First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper argues for the primacy of language over vision as a means of communication. Words convey information more clearly, accurately, reliably, and profoundly than images do. Images by themselves give only impressions; they do not denote, unless accompanied by some sort or level of description. Also, any visual image, whether physical or mental, unless it is eidetic, must involve some degree of interpretation, interpolation, or description for it to be capable of conveying information, having meaning, or even being (...) intelligible. Pictorialism is the theory that mental imagery is visual, while descriptionalism holds that mental imagery is nonvisual. As an epistemology, pictorialism supports representationalism as a philosophy of art. The poverty and limitations of representational theories of art militate against pictorialism. Descriptionalism as an epistemology supports several versions of symbolist theories of art. The richness and versatility of symbolic interpretations of art works support descriptionalism. Pictorialism fails the test of consistency unless eidetic imagery exists. Any pictorialism that claims support from noneidetic imagery or invokes the photographic fallacy is in fact a crypto- or quasi-descriptionalism. Since the photographic fallacy denies eidetic imagery, it is invalid and misbegotten as a defense of pictorialism. The interplay between the richness of visual images and the precision of verbal descriptions is a key element in developing a comprehensive pedagogy of aesthetics. (shrink)

This paper explores the subjective psychophysiological research of the so-called subjective audition conducted by the Czech physician and endocrinologist Stanislav Vomela in the 1930s. It examines Vomela’s attempts to analyze his own peculiar experience of hearing what he called subjective music (music heard only by the subject) and introduces the concept of acousmatics Vomela developed to study this kind of auditory perception. Vomela’s methodology is studied against the background of J. E. Purkyně’s understanding of the subjective empiricist methodology of self-knowing (...) in the physiology of the senses and in the context of research into eidetic imagery by E. R. Jaensch and Victor Urbantschitsch. (shrink)

Because imagination constitutes an indispensable tool of phenomenology, e.g., in understanding another author’s description, in eidetic reduction, etc., the practicability of phenomenological method and its claim to objectivity ought to be reconsidered with regard to its dependence on imagination. Auditory imagery serves to illustrate problems involved in grasping and analyzing imaginative contents – loudness in this case. Similar to phonetic segmentation and classification, phenomenologists segment and classify mental acts and contents. Just as phoneticians rely on experts’ evaluations of (...) notations to reach valid results, phenomenologists may try to develop similar agreement procedures to escape the ‘subjectivism’ of their solitary first-person approach. (shrink)

There often appears to be a striking correspondence between mythic stories and aspects of reality. We will examine the processes of creative imagination within a neurobiological frame and suggest a theory that may explain the functions of myth in relation to the hidden aspects of reality. Myth is peppered with archetypal entities and interactions that operate to reveal hidden processes in reality that are relative to the human condition. The imagery in myths in a sense “sustains the true.” That (...) is, mythopoetic imagery keeps the interpretive process in experience closer to the actual nature of reality than the rational faculties operating alone are able to do. Indeed, whereas rationalizing can easily lead us awry, genuine myth rarely does. Explanations of events offered by cultures around the world are frequently couched in terms of mythic themes and events. An important function of myth is to provide a “field of tropes” that in‐forms the lived experience of people. This paper focuses especially on those aspects of myth that represent facets of the quantum universe and give us clues as to the relationship between consciousness, symbolism, and reality. (shrink)

Michael Tye untangles the complex web of empirical and conceptual issues of the newly revived imagery debate in psychology between those that liken mental...

One distinct interest in self-knowledge concerns whether one can know about one’s own mental states and processes, how much, and by what methods. One broad distinction is between accounts that centrally claim that we look inward for self-knowledge (introspective methods) and those that claim that we look outward for self-knowledge (transparency methods). It is here argued that neither method is sufficient, and that we see this as soon as we move beyond questions about knowledge of one’s beliefs, focusing instead on (...) how one distinguishes, for oneself, one’s veridical visual memories from mere (non-veridical) visual images. Given robust psychological and phenomenal similarities between episodic memories and mere imagery, the following is a genuine question that one might pose to oneself: “Do I actually remember that happening, or am I just imagining it?” After critical analysis of the transparency method (advocated by Byrne 2010, following Evans 1982) to this latter epistemological question, a brief sketch is offered of a more holistic and inferential method for acquisition of broader self-knowledge (broadly following the interpretive-sensory access account of Carruthers 2011). In a slogan, knowing more of the mind requires using more of the mind. (shrink)

In Gregory, Richard. Oxford Companion to the Mind (Second Edition, 2006) Oxford University Press.

Edmund Husserl’s eidetic phenomenology seeks a priori knowledge of essences and eidetic laws pertaining to conscious experience and its objects. Husserl believes that such eidetic knowledge has a higher epistemic status than the inherently fallible empirical knowledge, but a closer reading of his work shows that even eidetic claims are subject to error and open to modification. In this article, I develop a self-correcting account of Husserl’s method of eidetic variation, arguing that eidetic variation (...) plays a critical role in both challenging and improving upon the eidetic results in phenomenology. More specifically, I argue that the self-correcting account of eidetic variation 1) is consistent with Husserl’s own formulations of his eidetic methodology and epistemic principles; 2) captures the dual epistemic function of eidetic variation as means for both testing and intuitively validating eidetic claims; and 3) offers methodological support for contemporary attempts to integrate eidetic variation with non-eidetic methods and resources. To substantiate these claims, I first contrast the self-correcting account with the falsificationist interpretations of eidetic variation. Then, I turn to three applications of eidetic variation in order to examine how eidetic phenomenology could draw from real-life deviations, artificial variations, and critical–historical reflection. The goal is to lay the methodological groundwork for a self-correcting and integrative account of eidetic variation and illustrate its usefulness in research practice. (shrink)

In neo-Aristotelian accounts, the task of metaphysics is to explore the space of metaphysical possibilities, and our knowledge of metaphysical possibilities is ultimately grounded on our knowledge concerning the essence of entities. Eidetic variation, as established by Husserlian phenomenology, is a method of identifying a specific pattern of phenomenological givenness that is constitutive of the identity and condition of existence of a kind of entities. Thus, Husserlian phenomenology provides us with a method to acquire knowledge concerning the general essence (...) of entities. (shrink)

Fictions evoke imagery, and their value consists partly in that achievement. This paper offers analysis of this neglected topic. Section 2 identifies relevant philosophical background. Section 3 offers a working definition of imagery. Section 4 identifies empirical work on visual imagery. Sections 5 and 6 criticize imagery essentialism, through the lens of genuine fictional narratives. This outcome, though, is not wholly critical. The expressed spirit of imagery essentialism is to encourage philosophers to ‘put the image (...) back into the imagination’. The weakened conclusion is that while an image is not essential to imagining, it should be returned to our theories of imagination. (shrink)

Mental Imagery, whereby we experience aspect of a perceptual scene or perceptual object in the absence of direct sensory stimulation is ubiquitous. Often the existence of mental imagery is demonstrated by asking one’s reader to volitionally generate a visual object, such as closing ones eyes and imagining an apple. However, mental imagery also arises in auditory, tactile, interoceptive, and olfactory cases. A number of influential philosophical theories have attempted to explain mental imagery in terms of belief-based (...) forms of representation using the Dependence Thesis, dependence upon means of access, such as enactivism, or in terms of the similarity of content with perceptual processing. The focus of this paper concerns the later approach and in particular assessing if Nanay’s promissory note that his theory is applicable to modalities other than vision, such as smell, seems likely to be of theoretical tender. The thesis argued for in this paper is that olfactory imagery exists and is best accounted for by considering it as a type of perceptual processing with a unique representational format relative to the olfactory perceptual modality. The paper concludes by summarizing the applicability of Nanay’s theory of mental imagery for olfaction and suggests some further issues that arise when transitioning to multi-modal mental imagery. (shrink)

Recent research in psycholinguistics suggests that language processing frequently involves mental imagery. This paper focuses on visual imagery and discusses two issues regarding the processing of polysemous words (i.e. words with multiple related meanings or senses) – co-predication and sense-relatedness. It aims to show how mental imagery can illuminate these two issues.

Poetry evokes mental imagery in its readers. But how is mental imagery precisely related to poetry? This article provides a systematic treatment. It clarifies two roles of mental imagery in relation to poetry—as an effect generated by poetry and as an efficient means for understanding and appreciating poetry. The article also relates mental imagery to the discussion on the ‘heresy of paraphrase’. It argues against the orthodox view that the imagistic effects of poetry cannot be captured (...) by prosaic paraphrase, but points to features of poetry that can shape aspects of mental imagery that are liable to be lost in paraphrase. (shrink)

The problem of amodal perception is the problem of how we represent features of perceived objects that are occluded or otherwise hidden from us. Bence Nanay (2010) has recently proposed that we amodally perceive an object's occluded features by imaginatively projecting them into the relevant regions of visual egocentric space. In this paper, I argue that amodal perception is not a single, unitary capacity. Drawing appropriate distinctions reveals amodal perception to be characterized not only by mental imagery, as Nanay (...) suggests, but also by genuinely visual representations as well as beliefs. I conclude with some brief remarks on the role of object-directed bodily action in conferring a sense of unseen presence on an object's occluded features. (shrink)

Adorno’s intensive criticism of phenomenology is well known, his entire early period during the 1920s and 1930s being marked by various polemical engagements with Husserl. This engagement finds its peak during his work at his second dissertation project in Oxford, a dissertation that was supposed to systematicaly expose the antinomies of phenomenological thinking while particularly focusing on Husserl’s concept of “eidetic intuition” or “intuition of essences”. The present paper will take this criticism as its starting point in focusing on (...) two highly specific aspects of Adorno’s interpretation: the opposition between eidetic intuition and the traditional theories of abstraction and its relationship to genetic phenomenology. In light of this criticism I subsequently show: 1. that, in his later work, Adorno’s understanding of eidetic intuition undergoes a significant revaluation; 2. that he reappropriates key elements of the eidetic method in his own procedure of physiognomic analysis, and 3. that his account of physiognomics is relevant for addressing the aforementioned incongruities of phenomenological eidetics itself. (shrink)

In this paper I contrast Husserlian transcendental eidetic phenomenology with some other views of what phenomenology is supposed to be and argue that, as eidetic, it does not admit of being ‘naturalized’ in accordance with standard accounts of naturalization. The paper indicates what some of the eidetic results in phenomenology are and it links these to the employment of reason in philosophical investigation, as distinct from introspection, emotion or empirical observation. Eidetic phenomenology, unlike cognitive science, should (...) issue in a ‘logic’ of consciousness. Instead of being derived from empirical investigations its results should consist of high-level background conditions that are necessary for cognitive science to be possible in the first place. To negate these conditions is to be faced with certain types of ‘material’ contradictions. Some analogies with science – mathematical science – are used to develop the argument. (shrink)