As the editors of the series, New Literary Theory, proclaim in the preface of the book, the purpose of the series is to make more room in literary theory for playful and accessible approaches to li...

In recent years, there has been a marked increase in the use of imaginative play in child psychotherapy, yet the theoretical conceptualization of the meaning of play is lacking behind its application in practice. In search of a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of imaginative play, the author turns to Merleau-Ponty's ontology and to his phenomenology of structure, of the lived body, of perception, and of expression. In light of his work, play is an embodied mode (...) of being in the world and a body-world phenomenon. Imaginative play in particular exemplifies the human order in that it enables the child to create and re-create his own meanings within his play world. In a therapeutic context, the evocation of play imagery and the expressive shaping and reshaping of play meanings lead to surprising insights and new discoveries relevant to the child's life-world. A central therapeutic value of imaginative play lies in its promise for facilitating change and healing. A clinical case illustration of a young boy is provided, and the meaning of his imaginative play is exemplified in light of Merleau-Ponty's thought. Some implications are drawn for the theory of play in child psychotherapy. (shrink)

This article proposes how theatre, as a site of expert adult imaginative play, provides a unique window into how E-cognition can advance our understanding of imagination as a lifelong practice. I characterize theatrical activity as highly developed actions and strategies for wielding bodies, objects, and environments as imaginative practice. Through an enactively based case study of the play _Provenance_ by Autopoetics ( 2018 ), I reveal how creation and performance processes literally and epistemically engineer novel niches for (...) the spectator. This case study investigates how _Provenance_’s recurring theatrical device of newspaper manipulation constitutes a cognitive device for an affordance-oriented and predictive spectator. As I track the priorities and processes of these longstanding play development and performance techniques informed by the theatrical tradition of Jacques Lecoq (1921–1999), I suggest how concepts such as affordances, affordance spaces, predictive engagement, and the free energy principle are apt conceptual tools for understanding how these practices engender imaginative encounters. I follow this analysis by suggesting, via the free energy principle’s conception of “models,” that there may be cognitive consequences to the possible changes experienced by the spectator that exceed theatrical experience. I conclude this discussion by pointing toward how my 4-E inflected insights on the imaginative practices of _Provenance_ may be applicable to imagination and pretense in other arenas not just behind but also beyond the footlights. (shrink)

Imaginative pretend play is often thought of as the domain of young children, yet adults regularly engage in elaborated, fantastical, social-mediated pretend play. We describe imaginative play in adults via the term “pretensive shared reality;” Shared Pretensive Reality describes the ability of a group of individuals to employ a range of higher-order cognitive functions to explicitly and implicitly share representations of a bounded fictional reality in predictable and coherent ways, such that this constructed reality may be explored (...) and invented/embellished with shared intentionality in anad hocmanner. Pretensive Shared Reality facilitates multiple individual and social outcomes, including generating personal and group-level enjoyment or mirth, the creation or maintenance of social groups, or the safe exploration of individual self-concepts (such as alternative expression of a players sexual or gender identity). Importantly, Pretensive Shared Reality (both within the specific context of table-top role-playing games, and other instances) are primarily co-operative and co-creative. We draw on multiple examples, and focus on Table-Top Role Playing games (TTRPG) – and specifically, the most popular and enduring table-top role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) – as a primary example of such play. Our conception of “pretensive shared reality” links the widespread existence and forms of adult imaginative play to childhood pretense, places it within a developmental and evolutionary context, and argues that pretensive shared realities – which underpin many forms of imaginative culture – are an important topic of study unto themselves, and may be utilized to provide methodological insight into a variety of psychological domains. (shrink)

This chapter gives an elaboration of the will and addresses the question of whether there is an entity called “free will” or not. It looks at various cases that are seen from the perspectives of cultural anthropology. This chapter uses a literary example that takes a look at the significant consequences of using free will and shows how the cosmological dimension implicates the will of the spirits, in relation to the willed actions of people.

Pretense is generally thought to constitutively involve imagination. We argue that this is a mistake. Although pretense often involves imagination, it need not; nor is it a kind of imagination. The core nature of pretense is closer to imitation than it is to imagination, and likely shares some of its motivation with the former. Three main strands of argument are presented. One is from the best explanation of cross‐cultural data. Another is from task‐analysis of instances of (...) pretend play. And the third concerns the different ways in which pretense (especially childhood pretense) and imagination impact one's evaluative/affective systems. (shrink)

Although every emerging infectious disease occurs in a unique context, the behaviour of previous pandemics offers an insight into the medium- and long-term outcomes of the current threat. Where an informative historical analogue exists, epidemiologists and policymakers should consider how the insights of the past can inform current forecasts and responses.

Qualitative research methods in sport often advocate that to understand others, obtain significant knowledge and do ethically admirable research we should empathise with our participants by imagining being them. In philosophy, it is likewise often assumed that we can overcome differences between people through moral imagination: putting ourselves in the place of others, we can share their points of view, merge with them, and enter into their embodied worlds. Drawing partly on the view that imagination is embodied and (...) the philosophy of Bakhtin and Levinas, along with research on people's experiences of becoming disabled through playing sport, this paper problematises the assumption that we can imagine ourselves differently situated or being another person. It argues that our imagination and ability to put ourselves in the place of others is constrained partly by embodied experience and otherness. Some reflections on what this might mean for disability and sport research are then offered. (shrink)

Abstract: This entry elucidates causal and constitutive roles that various forms of imagining play in human action. Imagination influences more kinds of action than just pretend play. I distinguish different senses of the terms “imagining” and “imagination”: imagistic imagining, propositional imagining, and constructive imagining. Each variety of imagining makes its own characteristic contributions to action. Imagistic imagining can structure bodily movement. Propositional imagining interacts with desires to motivate pretend play and mimetic expressive action. And constructive (...) imagination generates representations of possibilities and actions on the basis of which we choose what to do. [Version archived here is a penultimate draft.]. (shrink)

The role of the imagination within Kant’s Critical framework remains an issue for any attempt to unify the three Critique s through the Doctrine of the Faculties. This work provides a reading of the imagination that serves to unify the imagination through its formal capacity, or ability to recognize harmony and produce the necessary lawfulness that grounds the possibility of judgment. The argument of this work exists in 2 parts. 1) The imagination’s formal ability is present, (...) yet concealed, as early as the Schematism in the Critique of Pure Reason and reaches its fullest exposition in instances of harmonious free play in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. 2) This formal capacity is key to not only demonstrating the imagination as an original, unified, and independent faculty across Kant’s Critical framework, but also serves as grounds for the purposiveness of nature – a key aspect of Kantian aesthetics. (shrink)

Though philosophers such as Wittgenstein and Sartre have dismissed imagination as epistemically irrelevant, this chapter argues that there are numerous cases in which imagining can help to justify our contingent beliefs about the world. The argument proceeds by the consideration of case studies involving two particularly gifted imaginers, Nikola Tesla and Temple Grandin. Importantly, the lessons that we learn from these case studies are applicable to cases involving less gifted imaginers as well. Though not all imaginings will have justificatory (...) power, the chapter shows how the sorts of cases in which imagining plays an epistemic role can be easily distinguished from the sorts of cases in which it does not. (shrink)

How do we know what's (metaphysically) possible and impossible? Arguments from Kripke and Putnam suggest that possibility is not merely a matter of (coherent) conceivability/imaginability. For example, we can coherently imagine that Hesperus and Phosphorus are distinct objects even though they are not possibly distinct. Despite this apparent problem, we suggest, nevertheless, that imagination plays an important role in an adequate modal epistemology. When we discover what is possible or what is impossible, we generally exploit important connections between what (...) is possible and what we can coherently imagine. We can often come to knowledge of metaphysical modality a priori. (shrink)

At the end of section §6 in the Analytic of the Beautiful, Kant defines taste as the “faculty for judging an object or a kind of representation through a satisfaction or dissatisfaction without any interest”. On the face of it, Kant’s definition of taste includes both; positive and negative judgments of taste. Moreover, Kant’s term ‘dissatisfaction’ implies not only that negative judgments of taste are those of the non-beautiful, but also that of the ugly, depending on the presence of an (...) actual displeasure. (shrink)

Throughout his career, Heidegger undertakes a dialogue with Kant. That dialogue casts new light on Kant’s transcendental philosophy and also serves as a leaping-off point to radicalize Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. The chapter argues that Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant plays out on two fronts. First, Heidegger dismantles extraneous aspects of Kant’s philosophy that remain mired in rationalism; secondly, Heidegger retrieves those elements of transcendental philosophy that align with his attempt to re-ask the question of being and to ground that inquiry upon (...) temporality. Ultimately, my argument shows that the key to Heidegger’s interpretation lies in a thread interwoven into his writings, namely the imagination. (shrink)

In his recent book Reflective Democracy, Robert Goodin argues that 'external-collaborative' models of democratic deliberation procedures need to be supplemented by 'internal-reflective' deliberation. The exercise of the moral imagination plays a central role in Goodin's account of 'democratic deliberation within'. By imaginatively putting ourselves in the place of a range of others, he argues, including those who maybe not be able to represent their own interests, we can make their points of view 'communicatively present' in deliberation. Goodin's argument emphasizes (...) the role of art and other forms of cultural representation in helping to bring about this expansion of moral imagination. Drawing on debates in philosophy of mind concerning the scope and limits of our capacities to simulate other minds, I argue that Goodin's analysis of 'democratic deliberation within' conflates different kinds of imaginative project. In doing so, it underestimates both the difficulties of imaginatively putting ourselves in the place of others and the political risks in doing so. I argue, alternatively, that moral engagement with others involves the capacity for sympathy and that art and other forms of cultural representation can enlarge the scope of our sympathies, by assisting us to overcome imaginative resistance to alien points of view. In developing this argument, I provide a qualified defense of Iris Young's claim that respect for others involves 'asymmetrical reciprocity'. (shrink)

The “Community of Inquiry” as it is used in the context of doing philosophy with children, is a phrase that refers to a pedagogical method in which groups of children and adults come together to discuss a targeted philosophical issue.1 Generally, a philosophical topic is decided upon and initial questions or ideas may be proposed, which are used to generate a discussion among participants. One of the most important features of such a discussion, when well organized, is that all participants (...) are provided with an opportunity to express their opinions and positions, with an express objective of doing away with an adult/child or teacher/student power differential. A model COI provides a place for many philosophical perspectives and opinions. (shrink)

What role does the imagination play in scientific progress? After examining several studies in cognitive science, I argue that one thing the imagination does is help to increase scientific understanding, which is itself indispensable for scientific progress. Then, I sketch a transcendental justification of the role of imagination in this process.

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)

Based on the texts of postmodern philosophers, the article analyses the crisis of the real and the imaginary. The context of this analysis is the difference between European and American cultures. Through the criticism of social and technological progress, the article substantiates the change in the form of modern consciousness and its manifestations, in particular, the loss of integrity and completeness of being.

In this essay Amy Shuffelton considers Jean-Jacques Rousseau's suspicion of imagination, which is, paradoxically, offered in the context of an imaginative construction of a child's upbringing. First, Shuffelton articulates Rousseau's reasons for opposing children's development of imagination and their engagement in the sort of imaginative play that is nowadays considered a hallmark of early and middle childhood. Second, she weighs the merits of Rousseau's opposition, which runs against the consensus of contemporary social science research on childhood imaginative (...) play. Ultimately, Shuffelton argues that Rousseau's work offers an important cautionary note to enthusiasts of children's imaginative play, due to the potentially disruptive influence of consumer capitalism, though she also notes that imagination may play a more redemptive role than Rousseau granted it. (shrink)

Imagination plays an important role in depiction. In this chapter, I focus on photography and I discuss the role imagination plays in photographic depiction. I suggest to follow a broadly Waltonian view, but I also depart from it in several places. I start by discussing a general feature of the relation of depiction, namely the fact that it is a ternary relation which always involves "something external." I then turn my attention to Walton's view, where this third relatum (...) of the relation of depiction is largely analyzed in terms of the role imagination plays in depiction. I consider the objection to his view that not all cases of depiction involve imagination – for instance, documentary photographs – as well as Walton's own strategy to face this objection, and I argue that it is partly adequate and partly wrong. As we will see, first, it is an unnecessary mistake to insist too heavily on the fact that photographs are produced in a mechanic way (as opposed to, say, paintings), and second, the notion of "imagining-seeing," as it is articulated by Walton, is perhaps too strong and does not entirely do justice to the external character of the role imagination plays here. I illustrate the view I want to advocate for by a series of different cases, where the nature of the role that imagination, knowledge/belief, and inference play in depiction will become apparent. (shrink)

This volume presents ten new essays on the nature of perceptual imagination and perceptual memory, framed by an introductory overview of these topics. How do perceptual imagination and memory resemble and differ from each other and from other kinds of sensory experience? And what role does each play in perception and in the acquisition of knowledge? These are the two central questions that the contributors seek to address.

Rubin loves the beautiful sounds that are played by the orchestra. He wants to learn to play the violin and make his own music. But when Rubin plays, it doesn't sound like he imagines it should. Rubin goes into the forest to practice alone and despite only getting the violin to screech, he finds an unlikely audience that loves his unique style.

This book discusses that imagination is as important to thinking and reasoning as it is to making and acting. By reexamining our philosophical and psychological heritage, it traces a framework, a conceptual topology, that underlies the most disparate theories: a framework that presents imagination as founded in the placement of appearances. It shows how this framework was progressively developed by thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant, and how it is reflected in more recent developments in theorists as (...) different as Peirce, Saussure, Wittgenstein, Benjamin, and Bachelard. The conceptual topology of imagination incorporates logic, mathematics, and science as well as production, play, and art. Recognizing this topology can move us past the confusions to a unifying view of imagination for the future. (shrink)

Imagination seems to play an epistemic role in philosophical and scientific thought experiments, mindreading, and ordinary practical deliberations insofar as it generates new knowledge of contingent facts about the world. However, it also seems that imagination is limited to creative generation of ideas. Sometimes we imagine fanciful ideas that depart freely from reality. The conjunction of these claims is what I call the puzzle of knowledge through imagination. This chapter aims to resolve this puzzle. I argue (...) that imagination has an epistemic role to play, but it is limited to the context of discovery. Imagination generates ideas, but other cognitive capacities must be employed to evaluate these ideas in order for them to count as knowledge. Consideration of the Simulation Theory's so-called "threat of collapse” provides further evidence that imagination does not, on its own, yield new knowledge of contingent facts, and it suggests a way to supplement imagination in order to get such knowledge. (shrink)

This volume presents ten new essays on the nature of perceptual imagination and perceptual memory. The central questions are: How do perceptual imagination and memory resemble and differ from each other and from other kinds of sensory experience? And what role does each play in perception and in the acquisition of knowledge?

What does it mean to say that imagination plays a role in moral reasoning, and what are the theoretical and practical implications? Engaging with three traditions in moral theory and confronting them with three contexts of moral practice, this book offers a more comprehensive framework to think about these questions. The author develops an argument about the relation between imagination and principles that moves beyond competition metaphors and center-periphery schemas. He shows that both cooperate and are equally necessary (...) to cope with moral problems, and combines insights of different theories and disciplines to explore how this works in practice. (shrink)

We attribute the capability of imagination to the madman as to the scientist, to the novelist as to the metaphysician, and last but not least to ourselves. The same, apparently, holds for thought experimentation. Ernst Mach was the first to draw an explicit link between these two mental acts; moreover -in his perspective- imagination plays a pivotal role in thought experimentation. Nonetheless, it is not clear what kind of imagination emerges from Mach’s writings. Indeed, heated debates among (...) cognitive scientists and philosophers turn on the key distinction between sensory and cognitive imagination. Generally speaking, we can say that sensory imagination shares some processes with perception, cognitive imagination with the formation of belief. Both the vocabulary used in the literature on thought experiments and what I refer to as “Machian tradition” indicate imagination as a notion of central importance in the reasoning involved in thought experiments. However, most authors have really focused on sensory (in particular, visual) imagination, but have neglected the second kind. Moreover, some authors attribute to Mach the idea that it is visual imagery that is primarily at work in thought experiments. I claim another interpretation is possible, according to which Mach can be said to deal with cognitive imagination. The main aim of this paper is to retrace Mach’s original arguments and establish a connection with the cognitive literature on imagination. I will argue that imagination tout court could play a role in thought experimentation. Once imagination is seen as the key to the “cognitive black-box” of the thought experiment, we will have moved a step closer to a simulative imagining-based account of thought experimentation. (shrink)

I argue for the existence of imaginative beliefs: mental states that are imaginative in format and doxastic in attitude. I advance two arguments for this thesis. First, there are imaginings that play the functional roles of belief. Second, there are imaginings that play the epistemic roles of belief. These arguments supply both descriptive and normative grounds for positing imaginative beliefs. I also argue that this view fares better than alternatives that posit distinct imaginative and doxastic states to account (...) for the same phenomena. Along the way, I demonstrate the theoretical significance of imaginative beliefs by showing how they pose a challenge for standard taxonomies of the mind, clarify the sense in which imagination is occurrent and voluntary, explain the justificatory role of the imagination, and point to a deep but underappreciated symmetry between imagistic and non-imagistic thought. (shrink)

As Hume famously claimed, we are nowhere more free than in our imagination. While this feature of imagination suggests that imagination has a crucial role to play in modal epistemology, it also suggests that imagining cannot provide us with any non-modal knowledge about the world in which we live. This chapter rejects this latter suggestion. Instead it offers an account of “imagining under constraints,” providing a framework for showing when and how an imaginative project can (...) class='Hi'>play a justificatory role with respect to our beliefs about the world. That we can be free in our imaginings does not show that they must proceed unfettered; as is argued, our ability to constrain our imaginings in light of facts about the world enables us to learn from them. The important upshot is that imagination has considerably more epistemic significance than previously thought. (shrink)

This book takes on current perspectives on transnationalism and children's relationships to media, childhood, and markets in converging global worlds. It introduces the idea of multi-sited imaginaries to explain how children's media and literacy performances shape and are shaped by shared visions of communities that we collectively imagine, including play, media, gender, family, school, or cultural worlds. It draws upon elements of ethnographies of globalization to examine the convergences of such imaginaries across multiple sites: early childhood and elementary classrooms (...) and communities in Puerto Rico and the Midwest United States. The analysis situates children's literacy and play practices in the intersections of local/global, rural/urban, Spanish/English/multilingual, and Latino multinational media/US multinational media, revealing how children use drama and pretense to relocate, take up, contest, and consume global media and consumer identities. (shrink)

Is imagination a source of knowledge? Timothy Williamson has recently argued that our imaginative capacities can yield knowledge of a variety of matters, spanning from everyday practical matters to logic and set theory. Furthermore, imagination for Williamson plays a similar epistemic role in cognitive processes that we would traditionally classify as either a priori or a posteriori, which he takes to indicate that the distinction itself is shallow and epistemologically fruitless. In this chapter, I aim to defend the (...) a priori-a posteriori distinction from Williamson’s challenge by questioning his account of imagination. I distinguish two notions of imagination at play in Williamson’s account – sensory vs. belief-like imagination – and show that both face empirical and normative issues. Sensory imagination seems neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge. Whereas, belief-like imagination isn’t adequately disentangled from inference. Additionally, Williamson’s examples are ad hoc and don’t generalize. I conclude that Williamson’s case against the a priori-a posteriori distinction is unconvincing, and so is the thesis that imagination is an epistemic source. (shrink)

How do people make sense of their experiences? How do they understand possibility? How do they limit possibility? These questions are central to all the human sciences. Here, Vincent Crapanzano offers a powerfully creative new way to think about human experience: the notion of imaginative horizons. For Crapanzano, imaginative horizons are the blurry boundaries that separate the here and now from what lies beyond, in time and space. These horizons, he argues, deeply influence both how we experience our lives and (...) how we interpret those experiences, and here sets himself the task of exploring the roles that creativity and imagination play in our experience of the world. (shrink)

We can understand implicit bias as a person’s disposition to evaluate members of a social group in a less favorable light than members of another social group, without intending to do so. If we understand it this way, we should not presuppose a one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how implicit cognitive states lead to skewed evaluations of other people. The focus of this paper is on implicit bias in considered decisions. It is argued that we have good reasons to (...) assume that imagination plays a vital role in decision making. If this assumption is correct, it offers an explanation for implicit bias in many considered decisions: Human beings who have been frequently exposed to stereotypes have stereotype-congruent expectations as part of their background knowledge. They feed into their imagination, sometimes without their awareness. This model would allow us to explain the key characteristics of implicit bias without recurring to any unconscious attitudes over and above such background knowledge. (shrink)

An influential approach to engineering ethics is based on codes of ethics and the application of moral principles by individual practitioners. However, to better understand the ethical problems of complex technological systems and the moral reasoning involved in such contexts, we need other tools as well. In this article, we consider the role of imagination and develop a concept of distributed responsibility in order to capture a broader range of human abilities and dimensions of moral responsibility. We show that (...) in the case of Snorre A, a near-disaster with an oil and gas production installation, imagination played a crucial and morally relevant role in how the crew coped with the crisis. For example, we discuss the role of scenarios and images in the moral reasoning and discussion of the platform crew in coping with the crisis. Moreover, we argue that responsibility for increased system vulnerability, turning an undesired event into a near-disaster, should not be ascribed exclusively, for example to individual engineers alone, but should be understood as distributed between various actors, levels and times. We conclude that both managers and engineers need imagination to transcend their disciplinary perspectives in order to improve the robustness of their organisations and to be better prepared for crisis situations. We recommend that education and training programmes should be transformed accordingly. (shrink)

Beauty, Ugliness and the Free Play of Imagination Mojca Küplen Springer. 2015. pp. 152. £74.99.

The psychological mechanism of decision-making has traditionally been modeled with the help of belief-desire psychology: the agent has some desires (or other pro-attitudes) and some background beliefs and deciding between two possible actions is a matter of comparing the probability of the satisfaction of these desires given the background beliefs in the case of the performance of each action. There is a wealth of recent empirical findings about how we actually make decisions that seems to be in conflict with this (...) picture. My aim is to outline an alternative model that is consistent with these empirical findings. This alternative model emphasizes the role imagination plays in our decisions: when we decide between two possible actions, we imagine ourselves in the situation that we imagine to be the outcome of these two actions and then compare these two imaginings. (shrink)