention. The two theories can be combined into a new understanding of subjectivity that is modeled as layers. Some layers can be performed by AI. The second part deals with the question of whether AI can be imaginative. Traditionally, imaginative creativity is associated with art. Bioart and AI art are brought as examples of a new definition of art, according to which art is the arrangement of materials in a way that produces a meaning. This definition does not refer specifically to creativity. In both forms of art, the biological/artificial and the human cooperate so that the former arranges the materials and the latter produces the meaning, albeit this division of labor is not clear-cut. The result is a co-shaping process. My conclusion is that algorithms can be considered creative by human standards, but this entails a new mode of imagination that is co-shaped and co-shared by humans and algorithms. The layer paradigm explains how such co-shaping works in practice. (shrink)

Imagination is a capacity of internal visualization, concept creation and manipulation not directly dependent upon sensation. Imagination is associated with a range of phenomena: mental imagery, fancy, inventiveness, insight, counterfactual reasoning, pretence, simulation and conceivability.

My contribution seeks to unfold an ontology of the imagination based on the history of the productive imagination in its relation to common sense and recent developments of the notion of the social imaginary, while making use of ideas found in both Western and Japanese thinkers. Kyoto School philosopher Miki Kiyoshi shows a connection between the imagination he inherits from Kant and a certain form-formlessness dynamic he inherits from Nishida Kitarō’s notion of a self-forming formlessness. The source (...) of the imagination’s creativity is in that formlessness that lies both within the interior depths of the psyche and outside in the environing nature. Post-war Japanese philosopher Nakamura Yūjirō—taking off from Miki’s attempts to concretize Nishida’s theory of place in terms of the imagination—in turn points to a connection between imagination and place and explicates this via his development of the Aristotelian notion of common sense (koinē aisthēsis, sensus communis). Common sense in itself has a long history within the West that involves a variety of meanings starting with the Aristotelian faculty for integrating the various senses (as koinē aisthēsis) that was closely associated with the imagination, and ending with two contrasting notions of a communal or social sensibility (as sensus communis)—the vulgar “commonplace” notion of common sense as habituated custom and the healthy sense of common sense as prudential, contextual, ethical judgment explicated by thinkers like Hannah Arendt. Both are found in Kant’s Critique of Judgment but the imagination’s creativity expressed in genius comes into tension with the latter communal sense of common sense that attempts to fetter that creativity of genius with the judgment of taste. The contemporary notion of the social imaginary, for example in Cornelius Castoriadis, seems to encompass both the vulgar and the healthy senses of common sense, and also recalls the close connection between the imagination and common sense in Aristotle. Contrary to what Kant sought, however, this underscores the temporal contingency or historicity and non-transcendental status of common sense, even in its healthy sense, and its communal judgments. At the same time, the form-formlessness dynamic found in Miki and the tension between unbounded creativity and communal responsibility found in Kant’s third Critique in a certain sense also reappears in Castoriadis’ ontology (of magmas) whereby chaos is the source of the imagination’s creativity not only for the individual psyche but for the social-historical or social imaginary significations as well, that is, in the social imaginary’s inner tension between the instituting and the instituted. Recalling the fact that Nishida was inspired by the Greek notion of chōra in developing his theory of place, I then suggest that the linking of the imagination with the process of the forming of the formless as well as with place may allow us in turn to understand the creative imagination ontologically in the Greek terms of chōrismos—etymologically related to chōra—as the difference that brings order to chaos by allotting beings, each to its own place. Imagination as Ein-bildung might then be viewed as the ontological formation that, through differentiation, gives shape, form, to place. This then leads to the issue of autonomy—To whom does the spontaneity of the creative imagination belong when the chaos or formlessness, indeed “freedom,” at the root of its creativity exceeds the boundaries of subjectivity or reason? Heidegger in his later works, albeit in only a few places, suggests such a sense of the imagination as no longer a faculty of the human subject, no longer a doing of man. (shrink)

A number of studies have investigated how immersion in a virtual reality environment can affect participants’ implicit biases. These studies presume associationism about implicit bias. Recently philosophers have argued that associationism is inadequate and have made a case for understanding implicit biases propositionally. However, no propositionalist has considered the empirical work on virtual reality and how to integrate it into their theories. I examine this work against a propositionalist background, in particular, looking at the belief and patchy endorsement models. I (...) argue that the results therein can only be accommodated by a model which recognizes structural heterogeneity, that is, one which allows for implicit biases being both associatively and non-associatively structured. My preferred view – that implicit biases are constituted by unconscious imaginings – allows for this, as well as for heterogeneity at the level of content (propositional and imagistic), a feature which also earn its explanatory keep in this context. I conclude that empirical work on virtual reality and implicit bias gives us a reason to prefer a pluralist model of bias, and that my unconscious imagination model, in its recognizing wide-ranging heterogeneity, is uniquely placed to accommodate the results of work on virtual reality and bias mitigation. (shrink)

In the course of his closing remarks at the Copenhagen Congress, the then President of the Association International des Études Byzantines reminded those who worried about the state of our field of “the rule that science may begin with imagination but … rests on factual documentation rather than conjecture”. As one who was (and is) less troubled about the way things were (and are) going, an art historian may be permitted to point to an example in which a document (...) can be shown to corroborate educated guesswork, and consequently to demonstrate one way in which peace between the two camps can (at least on this occasion) be achieved. The result may not be the absolute certainty demanded by our ancien président, but it comes as close to proof as anything available in a domain notorious for its lack of “factual documentation”. The method in question is triangulation—a third datum brought to bear on two previously known bodies of evidence—and the example that of the Middle Byzantine silks that display images of eagles. At issue is the belief that surviving examples were originally gifts offered to foreigners who in turn presented them to institutions or individuals of the Latin church. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

The notion of imagination as a specific human capacity first took shape in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and was further developed by Latin writers like Cicero and Christian theologians like Augustine. It came to be associated in a special way with the activity of poets and was celebrated as such in Dante's Divine Comedy. By the 17th century Francis Bacon could contrast science as the work of reason with poetry, the work of imagination. Yet in that (...) same century, an enlargement began of the human grasp of things very distant, very small, and long past, i.e. of things, processes, and events, entirely remote from the testimony of direct perception. This enlargement depended in the first instance on human powers of imagination, though those engaged in its pursuit were slow to recognize this, so strong was the perceived opposition between reason and imagination. Only very gradually did that opposition break down; even today, when theoretical physics depends so crucially on the construction of categories altogether distant from the familiar realm of the senses (defined here as the work of „second imagination”), science is still too often seen as the domain of rigorous method by contrast with the free-ranging territory of the poet and the artist. (shrink)

This essay unites current philosophical thinking on imagination with a burgeoning debate in the philosophy of memory over whether episodic remembering is simply a kind of imagining. So far, this debate has been hampered by a lack of clarity in the notion of imagining at issue. Several options are considered and constructive imagining is identified as the relevant kind. Next, a functionalist account of episodic remembering is defended as a means to establishing two key points: first, one need not (...) defend a factive view of remembering in order to hold that causal connections to past experiences are essential to how rememberings are typed; and, second, current theories that equate remembering with imagining are in fact consistent with a functionalist theory that includes causal connections in its account of what it is to remember. This suggests that remembering is not a kind of imagining and clarifies what it would take to establish the contrary. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Literature, Imagination, and Human RightsWillie van Peer“the poet’s function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that might happen”Aristotle: Poetics, 1451aAristotle’s dictum has been of vital importance to the development of literary theory, and its significance can still be felt today. It is the foundation of the distinction we make between journalism and literature, between history and fiction. Literature, Aristotle proposes, (...) is about things that could happen, not about things that have taken place in reality. Literature is thus inscribed in the realm of the imagination. However, imagination does not operate in an epistemological vacuum. A fictional text entertaining no relation with the world would have no meaning. Perhaps giants, dragons and witches do not really exist, and perhaps it is not really possible to cover seven miles with each step of those wonderful boots that Tom Thumb discovered. But we have no difficulty in imagining those things, precisely because they entertain an intimate relationship with forms and things, events and actions that happen in daily life. The details of the relationship between reality and fiction are less important for the present argument than the fact that fiction is embedded in our pragmatic attitudes. 1 Ernst Bloch has given this human tendency a name: The Hope Principle. Our desire for a better world expresses itself in hope, a distinctive feature of the species Homo Sapiens. The importance of the imagination in the project of humanity has received eloquent and systematic treatment in the philosophical work of Hans Vaihinger and Helmuth Plessner. 2 Imagination also gives impetus to history, because it drives us toward the realization of aims and plans that initially lived only in our hearts and minds: “Someone dreaming never remains in the same place.” 3 [End Page 276]Similar things have been asserted about literature, by Horace, Sidney, Matthew Arnold, and others. Reading is supposed to make us better humans, heightening our awareness, increasing our sensibility, and thus indirectly guiding our actions toward the establishment of a better world. Sometimes noble motives are associated with this function. Reading literature, it is then assumed, makes the reader more socially tolerant, more perceptive about other humans, and more politically conscious. This is the so-called Edification Hypothesis. Anthony Savile sums up this view when he submits the thesis that literature has a unique power to make us understand the thoughts and feelings of other human beings. This ethical perspective on literature has been expressed since Greek Antiquity. 4 It will be remembered that Plato condemned literature precisely for this reason: because it diverts our attention from the real world, itself already an imperfect reflection of Pure Ideas. Aristotle rejects this view and develops a theory squarely opposed to that of his teacher. According to him, literature contributes to the elevation of mankind, to paideia. By showing us that which is possible, and by involving us in the inescapable passage of tragic events, readers and spectators are drawn into emotions of fear and compassion, emotions that lead to katharsis, a process that purifies us of megalomania (hubris), safeguarding democratic government and protecting us from unrestrained tyranny. 5The Aristotelian view that literature has an edifying effect had been generally present in Western tradition till about 1800. Until then literature was viewed almost universally as an ethical category. Consider, for instance, the self-evident way in which Richardson prefaces Pamela: “If to divert and entertain, and at the same time to instruct and improve the minds of the YOUTH of both sexes: If to inculcate religion and morality in so easy and agreeable a manner, as shall render them equally delightful and profitable: If to set forth in the most exemplary lights, the parental, the filial, and the social duties....” 6The embarrassment a modern reader may feel when confronted with such overt claims to morality is largely a product of the nineteenth century, when literature came to be seen as a predominantly aesthetic category, eluding all attempts at moral categorization. This movement has resulted in a liberation of literature from moralism. At the same time, it has created nontrivial difficulties in thinking about ethical and political issues, so... (shrink)

I propose a new model of implicit bias, according to which implicit biases are constituted by unconscious imaginings. I begin by endorsing a principle of parsimony when confronted with unfamiliar phenomena. I introduce implicit bias in terms congenial to what most philosophers and psychologists have said about their nature in the literature so far, before moving to a discussion of the doxastic model of implicit bias and objections to it. I then introduce unconscious imagination and argue that appeal to (...) it does not represent a departure from a standard view of imagination, before outlining my model and showing how it accommodates characteristic features of implicit bias. I argue for its advantages over the doxastic model: it does not violate the parsimony principle, it does not face any of the objections so far raised to doxasticism, and it can accommodate the heterogeneity in the category of implicit bias. Finally, I address whether my view limits our ability to hold people accountable for their biases (it does not), and whether it is consistent with what we know about intervention strategies (it is). I conclude that implicit biases are constituted by unconscious imaginings. (shrink)

Articulates an imaginationist solution to the question of how purely instrumental music can be perceived by a listener as having emotional content. Both musicians and laypersons can perceive purely instrumental music without words or an associated story or program as expressing emotions such as happiness and sadness. But how? In this book, Saam Trivedi discusses and critiques the leading philosophical approaches to this question, including formalism, metaphorism, expression theories, arousalism, resemblance theories, and persona theories. Finding these to be inadequate, he (...) advocates an “imaginationist” solution, by which absolute music is not really or literally sad but is only imagined to be so in a variety of ways. In particular, he argues that we as listeners animate the music ourselves, imaginatively projecting life and mental states onto it. Bolstering his argument with empirical data from studies in neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science, Trivedi also addresses and explores larger philosophical questions such as the nature of emotions, metaphors, and imagination. Saam Trivedi is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Imagination in Inquiry by A. Pablo IannoneAmy KindIANNONE, A. Pablo. Imagination in Inquiry. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2022. xxvi + 254 pp. Cloth, $110.00; eBook $45.00Though imagination is often associated with the fanciful and the fictional, over the course of the last decade philosophers have begun to devote considerable attention to more practical uses of imagination. Philosophers of imagination have increasingly focused on (...) ways in which imagination can play an important epistemic role in activities such as decision-making, planning, and scientific discovery; more generally, there has been attention to a variety of ways in which imagination can teach us about the world in which we live. Iannone’s discussion in Imagination in Inquiry can be seen as part of this general trend—even if his discussion is not itself situated directly within contemporary philosophy of imagination but, rather, in a broader interdisciplinary approach.Iannone works with an expansive conception of what imagination is. In his view, we should not limit our understanding of imagination simply to the ability to generate images. Rather, imagination is a diverse set of different abilities that aim “at figuring out cognitively, emotively, or practically, alternatives for dealing with actual, probable, plausible, foreseeable, or merely possible challenges or problems, abstract or concrete, theoretical or practical being faced, or notions being considered, and determining or deciding which is (are) preferable in the circumstances, and acting accordingly.” Moreover, this set of abilities should not be seen as operating in isolation; rather, imagination functions as part of an ecology of human abilities. Iannone refers to his view of imagination as the “homeostatic model,” so called because he sees imaginative processes as maintaining stability by way of a system of self-correcting feedback and methods for incorporating and adjusting to any new information received.Iannone also operates with an expansive conception of what counts as practical use of imagination. In his view, imagination is put to practical use in a wide range of circumstances, for example, when a dancer imagines the next steps of a dance in the process of spontaneous improvising, when a combatant imagines how to block an expected blow from an opponent, and when an environmental activist imagines a new set of corrective policies to address pollution. All these uses fall under the activity of what Iannone calls “inquiry,” that is, the activity of finding a solution to a problem or challenge. The problems and challenges that might prompt the use of imagination can be both personal and interpersonal, and the imaginative processes used will involve strategies such as discovery, creation, and anticipation.In the first part of the book, Iannone develops his basic conceptual apparatus. In the next part of the book, he puts this apparatus to work in the context of philosophy, that is, he shows how imagination plays a role in philosophical inquiry. In the third part of the book, he looks at the role of imagination in other disciplines such as sociology and psychology. Here, the interdisciplinary nature of his discussion is especially on display. In the fourth part of the book, he applies his model of imagination to a number of different contexts; in particular, he discusses the role of [End Page 354] imagination in language, in humor, in vision (both at the personal and the societal level), and in morality. Finally, the last part of the book offers a variety of case studies involving dance, technology, and artificial intelligence. Of the four chapters in this part of the book, three are written by other authors: two by Alejandra Iannone, a scholar and practitioner of dance and theater (and the author’s daughter), and one by Rocci Luppicini, an expert in technology studies. In light of the explosive pace with which new AI technologies are being developed, the book’s discussion of whether and how such technologies present challenges for our capacity for imagination is especially timely and important.In addition to affirming the practical importance of imagination, Iannone also affirms the practical importance of nurturing imagination—something he repeats at several points throughout the book. But how do we do this? One natural way that imagination is nurtured is simply by its regular use... (shrink)

The Kerygma of the Wilderness Traditions in the Hebrew Bible examines biblical writers' use of the wilderness traditions in the books of Exodus and Numbers, Deuteronomy, the Prophets, and the Writings to express their beliefs in God and their understandings of the community's relationship to God. Kerygma is the proclamation of God's actions with the purpose of affirming faith/or appealing to an obedient response from the community. The experiences of the wilderness community, who rebelled and refused to live according to (...) God's purposes, serve as a polemic against disbelief in God and the refusal to embrace Israel's religious heritage. In the Writings, more than in the Prophets, the wilderness traditions are remembered with a notable resemblance to the traditions in Exodus and Numbers, which reflects a heightened interest in the ancient traditions in the closing turbulent period of Israelite history. Recollections of Israel's beginnings in the wilderness address problems associated with faith, obedience, and ultimately, the nature of the Israelite community. (shrink)

This study juxtaposes an imaginal inquiry into the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice with a historical exegesis of the ancient religious movement generally termed Orphism, which came to be associated with it. Inviting unconscious elements into the study of myth and subsequently elaborating a theoretical analysis as well as a creative project---as this study does in the form of a screenplay adaptation---corresponds to Carl Jung's theory of the transcendent function, which states that a new level of being is possible by (...) balancing these two approaches to such material. This study unfolds the myth's latent theology by dreaming it forward in this way. ;The principal thesis---that Orpheus looks back to Eurydice with purpose and an awareness that his gaze will cause her to return to Hades---is itself an example of unconscious material emerging into consciousness. The greater part of this study is devoted to deriving meaning from the twist that this re-imagining implies for the elucidation of myth in general and for the study of this myth in particular. ;A principle question addressed is "What aspects of the latent theology found to exist in this myth can be said to constitute a founder story of Orphism?" In addition, this study proposes the figure of Orpheus as emblematic of the active masculine principle---exalted in his balancing of solar and lunar masculinity---that provides a blueprint for a dualistic cognitive model of archetypal experience. ;This model posits that the dualities found in the myth, and sometimes in life, derive their patterning from the individual's inability to experience the archetype directly. Orpheus' look back exemplifies a breaching of the veil that separates us from the archetype, allowing a momentary interpenetration of the individual's sphere of consciousness with the essence of the archetype. It is thought that integration of unconscious and conscious material follows. Finally, how these insights can be applied to the lives of men and women is addressed in this study's conclusion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Literature, Imagination, and Human RightsWillie van Peer“the poet’s function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that might happen”Aristotle: Poetics, 1451aAristotle’s dictum has been of vital importance to the development of literary theory, and its significance can still be felt today. It is the foundation of the distinction we make between journalism and literature, between history and fiction. Literature, Aristotle proposes, (...) is about things that could happen, not about things that have taken place in reality. Literature is thus inscribed in the realm of the imagination. However, imagination does not operate in an epistemological vacuum. A fictional text entertaining no relation with the world would have no meaning. Perhaps giants, dragons and witches do not really exist, and perhaps it is not really possible to cover seven miles with each step of those wonderful boots that Tom Thumb discovered. But we have no difficulty in imagining those things, precisely because they entertain an intimate relationship with forms and things, events and actions that happen in daily life. The details of the relationship between reality and fiction are less important for the present argument than the fact that fiction is embedded in our pragmatic attitudes. 1 Ernst Bloch has given this human tendency a name: The Hope Principle. Our desire for a better world expresses itself in hope, a distinctive feature of the species Homo Sapiens. The importance of the imagination in the project of humanity has received eloquent and systematic treatment in the philosophical work of Hans Vaihinger and Helmuth Plessner. 2 Imagination also gives impetus to history, because it drives us toward the realization of aims and plans that initially lived only in our hearts and minds: “Someone dreaming never remains in the same place.” 3 [End Page 276]Similar things have been asserted about literature, by Horace, Sidney, Matthew Arnold, and others. Reading is supposed to make us better humans, heightening our awareness, increasing our sensibility, and thus indirectly guiding our actions toward the establishment of a better world. Sometimes noble motives are associated with this function. Reading literature, it is then assumed, makes the reader more socially tolerant, more perceptive about other humans, and more politically conscious. This is the so-called Edification Hypothesis. Anthony Savile sums up this view when he submits the thesis that literature has a unique power to make us understand the thoughts and feelings of other human beings. This ethical perspective on literature has been expressed since Greek Antiquity. 4 It will be remembered that Plato condemned literature precisely for this reason: because it diverts our attention from the real world, itself already an imperfect reflection of Pure Ideas. Aristotle rejects this view and develops a theory squarely opposed to that of his teacher. According to him, literature contributes to the elevation of mankind, to paideia. By showing us that which is possible, and by involving us in the inescapable passage of tragic events, readers and spectators are drawn into emotions of fear and compassion, emotions that lead to katharsis, a process that purifies us of megalomania (hubris), safeguarding democratic government and protecting us from unrestrained tyranny. 5The Aristotelian view that literature has an edifying effect had been generally present in Western tradition till about 1800. Until then literature was viewed almost universally as an ethical category. Consider, for instance, the self-evident way in which Richardson prefaces Pamela: “If to divert and entertain, and at the same time to instruct and improve the minds of the YOUTH of both sexes: If to inculcate religion and morality in so easy and agreeable a manner, as shall render them equally delightful and profitable: If to set forth in the most exemplary lights, the parental, the filial, and the social duties....” 6The embarrassment a modern reader may feel when confronted with such overt claims to morality is largely a product of the nineteenth century, when literature came to be seen as a predominantly aesthetic category, eluding all attempts at moral categorization. This movement has resulted in a liberation of literature from moralism. At the same time, it has created nontrivial difficulties in thinking about ethical and political issues, so... (shrink)

There has been an explosion of interest in “innovation-oriented knowledge” and utility in early modern knowledge economies. Despite this, a healthy skepticism surrounding the category of “useful knowledge” persists, at least in part because of its association with intentional concealment. Helpful in many ways, this skepticism has fostered a tendency to overlook a variety of efforts to teach “useful knowledge” in the period: efforts that were anchored in engagement with the real and involved the cultivation of an ability to direct (...) the powers of the imagination. Indeed, for some the imagination served as a faculty central to an epistemology of use. This article takes as its example a handbook written by an early political economist who endeavored to teach readers how to imagine uses for things they observed in collections while traveling so they would be better prepared to participate in a new, transnational culture of innovation. (shrink)

As humans, we frequently engage in mental time travel, reliving past experiences and imagining possible future events. This study examined whether similar factors affect the subjective experience associated with remembering the past and imagining the future. Participants mentally “re-experienced” or “pre-experienced” positive and negative events that differed in their temporal distance from the present , and then rated the phenomenal characteristics associated with their representations. For both past and future, representations of positive events were associated with a greater feeling of (...) re-experiencing than representations of negative events. In addition, representations of temporally close events contained more sensorial and contextual details, and generated a stronger feeling of re-experiencing than representations of temporally distant events. It is suggested that the way we both remember our past and imagine our future is constrained by our current goals. (shrink)

How do we identify the "queer auteur" and their queer imaginings? Is it possible to account for such a figure when the very terms "queer" and "auteur" invoke aesthetic surprises and disorientations, disconcerting ironies and paradoxes, and biographical deceits and ambiguities? David A. Gerstner traces a history of ideas that spotlight an ever-shifting terrain associated with auteur theory and, in particular, queer-auteur theory. Engaging with the likes of Oscar Wilde, Walter Benjamin, James Baldwin, Jean Louis Baudry, Linda Nochlin, Jane Gallop, (...) Cáel Keegan, Luce Irigaray, and other prominent critical thinkers, Gerstner contemplates how the queer auteur in film theory might open us to the work of desire. Ultimately, Queer Imaginings is a journey in shared pleasures in which writing for and about cinema makes way for unanticipated cinematic friendships."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This paper argues that Kant endorses a distinction between rational and natural sympathy, and it presents an interpretation of rational sympathy as a power of voluntarya posterioriproductive imagination. In rational sympathy we draw on the imagination’s voluntary powers (a) to subjectively unify the contents of intuition, in order to imaginatively put ourselves in others’ places, and (b) to associate imagined intuitional contents with the concepts others use to convey their feelings, in such a way that those contents prompt (...) feelings in us that are like their feelings. (shrink)

The notion of physical premotion (praemotio physica) is usually associated with the theological topic of divine concurrence (concursus divinus). In the present paper I argue that the Thomist Domingo Báñez (1528–1604) applied the concept of premotion (though not the expression “praemotio”) also in his psychology. According to Báñez, the active intellect (intellectus agens) communicates a kind of “actual motion” to the phantasma (i.e. the mental sensory image perceived by the imagination) in order to render it a collaborator of intellectual (...) cognition. Such an actual motion is, in other words, a premotion to the effect, as the phantasma is, in Báñez’s view, “elevated” to the production of an effect that transcends its proper powers. This Báñez’s theory was largely accepted in the subsequent development of Thomism. (shrink)

Perception is said to have assertoric force: It inclines the perceiver to believe its content. In contrast, perceptual imagination is commonly taken to be non-assertoric: Imagining winning a piano contest does not incline the imaginer to believe they actually won. However, abundant evidence from clinical and experimental psychology shows that imagination influences attitudes and behavior in ways similar to perceptual experiences. To account for these phenomena, I propose that perceptual imaginings have implicit assertoric force and put forth a (...) theory—the Prima Facie View—as a unified explanation for the empirical findings reviewed. According to this view, mental images are treated as percepts in operations involving associative memory. Finally, I address alternative explanations that could account for the reviewed empirical evidence—such as a Spinozian model of belief formation or Gendler’s notion of alief—as well as potential objections to the Prima Facie View. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Criticism, Imagination, and the Subjectivization of AestheticsRoger W. H. SavageThe growing discontent with reductivist practices signals a new current in contemporary criticism's understanding of music, literature and art. George Levine's unease with critics who are unable or unwilling to account for their continuing preoccupation with literary texts they expose as "imperialist, sexist, homophobic and racist" illumines the contradiction fueling the reduction of aesthetics to ideology.1 Cultural studies that (...) deploy literature as evidence of the aesthetics' socio-historical substance mask literature's capacity to break open new perspectives on reality by assuming that literary works are politically complicit with the aesthetics' strategic "mystification of the status quo" (A&I, p. 3). Criticism's indifference to its philosophical presuppositions exacerbates the paradox of denouncing a body of works that constitute criticism's aesthetic and intellectual heritage. According to Mario Valdés, literary studies' coming of age mandates that criticism take account of a tradition nurtured by a succession of philosophers including Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur.2 For Valdés, the post-structuralist realization that literary texts are indeterminate and inexhaustible prohibits replacing the work of art with critical commentaries on it; criticism's collective and determining role belongs to a shared community of commentary whose history and thought is a record of the changing interpretations and understandings of literary texts' meanings. [End Page 164]Valdés's claim extends to the field of contemporary music criticism, where the fashion of denouncing aesthetics as socially pernicious turns against traditional musicology's institutional authority. By demystifying absolute music (instrumental music devoid of programmatic associations), a self-proclaimed critical musicology revolts against traditional musicology's perceived political and ideological agenda. Critical musicology militates against the aesthetic conceit that absolute music transcends its social construction. Yet, by overlooking the philosophical presuppositions that set music's autonomy against practical affairs, new musicology accedes to the schema it recoils against.The tradition nurtured by Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics and Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology represents a critical current whose significance has been overshadowed by postmodernist investments in decoding music's social and political content. Gadamer's critique of the subjectivization of aesthetics and Ricoeur's meditations on the imagination's capacity for invention offer an alternativeto contemporary music criticism's reaction against the principle of music's aesthetic autonomy. Gadamer and Ricoeur question art's formal separation from reality, which belongs to the history of Kant's radical subjectivization of aesthetics. Gadamer's critique of art's aesthetic differentiation prepares the ground for revealing how socially informed analyses conform to the schema Kant initiates by divorcing judgments of taste from their surrounding cultural ethos. Gadamer argues that, by discrediting theoretical knowledge that does not rely on the methodology of the natural sciences, the transcendental function Kant ascribes to aesthetic judgment lays the foundation for differentiating between art's aesthetic constitution and a concept of truth that accommodates the standard of the natural sciences. Through reducing the "sensus communis to a subjective principle," Kant legitimates his critique of aesthetic judgments by denying taste any importanceas a mode of knowledge.3Ricoeur's hermeneutical reflections on imagination complement Gadamer's critique of a differentiating consciousness that abstracts art works from their cultural worlds. For Ricoeur, imagination is productive when the fictions that works create affect our understanding of ourselves and our world by re-describing reality. Aesthetics' alignment with ideology encounters a limit in the power works evince by unfolding different ways of seeing or hearing reality. Ricoeur's reflections on imagination stand in stark contrast to the idea that individual works represent a form of cultural capital in the struggle for social position [End Page 165] and power. Contemporary critical practices' failure to account for the philosophical separation of judgments of taste from knowledge of reality precipitates the impasse criticism encounters when it identifies aesthetics with ideology at the expense of a work's capacity to affect reality in productive ways. The dispersal and potential disappearance of music's aesthetic character into the recesses of cultural and political analysis keeps step with the conceptual narrowing imposed by a restrictive sociological critique. Demystifying music's ideological representations of gender, race and identity purges romantic... (shrink)

Reasoning with diagrams is considered to be a peculiar form of reasoning. Diagrams are often associated with imagistic representations conveyed by spatial arrangements of lines, points, figures, or letters that can be manipulated to obtain knowledge on a subject matter. Reasoning with diagrams is not just ‘peculiar’ because reasoners use spatially arranged characters to obtain knowledge – diagrams apparently have cognitive surplus: they enable a quasi-intuitive form of knowledge. The present paper analyses the issue of diagrams’ cognitive value by enquiring (...) into the tradition of symbolic cognition developed by Leibniz, Lambert, and Kant. The proposal resulting from this enquiry is to question the idea that the cognitive value of diagrams lies solely in allowing evidence for inferences. The imaginative dimension of diagrams connects reasoning to doxastic attitudes of meditation and enquiry. (shrink)

Resurrecting the neglected question of what we mean by legal justice, this book seeks to re-imagine rather than simply critique contemporary notions of the rule of law, rights and legal equality. A work of reconstruction, it offers a progressive and egalitarian approach to concepts that have become overly associated with the idea of limited government and social conservatism. Focusing on the necessary conditions of co-operative community life, the book presents a vision of law that facilitates rather than frustrates politics, an (...) anlysis of rights that boosts our capacities for caring, and an idea of equality that captures a cosmopolitan vision based on the recognition of shared humanity. (shrink)

Dorion Cairns correctly interprets the preconstituted stratum of Edmund Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation to be the primordial ego and not the social world, as was thought by Alfred Schutz, who considered Husserl to be insufficiently attentive to the social world’s hold upon us. Following Cairns’s interpretation, which involves recovering and reconstructing strata that may never exist independently, one better understands how the transfer of sense animate organism involves automatic association, or somatic apprehension. This sense-transfer extends to any animate organism, not (...) just humans, and draws on extensive unreflected-upon similarities despite the distinctive fact that the other’s body is never given to oneself as is one’s own. Following Cairns’s interpretation, one can also understand the second epoché as an imaginative, reconstructive abstraction rather than as an example of failed ascesis. Consequently, Husserl appears as less intellectualized in his approach to empathy than often thought to be and more confident in the phenomenologist’s capacity to imagine and attend selectively to experience. (shrink)

James Conroy's Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Imagination, Education and Democracy implies three main aims: first, to celebrate aspects of imagination in education and politics; second, to challenge defensive closure in varieties of discourse, especially in the language of economic and monetary management in education and politics; and third, to open up, for reciprocal enrichment, situations and discourses pertaining to consideration of state funding for religiously affiliated schools. Liminality, characteristic of thresholds and borders, calls for interpretation and mediation, (...) as well as appreciation of uncertainties. Liminality of imagination is explored in contexts associated with this third aim, but also in other kinds of context associated with the first two aims. As well as offering critical assessment of the book, this review article indicates some scope for interpretation and development. (shrink)

James Conroy’s Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Imagination, Education and Democracy implies three main aims: first, to celebrate aspects of imagination in education and politics; second, to challenge defensive closure in varieties of discourse, especially in the language of economic and monetary management in education and politics; and third, to open up, for reciprocal enrichment, situations and discourses pertaining to consideration of state funding for religiously affiliated schools. Liminality, characteristic of thresholds and borders, calls for interpretation and mediation, (...) as well as appreciation of uncertainties. Liminality of imagination is explored in contexts associated with this third aim, but also in other kinds of context associated with the first two aims. As well as offering critical assessment of the book, this review article indicates some scope for interpretation and development. (shrink)

James Conroy’s Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Imagination, Education and Democracy implies three main aims: first, to celebrate aspects of imagination in education and politics; second, to challenge defensive closure in varieties of discourse, especially in the language of economic and monetary management in education and politics; and third, to open up, for reciprocal enrichment, situations and discourses pertaining to consideration of state funding for religiously affiliated schools. Liminality, characteristic of thresholds and borders, calls for interpretation and mediation, (...) as well as appreciation of uncertainties. Liminality of imagination is explored in contexts associated with this third aim, but also in other kinds of context associated with the first two aims. As well as offering critical assessment of the book, this review article indicates some scope for interpretation and development. (shrink)

This study investigated whether temporal clustering of autobiographical memories around periods of self-development would also occur when imagining future events associated with the self. Participants completed an AM task and future thinking task. In both tasks, memories and future events were cued using participant-generated identity statements . Participants then dated their memories and future events, and finally gave an age at which each identity statement was judged to emerge. Dates of memories and future events were recoded as temporal distance from (...) the identity statement used to cue them. AMs and future events both clustered robustly around periods of self-development, indicating the powerful organisational effect of the self. We suggest that life narrative structures are used to organise future events as well as memories. (shrink)

Approaches to global ethics have drawn on a number of diverse theoretical traditions, such as Kantianism and utilitarianism. While emerging frameworks contribute to a growing awareness of and interest in ethics within a global society, the values that they prioritize are not adequate for realizing a just, equitable and fair system of global governance. This article considers the possibilities of an alternative ethic - a feminist ethic of care - and explores how it can bear on present circumstances, including global (...) inequity and injustice. This care ethic has been put forward as a viable normative approach to politics and policy. Little attention, however, has been paid to the potential of a care ethic within the globalization and ethics debate. This article illustrates how the values and corresponding principles of care, grounded in relationships and responsibilities, are essential to responding adequately to the current challenges of globalization. By examining the relevance of care in this context, the article seeks to broaden dominant ethical worldviews and contribute to the articulation of normative tools for examining globalization while at the same time avoiding the trappings of conventional universality - the abstract and a priori thinking typically associated with conceptions of global ethics. (shrink)

: In Imagined and delusional pain Jennifer Radden aims to show that experiences of pain – and in particular, the pain associated with depression – cannot be merely delusional. Her reasoning relies crucially on the claim that the feeling of pain is imaginatively beyond our reach. Though she thinks that there are many ways that one can imagine scenarios involving oneself being in pain, she argues that one cannot imagine the feeling of pain itself. In this commentary, I target this (...) claim in an attempt to show that Radden is mistaken. My argument relies on facts about individual differences involving imagination. To my mind, arguments like Radden’s involve an unfortunate slide from an “I can’t imagine…” claim to an “It can’t be imagined claim…” To support my argument, I also call upon empirical findings concerning pain imagination. As I conclude, we have no reason to think that the feeling of pain is something that is, in principle, unimaginable. Keywords: Pain; Imagination; Feeling of Pain; Delusion La possibilità di immaginare il dolore Riassunto: In Imagined and delusional pain Jennifer Radden intende mostrare che le esperienze di dolore – e, in particolare, il dolore associato alla depressione – non possono essere semplicemente illusorie. Il cuore del suo argomento fa leva sull’affermazione per cui provare dolore è immaginativamente al di là della nostra portata. Sebbene ritenga che si possano immaginare scenari nei quali proviamo dolore, Radden afferma che non si possa immaginare l’avvertire dolore di per sé. In questo commento mi concentrerò su questa affermazione nel tentative di mostrare che Radden si sbaglia. Il mio argomento poggia su fatti relativi alle differenze individuali che riguardano l’immaginazione. Dal mio punto di vista argomenti come quelli di Radden implicano un infelice slittamento da una affermazione come “io non posso immaginare…” a una affermazione come “non si può immaginare …”. A sostegno della mia tesi porterò evidenze empiriche relative all’immaginazione del dolore. Come giungerò a sostenere, non abbiamo ragioni per pensare che il provare dolore sia qualcosa in via di principio inimmaginabile. Parole chiave: Dolore; Immaginazione; Sensazioni di dolore; Illusione. (shrink)