## 1. The Nature of Imagination



A variety of roles have been attributed to imagination across various
domains of human understanding and activity
 (section 3).
 Not surprisingly, it is doubtful that there is one component of the
mind that can satisfy all the various roles attributed to imagination
(Kind 2013). Nevertheless, perhaps guided by these roles, philosophers
have attempted to clarify the nature of imagination in three ways.
First, philosophers have tried to disambiguate different senses of the
term "imagination" and, in some cases, point to some core
commonalities amongst the different disambiguations
 (section 1.1).
 Second, philosophers have given partial taxonomies to distinguish
different types of imaginings
 (section 1.2).
 Third, philosophers have located norms that govern paradigmatic
imaginative episodes
 (section 1.3).


### 1.1 Varieties of Imagination



There is a general consensus among those who work on the topic that
the term "*imagination*" is used too broadly to
permit simple taxonomy. Indeed, it is common for overviews to begin
with an invocation of P.F. Strawson's remarks in
"Imagination and Perception", where he writes:



> 
> 
> The uses, and applications, of the terms "image",
> "imagine", "imagination", and so forth make up
> a very diverse and scattered family. Even this image of a family seems
> too definite. It would be a matter of more than difficulty to identify
> and list the family's members, let alone their relations of
> parenthood and cousinhood. (Strawson 1970: 31)
> 
> 
> 



These taxonomic challenges carry over into attempts at
characterization. In the opening chapter of *Mimesis as
Make-Believe*--perhaps the most influential contemporary
monograph on imagination--Kendall Walton throws up his hands at
the prospect of delineating the notion precisely. After enumerating
and distinguishing a number of paradigmatic instances of imagining, he
asks:



> 
> 
> What is it to imagine? We have examined a number of dimensions along
> which imaginings can vary; shouldn't we now spell out what they
> have in common?--Yes, if we can. But I can't. (Walton 1990:
> 19)
> 
> 
> 



Leslie Stevenson (2003: 238) makes arguably the only recent attempt at
a somewhat comprehensive inventory of the term's uses, covering
twelve of "the most influential conceptions of
imagination" that can be found in recent discussions in
"philosophy of mind, aesthetics, ethics, poetry and ...
religion".


### 1.2 Taxonomies of Imagination



To describe the varieties of imaginings, philosophers have given
partial and overlapping taxonomies.



Some taxonomies are merely descriptive, and they tend to be less
controversial. For example, Kendall Walton (1990) distinguishes
between *spontaneous* and *deliberate imagining* (acts
of imagination that occur with or without the one's conscious
direction); between *occurrent* and *nonoccurrent
imaginings* (acts of imagination that do or do not occupy the
one's explicit attention); and between *social* and
*solitary imaginings* (episodes of imagining that occur with or
without the joint participation of several persons).



One notable descriptive taxonomy concerns imagining *from the
inside* versus *from the outside* (Williams 1973; Wollheim
1973; see Ninan 2016 for an overview). To imagine from the outside
that one is Napoleon involves imagining a scenario in which one is
Napoleon. To imagine from the inside that one is Napoleon involves
that plus something else: namely, that one is occupying the
*perspective* of Napoleon. Imagining from the inside is
essentially first-personal, imagining from the outside is not. This
distinction between two modes of imagining is especially notable for
its implications for thought experiments about the metaphysics of
personal identity (Nichols 2008; Ninan 2009; Williams 1973).



Some taxonomies aim to be more systematic--to carve imaginings at
their joints, so to speak--and they, as one might expect, tend to
be more controversial.



Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft (2002) distinguishes *creative
imagination* (combining ideas in unexpected and unconventional
ways); *sensory imagination* (perception-like experiences in
the absence of appropriate stimuli); and what they call *recreative
imagination* (an ability to experience or think about the world
from a perspective different from the one that experience presents).
Neil Van Leeuwen (2013, 2014) takes a similar approach to delineate
three common uses of "imagination" and cognate terms.
First, these terms can be used to refer to *constructive
imagining*, which concerns the process of generating mental
representations. Second, these terms can be used to refer to
*attitude imagining*, which concerns the propositional attitude
one takes toward mental representations. Third, these terms can be
used to refer to *imagistic imagining*, which concerns the
perception-like format of mental representations.



Amy Kind and Peter Kung (2016b) pose the puzzle of imaginative
use--on the seeming irreconcilability between the
*transcendent* uses of imagination, which enables one to escape
from or look beyond the world as it is, and the *instructive*
uses of imagination, which enables one to learn about the world as it
is. Kind and Kung ultimately resolve the puzzle by arguing that the
same attitude can be put to these seemingly disparate uses because the
two uses differ not in kind, but in degree--specifically, the
degree of constraint on imaginings.



Finally, varieties of imagination might be classified in terms of
their structure and content. Consider the following three types of
imaginings, each illustrated with an example. When one *imagines
propositionally*, one represents to oneself that something is the
case. So, for example, Juliet might imagine *that Romeo is by her
side*. To imagine in this sense is to stand in some mental
relation to a particular proposition (see the entry on
 propositional attitude reports).
 When one *imagines objectually*, one represents to oneself a
real or make-believe entity or situation (Yablo 1993; see also Martin
2002; Noordhof 2002; O'Shaughnessy 2000). So, for example,
Prospero might imagine *an acorn* or *a nymph* or
*the city of Naples* or *a wedding feast*. To imagine in
this sense is to stand in some mental relation to a representation of
an (imaginary or real) entity or state of affairs. When one
*imagines X-ing*, one simulatively represents to oneself some
sort of activity or experience (Walton 1990). So, for example, Ophelia
might imagine *seeing Hamlet* or *getting herself to a
nunnery*. To imagine in this sense is to stand in a first-personal
mental relation to some (imaginary or real) behavior or
perception.


### 1.3 Norms of Imagination



There are general norms that govern operations of imagination (Gendler
2003).



*Mirroring* is manifest to the extent that features of the
imaginary situation that have not been explicitly stipulated are
derivable via features of their real-world analogues, or, more
generally, to the extent that imaginative content is taken to be
governed by the same sorts of restrictions that govern believed
content. For example, in a widely-discussed experiment conducted by
Alan Leslie (1994), children are asked to engage in an imaginary tea
party. When an experimenter tips and "spills" one of the
(empty) teacups, children consider the non-tipped cup to be
"full" (in the context of the pretense) and the tipped cup
to be "empty" (both within and outside of the context of
the pretense). In fact, both make-believe games and more complicated
engagements with the arts are governed by *principles of
generation*, according to which prompts or props prescribe
particular imaginings (Walton 1990).



*Quarantining* is manifest to the extent that events within the
imagined or pretended episode are taken to have effects only within a
relevantly circumscribed domain. So, for example, the child engaging
in the make-believe tea party does not expect that
"spilling" (imaginary) "tea" will result in
the table *really* being wet, nor does a person who imagines
winning the lottery expect that when she visits the ATM, her bank
account will contain a million dollars. More generally, quarantining
is manifest to the extent that proto-beliefs and proto-attitudes
concerning the imagined state of affairs are not treated as beliefs
and attitudes relevant to guiding action in the actual world.



Although imaginative episodes are generally governed by mirroring and
quarantining, both may be violated in systematic ways.



Mirroring gives way to *disparity* as a result of the ways in
which (the treatment of) imaginary content may differ from (that of)
believed content. Imagined content may be *incomplete* (for
example, there may be no fact of the matter (in the pretense) just how
much tea has spilled on the table) or *incoherent* (for
example, it might be that the toaster serves (in the pretense) as a
logical-truth inverter). And content that is imagined may give rise to
*discrepant responses*, most strikingly in cases of discrepant
affect--where, for example, the imminent destruction of all human
life is treated as amusing rather than terrifying.



Quarantining gives way to *contagion* when imagined content
ends up playing a direct role in actual attitudes and behavior (see
also Gendler 2008a, 2008b). This is common in cases of *affective
transmission*, where an emotional response generated by an
imagined situation may constrain subsequent behavior. For example,
imagining something fearful (such as a tiger in the kitchen) may give
rise to actual hesitation (such as reluctance to enter the room). And
it also occurs in cases of *cognitive transmission*, where
imagined content is thereby "primed" and rendered more
accessible in ways that go on to shape subsequent perception and
experience. For example, imagining some object (such as a sheep) may
make one more likely to "perceive" such objects in
one's environment (such as mistaking a rock for a ram).


## 2. Imagination in Cognitive Architecture



One way to make sense of the nature of imagination is by drawing
distinctions, giving taxonomies, and elucidating governing norms
 (section 1).
 Another, arguably more prominent, way to make sense of the nature is
by figuring out, in a broadly functionalist framework, how it fits in
with more well-understood mental entities from folk psychology and
scientific psychology (see the entry on
 functionalism).



There are two related tasks involved. First, philosophers have used
other mental entities to define imagination by contradistinction (but
see Wiltsher forthcoming for a critique of this approach). To give an
oversimplified example, many philosophers hold that imagining is like
believing except that it does not directly motivate actions. Second,
philosophers have used other mental entities to understand the inputs
and outputs of imagination. To give an oversimplified example, many
philosophers hold that imagination does not output to
action-generating systems.



Amongst the most widely-discussed mental entities in contemporary
discussions of imagination are belief
 (section 2.1),
 desire
 (section 2.2),
 mental imagery
 (section 2.3),
 memory
 (section 2.4),
 and supposition
 (section 2.5).
 The resolution of these debates ultimately rest on the extent to
which the imaginative attitude(s) posited can fulfill the roles
ascribed to imagination from various domains of human understanding
and activity
 (section 3).


### 2.1 Imagination and Belief



To *believe* is to take something to be the case or regard it
as true (see the entry on
 belief).
 When one says something like "the liar believes that his pants
are on fire", one attributes to the subject (the liar) an
attitude (belief) towards a proposition (his pants are on fire).
Likewise, when one says something like "the liar imagines that
his pants are on fire", one attributes to the subject (the liar)
an attitude (imagination) towards a proposition (his pants are on
fire). The similarities and differences between the belief attribution
and the imagination attribution point to similarities and differences
between imagining and believing. 



Imagining and believing are both cognitive attitudes that are
representational. They take on the same kind of content:
representations that stand in inferential relationship with one
another. On the *single code hypothesis*, it is the sameness of
the representational format that grounds functional similarities
between imagining and believing (Nichols & Stich 2000, 2003;
Nichols 2004a). As for their differences, there are two main options
for distinguishing imagining and believing (Sinhababu 2016).



The first option characterizes their difference in normative terms.
While belief *aims* at truth, imagination does not (Humberstone
1992; Shah & Velleman 2005). If the liar did not regard it as true
that his pants are on fire, then it seems that he cannot really
believe that his pants are on fire. By contrast, even if the liar did
not regard it as true that his pants are on fire, he can still imagine
that his pants are on fire. While the norm of truth is constitutive of
the attitude of belief, it is not constitutive of the attitude of
imagination. In dissent, Neil Sinhababu (2013) argues that the norm of
truth is neither sufficient nor necessary for distinguishing imagining
and believing.



The second option characterizes their difference in functional terms.
One purported functional difference between imagination and belief
concerns their characteristic connection to actions. If the liar truly
believes that his pants are on fire, he will typically attempt to put
out the fire by, say, pouring water on himself. By contrast, if the
liar merely imagines that his pants are on fire, he will typically do
no such thing. While belief outputs to action-generation system,
imagination does not (Nichols & Stich 2000, 2003). David Velleman
(2000) and Tyler Doggett and Andy Egan (2007) point to particular
pretense behaviors to challenge this way of distinguishing imagining
and believing. Velleman argues that a belief-desire explanation of
children's pretense behaviors makes children "depressingly
unchildlike". Doggett and Egan argue that during immersive
episodes, pretense behaviors can be directly motivated by imagination.
In response to these challenges, philosophers typically accept that
imagination can have a guidance or stage-setting role in motivating
behaviors, but reject that it directly outputs to action-generation
system (Van Leeuwen 2009; O'Brien 2005; Funkhouser &
Spaulding 2009; Everson 2007; Kind 2011; Currie & Ravenscroft
2002).



Another purported functional difference between imagination and belief
concerns their characteristic connection to emotions. If the liar
truly believes that his pants are on fire, then he will be genuinely
afraid of the fire; but not if he merely imagines so. While belief
evokes genuine emotions toward real entities, imagination does not
(Walton 1978, 1990, 1997; see also related discussion of the paradox
of fictional emotions in
 Supplement on Puzzles and Paradoxes of Imagination and the Arts).
 This debate is entangled with the controversy concerning the nature
of emotions (see the entry on
 emotion).
 In rejecting this purported functional difference, philosophers also
typically reject narrow cognitivism about emotions (Nichols 2004a;
Meskin & Weinberg 2003; Weinberg & Meskin 2005, 2006; Kind
2011; Spaulding 2015; Carruthers 2003, 2006).



Currently, the consensus is that there exists some important
difference between imagining and believing. Yet, there are two
distinct departures from this consensus. On the one hand, some
philosophers have pointed to novel psychological phenomena in which it
is unclear whether imagination or belief is at work--such as
delusions (Egan 2008a) and immersed pretense (Schellenberg
2013)--and argued that the best explanation for these phenomena
says that imagination and belief exists on a continuum. In responding
to the argument from immersed pretense, Shen-yi Liao and Tyler Doggett
(2014) argue that a cognitive architecture that collapses distinctive
attitudes on the basis of borderline cases is unlikely to be fruitful
in explaining psychological phenomena. On the other hand, some
philosophers have pointed to familiar psychological phenomena and
argued that the best explanation for these phenomena says that
imagination is ultimately reducible to belief. Peter Langland-Hassan
(2012, 2014) argues that pretense can be explained with only reference
to beliefs--specifically, beliefs about counterfactuals. Derek
Matravers (2014) argues that engagements with fictions can be
explained without references to imaginings.


### 2.2 Imagination and Desire



To *desire* is to want something to be the case (see the entry on
 desire).
 Standardly, the *conative* attitude of desire is contrasted
with the *cognitive* attitude of belief in terms of direction
of fit: while belief aims to make one's mental representations
match the way the world is, desire aims to make the way the world is
match one's mental representations. Recall that on the
*single code hypothesis*, there exists a cognitive imaginative
attitude that is structurally similar to belief. Is there a conative
imaginative attitude--call it *desire-like imagination*
(Currie 1997, 2002a, 2002b, 2010; Currie & Ravenscroft 2002),
*make-desire* (Currie 1990; Goldman 2006), or *i-desire*
(Doggett & Egan 2007, 2012)--that is structurally similar to
desire?



The debates on the relationship between imagination and desire is, not
surprisingly, thoroughly entangled with the debates on the
relationship between imagination and belief. One impetus for positing
a conative imaginative attitude comes from behavior motivation in
imaginative contexts. Tyler Doggett and Andy Egan (2007) argue that
cognitive and conative imagination jointly output to action-generation
system, in the same way that belief and desire jointly do. Another
impetus for positing a conative imaginative attitude comes from
emotions in imaginative contexts (see related discussions of the
paradox of fictional emotions and the paradoxes of tragedy and horror
in
 Supplement on Puzzles and Paradoxes of Imagination and the Arts).
 Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft (2002) and Doggett and Egan (2012)
argue the best explanation for people's emotional responses
toward non-existent fictional characters call for positing conative
imagination. Currie and Ravenscroft (2002), Currie (2010), and Doggett
and Egan (2007) argue that the best explanation for people's
apparently conflicting emotional responses toward tragedy and horror
too call for positing conative imagination.



Given the entanglement between the debates, competing explanations of
the same phenomena also function as arguments against conative
imagination (Nichols 2004a, 2006b; Meskin & Weinberg 2003;
Weinberg & Meskin 2005, 2006; Spaulding 2015; Kind 2011;
Carruthers 2003, 2006; Funkhouser & Spaulding 2009; Van Leeuwen
2011). In addition, another argument against conative imagination is
that its different impetuses call for conflicting functional
properties. Amy Kind (2016b) notes a tension between the argument from
behavior motivation and the argument from fictional emotions: conative
imagination must be connected to action-generation in order for it to
explain pretense behaviors, but it must be disconnected from
action-generation in order for it to explain fictional emotions.
Similarly, Shaun Nichols (2004b) notes a tension between Currie and
Ravenscroft's (2002) argument from paradox of fictional emotions
and argument from paradoxes of tragedy and horror.


### 2.3 Imagination, Imagery, and Perception



To have a (merely) mental image is to have a perception-like
experience triggered by something other than the appropriate external
stimulus; so, for example, one might have "a picture in the
mind's eye or ... a tune running through one's
head" (Strawson 1970: 31) in the absence of any corresponding
visual or auditory object or event (see the entry on
 mental imagery).
 While it is *propositional* imagination that gets compared to
belief and desire, it is *sensory* or *imagistic*
imagination that get compared to perception (Currie & Ravenscroft
2002). Although it is possible to form mental images in any of the
sensory modalities, the bulk of discussion in both philosophical and
psychological contexts has focused on *visual* imagery.



Broadly, there is agreement on the similarity between mental imagery
and perception in phenomenology, which can be explicated as a
similarity in content (Nanay 2016b; see, for example, Kind 2001; Nanay
2015; Noordhof 2002). Potential candidates for distinguishing mental
imagery and perception include intensity (Hume's *Treatise of
Human Nature*; but see Kind 2017), voluntariness (McGinn 2004;
Ichikawa 2009), causal relationship with the relevant object (Noordhof
2002); however, no consensus exists on features that clearly
distinguish the two, in part because of ongoing debates about
perception (see the entries on
 contents of perception
 and
 epistemological problems of perception).



What is the relationship between imaginings and mental imagery?



Historically, mental imagery is thought to be an essential component
of imaginings. Aristotle's *phantasia*, which is
sometimes translated as imagination, is a faculty that produces images
(*De Anima*; see entry on
 Aristotle's conception of imagination;
 but see Caston 1996). Rene Descartes (*Meditations on First
Philosophy*) and David Hume (*Treatise of Human Nature*)
both thought that to imagine just is to hold a mental image, or an
impression of perception, in one's mind. However, George
Berkeley's puzzle of visualizing the unseen (*Three Dialogues
between Hylas and Philonous*) arguably suggests the existence of a
non-imagistic hypothetical attitude.



Against the historical orthodoxy, the contemporary tendency is to
recognize that there is at least one species of
imagination--propositional imagination--that does not
require mental imagery. For example, Kendall Walton simply states,
"imagining can occur without imagery" (1990: 13). In turn, against
this contemporary tendency, Amy Kind (2001) argues that an image-based account can
explain three crucial features of imagination--directedness,
active nature, and phenomenological character--better than its
imageless counterpart. As a partial reconciliation of the two, Peter Langland-Hassan (2015) develops
a pluralist position on which there exists a variety of imaginative
attitudes, including ones that can take on hybrid contents that are
partly propositional and partly sensorily imagistic. (For a nuanced
overview of this debate, see Gregory 2016: 103-106.)



Finally, the relationship between mental imagery and perception has
potential implications for the connection between imagination and
action. The orthodoxy on propositional belief-like imagination holds
that imagination does not directly output to action-generation system;
rather, the connection between the two is mediated by belief and
desire. In contrast, the enactivist program in the philosophy of
perception holds that perception can directly output to
action-generation system (see, for example, Nanay 2013). Working from
the starting point that imagistic imagination is similar to perception
in its inclusion of mental imagery, some philosophers have argued for
a similar direct connection between imagistic imagination and
action-generation system (Langland-Hassan 2015; Nanay 2016a; Van
Leeuwen 2011, 2016b). That is, there exist imagery-oriented actions
that are analogous to perception-oriented actions. For example, Neil
Van Leeuwen (2011) argues that an account of imagination that is
imagistically-rich can better explain pretense behaviors than its
propositional-imagination-only rivals. Furthermore, Robert Eamon Briscoe (2008, 2018) argues that representations that blend inputs from perception and mental imagery, which he calls "make-perceive", guide many everyday actions. For example, a sculptor might use a blend of the visual perception of a stone and the mental imagery of different parts of the stone being subtracted to guide their physical manipulation of the stone.


### 2.4 Imagination and Memory



To *remember*, roughly, is to represent
something that is no longer the case. On the standard taxonomy, there
are three types of memory. Nondeclarative memory involves mental
content that is not consciously accessible, such as one's memory
of how to ride a bike. Semantic declarative memory involves mental
content that are propositional and not first-personal, such as
one's memory that Taipei is the capital of Taiwan. Episodic
declarative memory involves mental content about one's own past,
such as one's memory of the birth of one's child. (See
the entry on
 memory
 for a detailed discussion of this taxonomy, and especially the
criterion of episodicity.) In situating imagination in cognitive
architecture, philosophers have typically focused on similarities and
differences between imagination and episodic declarative memory.



There are obvious similarities between imagination and memory: both
typically involve imagery, both typically concern what is not
presently the case, and both frequently involve perspectival
representations. Thomas Hobbes (*Leviathan*: 2.3) claims that
"imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse
consideration has diverse names". In making this bold statement,
Hobbes represents an extreme version of continuism, a view on which
imagination and memory refer to the same psychological mechanisms.



The orthodoxy on imagination and memory in the history of philosophy,
however, is discontinuism, a view on which there are significant
differences between imagination and memory, even if there are overlaps
in their psychological mechanisms. Some philosophers find the
distinction in internalist factors, such as the
*phenomenological* difference between imagining and
remembering. Most famously, David Hume sought to distinguish the two
in terms of *vivacity*--"the ideas of the memory are
much more lively and strong than those of the imagination"
(*Treatise of Human Nature*: 1.3; but see Kind 2017). Others
who have adopted a phenomenological criterion include Rene
Descartes, Bertrand Russell, and William James (De Brigard 2017).
Other philosophers find the distinction in externalist factors, such
as the *causal connection* that exists between memories and the
past that is absent with imagination. Aristotle uses the causal
connection criterion to distinguish between imagination and memory
(*De Anima* 451a2; 451a8-12; see De Brigard 2017).
Indeed, nowadays the idea that a causal connection is essential to
remembering is accepted as "philosophical common sense"
(see the entry on
 memory;
 but see also De Brigard 2014 on memory traces). As such, it is
unsurprising that discontinuism remains the orthodoxy. As J. O. Urmson
(1967: 83) boldly claims, "One of these universally admitted
distinctions is that between memory and imagination".



In recent years, two sets of findings from cognitive science has given
philosophers reasons to push back against discontinuism.



The first set of findings concern distortions and confabulations. The
traditional conception of memory is that it functions as an archive:
past experiences are encapsulated and stored in the archive, and
remembering is just passively retrieving the encapsulated mental
content from the archive (Robins 2016). Behavioral psychology has
found numerous effects that challenge the empirical adequacy of the
archival conception of memory. Perhaps the most well-known is the
misinformation effect, which occurs when a subject incorporates
inaccurate information into their memory of an event--even
inaccurate information that they received after the event (Loftus 1979
[1996]).



The second set of findings concern the psychological underpinnings of
"mental time travel", or the similarities between
remembering the past and imagining the future, which is also known as
mental time travel (see Schacter et al. 2012 for a review). Using
fMRI, neuroscientists have found a striking overlap in the brain
activities for remembering the past and imagining the future, which
suggest that the two psychological processes utilize the same neural
network (see, for example, Addis et al. 2007; Buckner & Carroll
2007; Gilbert & Wilson 2007; Schacter et al. 2007; Suddendorf
& Corballis 1997, 2007). The neuroscientific research is preceded
by and corroborated by works from developmental psychology (Atance
& O'Neill 2011) and on neurodivergent individuals: for
example, the severely amnesic patient KC exhibits deficits with
remembering the past and imagining the future (Tulving 1985), and also
exhibits deficits with the generation of non-personal fictional
narratives (Rosenbaum et al. 2009). Note that, despite the evocative
contrast between "remembering the past" and
"imagining the future", it is questionable whether
temporality is the central contrast. Indeed, some philosophers and
psychologists contend that temporality is orthogonal to the comparison
between imagination and memory (De Brigard & Gessell 2016;
Schacter et al. 2012).



These two set of findings have given rise to an alternative conception
that sees memory as essentially constructive, in which remembering is
actively generating mental content that more or less represent the
past. The constructive conception of memory is in a better position to
explain why memories can contain distortions and confabulations (but
see Robins 2016 for complications), and why remembering makes use of
the same neural networks as imagining.



In turn, this constructive turn in the psychology and philosophy of
memory has revived philosophers' interest in continuism
concerning imagination and memory. Kourken Michaelian (2016)
explicitly rejects the causal connection criterion and defends a
theory on which remembering, like imagining, centrally involves
simulation. Karen Shanton and Alvin Goldman (2010) characterizes
remembering as mindreading one's past self. Felipe De Brigard
(2014) characterizes remembering as a special instance of hypothetical
thinking. Robert Hopkins (2018) characterizes remembering as a kind of
imagining that is controlled by the past. However, the philosophical
interpretation of empirical research remain contested; in dissent,
Dorothea Debus (2014, 2016) considers the same sets of findings but
ultimately concludes that remembering and imagining remain distinct
mental kinds.


### 2.5 Imagination and Supposition



To *suppose* is to form a hypothetical mental representation.
There exists a highly contentious debate on whether supposition is
continuous with imagination, which is also a hypothetical attitude, or
whether there are enough differences to make them discontinuous. There
are two main options for distinguishing imagination and supposition,
by phenomenology and by function.



The phenomenological distinction standardly turns on the notion of
vivacity: whereas imaginings are vivid, suppositions are not. Indeed,
one often finds in this literature the contrast between "merely
supposing" and "vividly imagining". Although
vivacity has been frequently invoked in discussions of imagination,
Amy Kind (2017) draws on empirical and theoretical considerations to
argue that it is ultimately philosophically untenable. If that is
correct, then the attempt to demarcate imagination and supposition by
their vivacity is untenable too. More rarely, other phenomenological
differences are invoked; for example, Brian Weatherson (2004) contends
that "supposing can be coarse in a way that imagining
cannot".





|  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- |
|  | *Imagination* | *Supposition* |
| **Affect** | Variable  | Atypical  |
| **Monitoring** | Typical  | Typical  |
| **Inference** | Typical  | Typical  |
| **Updater** | Typical  | Atypical  |
| **Domain-Specific Systems** | Typical  | Variable  |
| **Script Elaborator** | Variable  | Atypical  |
| **Inputter (punctuate)** | Typical  | Typical  |
| **Inputter (streaming)** | Typical  | Atypical  |



Table 1. Architectural similarities and
differences between imagination and supposition (Weinberg & Meskin
2006).




There have been diverse functional distinctions attributed to the
discontinuity between imagination and supposition, but none has gained
universal acceptance. Richard Moran (1994) contends that imagination
tends to give rise to a wide range of further mental states, including
affective responses, whereas supposition does not (see also Arcangeli
2014, 2017). Tamar Szabo Gendler (2000a) contends that while
attempting to imagine something like that female infanticide is
morally right seems to generate imaginative resistance, supposing it
does not (see the discussion on imaginative resistance in
 Supplement on Puzzles and Paradoxes of Imagination and the Arts).
 Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft (2002) contend that supposition
involves only cognitive imagination, but imagination involves both
cognitive and conative imagination. Alvin Goldman contends that
*suppositional imagination* involves supposing that particular
content obtains (for example, supposing that I am elated) but
*enactment imagination* involves "enacting, or trying to
enact, elation itself." (2006: 47-48, italics omitted).
Tyler Doggett and Andy Egan (2007) contend that imagination tends to
motivate pretense actions, but supposition tends not to. On Jonathan
Weinberg and Aaron Meskin (2006)'s synthesis, while there are a
few functional similarities, there are many more functional
differences between imagination and supposition (Table 1).



There remain ongoing debates about specific alleged functional
distinctions, and about whether the functional distinctions are
numerous or fundamental enough to warrant discontinuism or not.
Indeed, it remains contentious which philosophers count as continuists
and which philosophers count as discontinuists (for a few sample
taxonomies, see Arcangeli 2017; Balcerak Jackson 2016; Kind 2013).


## 3. Roles of Imagination



Much of the contemporary discussion of imagination has centered around
particular roles that imagination is purported to play in various
domains of human understanding and activity. Amongst the most
widely-discussed are the role of imagination in understanding other
minds
 (section 3.1),
 in performing and recognizing pretense
 (section 3.2),
 in characterizing psychopathology
 (section 3.3),
 in engaging with the arts
 (section 3.4),
 in thinking creatively
 (section 3.5),
 in acquiring knowledge about possibilities
 (section 3.6),
 and in interpreting figurative language
 (section 3.7).



The variety of roles ascribed to imagination, in turn, provides a
guide for discussions on the nature of imagination
 (section 1)
 and its place in cognitive architecture
 (section 2).


### 3.1 Mindreading



*Mindreading* is the activity of attributing mental states to
oneself and to others, and of predicting and explaining behavior on
the basis of those attributions. Discussions of mindreading in the
1990s were often framed as debates between "theory
theory"--which holds that the attribution of mental states
to others is guided by the application of some (tacit) folk
psychological theory--and "simulation
theory"--which holds that the attribution of mental states
is guided by a process of replicating or emulating the target's
(apparent) mental states, perhaps through mechanisms involving the
imagination. (Influential collections of papers on this debate include
Carruthers & Smith (eds.) 1996; Davies & Stone (eds.) 1995a,
1995b.) In recent years, proponents of both sides have increasingly
converged on common ground, allowing that both theory and simulation
play some role in the attribution of mental states to others (see
Carruthers 2003; Goldman 2006; Nichols & Stich 2003). Many such
*hybrid* accounts include a role for imagination.



On *theory theory* views, mindreading involves the application
of some (tacit) folk psychological theory that allows the subject to
make predictions and offer explanations of the target's beliefs
and behaviors. On pure versions of such accounts, imagination plays no
special role in the attribution of mental states to others. (For an
overview of theory theory, see entry on
 folk psychology as a theory).



On *simulation theory* views, mindreading involves simulating
the target's mental states so as to exploit similarities between
the subject's and target's processing capacities. It is
this simulation that allows the subject to make predictions and offer
explanations of the target's beliefs and behaviors. (For early
papers, see Goldman 1989; Gordon 1986; Heal 1986; for recent dissent,
see, for example, Carruthers 2009; Gallagher 2007; Saxe 2005, 2009;
for an overview of simulation theory, see entry on
 folk psychology as mental simulation).



Traditional versions of simulation theory typically describe
simulation using expressions such as "imaginatively putting
oneself in the other's place". How this metaphor is
understood depends on the specific account. (A collection of papers
exploring various versions of simulation theory can be found in Dokic
& Proust (eds.) 2002.) On many accounts, the projection is assumed
to involve the subject's imaginatively running mental processes
"off-line" that are directly analogous to those being run
"on-line" by the target (for example Goldman 1989).
Whereas the "on-line" mental processes are genuine, the
"off-line" mental processes are merely imagined. For
example, a target that is deciding whether to eat sushi for lunch is
running their decision-making processes "on-line"; and a
subject that is simulating the target's decision-making is
running the analogous processes "off-line"--in part,
by imagining the relevant mental states of the target. Recent
empirical work in psychology has explored the accuracy of such
projections (Markman, Klein, & Suhr (eds.) 2009, section V; Saxe
2005, 2006, 2009.)



Though classic simulationist accounts have tended to assume that the
simulation process is at least in-principle accessible to
consciousness, a number of recent simulation-style accounts appeal to
neuroscientific evidence suggesting that at least some simulative
processes take place completely unconsciously. On such accounts of
mindreading, no special role is played by conscious imagination (see
Goldman 2009; Saxe 2009.)



Many contemporary views of mindreading are *hybrid theory*
views according to which both theorizing and simulation play a role in
the understanding of others' mental states. Alvin Goldman
(2006), for example, argues that while mindreading is primarily the
product of simulation, theorizing plays a role in certain cases as
well. Many recent discussions have endorsed hybrid views of this sort,
with more or less weight given to each of the components in particular
cases (see Carruthers 2003; Nichols & Stich 2003.)



A number of philosophers have suggested that the mechanisms underlying
subjects' capacity to engage in mindreading are those that
enable engagement in pretense behavior (Currie & Ravenscroft 2002;
Goldman 2006; Nichols & Stich 2003; for an overview of recent
discussions, see Carruthers 2009.) According to such accounts,
engaging in pretense involves imaginatively taking up perspectives
other than one's own, and the ability to do so skillfully may
rely on--and contribute to--one's ability to
understand those alternate perspectives (see the entry on
 empathy).
 Partly in light of these considerations, the relative lack of
spontaneous pretense in children with autistic spectrum disorders is
taken as evidence for a link between the skills of pretense and
empathy.


### 3.2 Pretense



*Pretending* is an activity that occurs during diverse
circumstances, such as when children make-believe, when criminals
deceive, and when thespians act (Langland-Hassan 2014). Although
"imagination" and "pretense" have been used
interchangeably (Ryle 1949), in this section we will use "imagination" to
refer to one's state of mind, and "pretense" to
refer to the one's actions in the world.



Different theories of pretense disagree fundamentally about what it is
to pretend (see Liao & Gendler 2011 for an overview).
Consequently, they also disagree about the mental states that enable
one to pretend. *Metarepresentational* theories hold that
engaging in pretend play requires the innate mental-state concept
pretend (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith 1985; Friedman 2013;
Friedman & Leslie 2007; Leslie 1987, 1994). To pretend is to
represent one's own representations under the concept pretend.
*Behaviorist* theories hold that engaging in pretend play
requires a process of behaving-as-if (Harris 1994, 2000; Harris &
Kavanaugh 1993; Jarrold et al. 1994; Lillard & Flavell 1992;
Nichols & Stich 2003; Perner 1991; Rakoczy, Tomasello, &
Striano 2004; Stich & Tarzia 2015). Different
behaviorist theories explicate behaving-as-if in different ways, but
all aim to provide an account of pretense without recourse to the
innate mental-state concept pretend.



Philosophical and psychological theories have sought to explain both
the *performance* of pretense and the *recognition* of
pretense, especially concerning evidence from developmental psychology
(see Lillard 2001 for an early overview). On the performance side,
children on a standard developmental trajectory exhibit early
indicators of pretend play around 15 months; engage in explicit
prop-oriented play by 24 months; and engage in sophisticated joint
pretend play with props by 36 months (Harris 2000; Perner, Baker,
& Hutton 1994; Piaget 1945 [1951]). On the recognition side,
children on a standard developmental trajectory distinguish pretense
and reality via instinctual behavioral cues around 15-18 months;
and start to do so via conventional behavioral cues from 36 months on
(Friedman et al. 2010; Lillard & Witherington 2004; Onishi &
Baillargeon 2005; Onishi,
Baillargeon, & Leslie 2007; Richert and Lillard 2004).



Not surprisingly, the debate between theories of pretense often rest
on interpretations of such empirical evidence. For example, Ori
Friedman and Alan Leslie (2007) argue that behavioral theories cannot
account for the fact that children as young as 15 months old can
recognize pretend play and its normativity (Baillargeon, Scott, &
He 2010). Specifically, they argue that behavioral theories do not
offer straightforward explanations of this early development of
pretense recognition, and incorrectly predicts that children
systematically mistake other acts of behaving-as-if--such as
those that stem from false beliefs--for pretense activities. In
response, Stephen Stich and Joshua Tarzia (2015) has acknowledged
these problems for earlier behaviorist theories, and developed a new
behaviorist theory that purportedly explains the totality of empirical
evidence better than metarepresentational rivals. Importantly, Stich
and Tarzia argue that their account can better explain Angeline
Lillard (1993)'s empirical finding that young children need not
attribute a mental concept such as pretend to someone else in order to
understand them as pretending.



The debate concerning theories of pretense has implications for the
role of imagination in pretense. Behaviorist theories tend to take
imagination as essential to explaining pretense performance;
metarepresentational theories do not. (However, arguably the innate
mental-state concept pretend posited by metarepresentational theories
serve similar functions. See Nichols and Stich's (2000) discussion
of the *decoupler* mechanism, which explicitly draws from
Leslie 1987. Currie and Ravenscroft (2002) give a broadly behaviorist
theory of pretense that does not require imagination.) Specifically,
on most behaviorist theories, imagination is essential for guiding
elaborations of pretense episodes, especially via behaviors (Picciuto
& Carruthers 2016; Stich & Tarzia 2015).



Most recently, Peter Langland-Hassan (2012, 2014) has developed a
theory that aims to explain pretense behavior and pretense recognition
without appeal to either metarepresentation or imagination.
Langland-Hassan argues that pretense behaviors can be adequately
explained by beliefs, desires, and intentions--including beliefs
in counterfactuals; and that the difference between pretense and
sincerity more generally can be adequately characterized in terms of a
person's beliefs, intentions, and desires. While Langland-Hassan
does not deny that pretense is in some sense an imaginative activity,
he argues that we do not need to posit a sui generis component of the
mind to account for it.


### 3.3 Psychopathology



Autism and delusions have been--with much
controversy--characterized as disorders of imagination. That is,
the atypical patterns of cognition and behavior associated with each
psychopathology have been argued to result from atypical functions of
imagination.



*Autism* can be characterized in terms of a trio of
atypicalities often referred to as "Wing's triad":
problems in typical social competence, communication, and imagination
(Happe 1994; Wing & Gould 1979). The imaginative aspect of
autism interacts with other prominent roles of imagination, namely
mindreading, pretense, and engagement with the arts (Carruthers 2009).
Children with autism do not engage in spontaneous pretend play in the
ways that typically-developing children do, engaging instead in
repetitive and sometimes obsessional activities; and adults with
autism often show little interest in fiction (Carpenter, Tomasello,
& Striano 2005; Happe 1994; Rogers, Cook, & Meryl 2005;
Wing & Gould 1979). The degree to which an imaginative deficit is
implicated in autism remains a matter of considerable debate. Most
radically, Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft (2002) have argued that,
with respect to Wing's triad, problems in typical social
competence and communication are rooted in an inability to engage in
imaginative activities.



*Delusions* can be characterized as belief-like mental
representations that manifest an unusual degree of disconnectedness
from reality (Bortolotti & Miyazono 2015). Particularly striking
examples would include Capgras and Cotard delusions. In the former,
the sufferer takes her friends and family to have been replaced by
imposters; in the latter, the sufferer takes himself to be dead. More
mundane examples might include ordinary cases of self-deception.



One approach to delusions characterize them as beliefs that are
dysfunctional in their content or formation. (For a representative
collection of papers that present and criticize this perspective, see
Coltheart & Davies (eds.) 2000). However, another approach to
delusions characterize them as dysfunctions of imaginings. Currie and
Ravenscroft (2002: 170-175) argue that delusions are imaginings
that are misidentified by the subject as the result of an inability to
keep track of the sources of one's thoughts. That is, a delusion
is an imagined representation that is misidentified by the subject as
a belief. Tamar Szabo Gendler (2007) argues that in cases of
delusions and self-deceptions, imaginings come to play a role in
one's cognitive architecture similar to that typically played by
beliefs. Andy Egan (2008a) likewise argues that the mental states
involved in delusions are both belief-like (in their connection to
behaviors and inferences) and imagination-like (in their
circumscription); however, he argues that these functional
similarities suggest the need to posit an in-between attitude called
"bimagination".


### 3.4 Engagement with the Arts



There is an entrenched historical connection between imagination and
the arts. David Hume and Immanuel Kant both invoke imagination
centrally in their exploration of aesthetic phenomena (albeit in
radically different ways; see entries on
 Hume's aesthetics
 and
 Kant's aesthetics).
 R.G. Collingwood (1938) defines art as the imaginative expression of
feeling (Wiltsher 2018; see entry on
 Collingwood's aesthetics).
 Roger Scruton (1974) develops a Wittgensteinian account of
imagination and accords it a central role in aesthetic experience and
aesthetic judgment.



In contemporary philosophy, the most prominent theory of
imagination's role in engagement with the arts is presented in
Kendall Walton's *Mimesis as Make-Believe* (1990).
(Although Walton uses "fictions" as a technical term to
refer to artworks, his conception of the arts is broad enough to
include both high-brow and low-brow; popular and obscure; a variety of
specific arts such as poetry and videogames; and--as Stacie
Friend (2008) clarifies--both fictive and non-fictive works.)
Walton's core insight is that engagement with the arts is
fundamentally similar to children's games of make-believe. When
one engages with an artwork, one uses it as a prop in a make-believe
game. As props, artworks generate prescriptions for imaginings. These
prescriptions also determine the representational contents of artworks
(that is, "fictionality", or what is true in a fictional
world). When one correctly engages with an artwork, then, one imagines
the representational contents as prescribed.



Out of all the arts, it is the engagement with narratives that
philosophers have explored most closely in conjunction with
imagination (see Stock 2013 for an overview). Gregory Currie (1990)
offers an influential account of imagination and fiction, and Peter
Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen (1996) discuss literature
specifically. Indeed, this research program--despite many
criticisms of Walton's specific theory--remains lively
today (see, for example, papers in Nichols (ed.) 2006b). For example, Kathleen Stock (2017) argues that a specific kind of propositional imagination is essential for engagement with fictions. In dissent, Derek Matravers (2014) argues that, contra Walton, imagination is not essential for engagement with fictions. 



Philosophers have also done much to articulate the connection between
imagination and engagement with music (see the entry on
 philosophy of music;
 see also Trivedi 2011). Some philosophers focus on commonalities
between engagement with narratives and engagement with music. For
example, even though Walton (1990, 1994a, 1999) acknowledges that
fictional worlds of music are much more indeterminate than fictional
worlds of narratives, he maintains that the same kind of imagining
used in experiencing narratives is also used in experiencing various
elements of music, such as imagining continuity between movements and
imagining feeling musical tension. Similarly, Andrew Kania (2015)
argues that experiencing musical space and movement is imaginative
like our experience of fictional narratives. Other philosophers draw
parallels between engagement with music and other imaginative
activities, namely as understanding other minds
 (section 3.1)
 and interpreting metaphor
 (section 3.7).
 As an example of the former, Jerrold Levinson (1996) argues that the
best explanation of musical expressiveness requires listeners to
experience music imaginatively--specifically, imagining a persona
expressing emotions through the music. As an example of the latter,
Scruton (1997) argues that musical experience is informed by spatial
concepts applied metaphorically, and so imaginative perception is
necessary for musical understanding (but see Budd 2003 for a
criticism; see also De Clercq 2007 and Kania 2015). Stephen Davies
(2005, 2011) and Peter Kivy (2002) notably criticize the imaginative
accounts of engagement with music on empirical and theoretical
grounds.



Other imaginative accounts of engagement with the arts can be found in entries on
 philosophy of film
 and
 philosophy of dance. 
Indeed, imagination's aesthetic significance extends beyond the
arts; philosophical aestheticians have recognized the role of
imagination in appreciating nature (Brady 1998) and in appreciating
mundane objects, events, and activities (see the entry
on aesthetics of the everyday).



Philosophers have sought to clarify the role of imagination in
engagement with the arts by focusing on a number of puzzles and
paradoxes in the vicinity. The *puzzle of imaginative
resistance* explores apparent limitations on what can be imagined
during engagements with the arts and, relatedly, what can be made
fictional in artworks. The *paradox of emotional response to
fictions* (widely known as "paradox of fiction")
examines psychological and normative similarities between affective
responses prompted by imaginings versus affective responses by
reality-directed attitudes. The *paradox of tragedy* and the
*paradox of horror* examine psychological and normative
differences between affective responses prompted by imaginings versus
affective responses by reality-directed attitudes. Finally, the
*puzzle of moral persuasion* is concerned with real-world
outputs of imaginative engagements with artworks; specifically,
whether and how artworks can morally educate or corrupt. For more
detail on each of these artistic phenomena, see the
 Supplement on Puzzles and Paradoxes of Imagination and the Arts.
 


### 3.5 Creativity



The idea that imagination plays a central role in creative processes
can be traced back to Immanuel Kant (*Critique of Pure
Reason*), who takes artistic geniuses as paradigmatic examples of
creativity. On Kant's account, when imagination aims at the
aesthetic, it is allowed to engage in free play beyond the
understanding available to oneself. The unconstrained imagination can
thereby take raw materials and produce outputs that transcend concepts
that one possesses.



While the precise characterization of creativity remains controversial
(see Gaut & Kieran (eds.) 2018; Paul & Kaufman (eds.) 2014),
contemporary philosophers typically conceive of it more broadly than
Kant did. In addition to creative processes in the aesthetic realm,
they also consider creative processes in, for example, "science,
craft, business, technology, organizational life and everyday
activities" (Gaut 2010: 1034; see also Stokes 2011). As an
example, Michael Polanyi (1966) gives imagination a central role in
the creative endeavor of scientific discovery, by refining and
narrowing the solution space to open-ended scientific problems (see
Stokes 2016: 252-256). And, in addition to creative processes of
geniuses, contemporary philosophers also consider creative processes
of ordinary people.



With this broadened scope, contemporary philosophers have followed
Kant's lead in exploring the role of imagination in creativity
(see Stokes 2016 for an overview). Berys Gaut (2003) and Dustin Stokes
(2014) argue that two characteristic features of imagination--its
lack of aim at truth and its dissociation from action--make it
especially suitable for creative processes. Peter Carruthers (2002)
argues that the same cognitive resources, including imagination,
underlie children's pretend play and adults' creative
thinking. Specifically, Carruthers hypothesizes that children's
play evolutionarily developed as precursors to and practices for
adults' creative thinking.



There are two points of disagreement regarding the role of imagination
in creative processes. First, philosophers disagree about the nature
and the strength of the connection between imagination and creativity.
Kant takes imagination to be *constitutive* of creativity: what
makes a creative process creative is the involvement of imagination
aiming at the aesthetic (see also A. Hills & Bird forthcoming).
Gaut and Stokes, by contrast, thinks there is only an imperfect
*causal* connection between imagination and creativity: while
imagination is useful for creative processes, there are creative
processes that do not involve imagination and there are imaginings
that are uncreative (see also Beaney 2005). Second, philosophers
disagree about the type of imagination involved in creative processes.
By hypothesizing a common evolutionary cause, Carruthers suggests that
the same imaginative capacity is involved in pretense and in
creativity. By contrast, perhaps echoing Kant's distinction of
productive versus reproductive imagination, Currie and Ravenscroft
(2002) sharply distinguish recreative imagination, which is involved
in pretense and mindreading, from creative imagination.


### 3.6 Knowledge



Imagination plays a role in the acquisition of knowledge. Many
philosophical arguments call on imagination when they appeal to
metaphysical modal knowledge (see the entry on
 epistemology of modality;
 the papers collected in Gendler & Hawthorne (eds.) 2002; and Kung
2016 and Strohminger & Yli-Vakkuri 2017 for overviews). The kind
of thought experiments that are regularly used in scientific
theorizing is also plausibly premised on imaginative capacities (see
the entry on
 thought experiments).
 As already discussed, people use imagination to understand the
perspectives of others
 (section 3.1).
 Moreover, people often make decisions via thinking about
counterfactuals, or what would happen if things had been different
from how they in fact are (see the entries on
 causation
 and
 counterfactual conditionals).
 However, the phenomenon of transformative experience has recently
called into question which kind of imaginary scenarios are truly
epistemically accessible. (For a representative collection of papers
that explore different epistemic roles of imagination, see Kind &
Kung (eds.) 2016a.)



Broadly speaking, thought experiments use imaginary scenarios to
elicit responses that (ideally) grant people knowledge of
possibilities. A special, but prominent, type of thought experiment in
philosophy concerns the link between imagination, conceivability, and
metaphysical possibility. Rene Descartes famously offered a
*modal argument* in the *Sixth Meditation*, reasoning
from the fact that he could clearly and distinctly conceive of his
mind and body as distinct to the real distinctness between them. The
current prevalence of similar modal arguments can be verified by
entries on
 zombies
 and
 dualism.
 These modal arguments all rely, in some way, on the idea that what
one can imagine functions as a fallible and defeasible guide to what
is really possible in the broadest sense.



Pessimists, notably Peter Van Inwagen (1998: 70), doubt that
imagination can give us an accurate understanding of scenarios that
are "remote from the practical business of everyday life",
such as those called upon in philosophical modal arguments. Optimists
typically take it as a given that there is some connection between
imagination and metaphysical modal knowledge, but focus on
understanding where the connection is imperfect, such as when one
(apparently) imagines the impossible. To just give a few examples,
Saul Kripke (1972 [1980]), Stephen Yablo (1993), David Chalmers
(2002), Dominic Gregory (2004), Timothy
Williamson (2007, 2016), Peter Kung (2010), and Magdalena Balcerak Jackson (2018) have each developed a distinctive approach to
this task. For example, Kripke adopts a redescription approach to
modeling (some) modal errors: in some cases where one is apparently
imagining the impossible, one is in fact imagining a possible scenario
but misconstruing it as an impossible one. On this diagnosis, in such
cases, the error resides not with imaginative capacities, but with the
capacity to describe one's own imaginings.



Other thought experiments are scoped more narrowly; for example,
scientific thought experiments are intended to allow people to explore
nomic possibilities. Galileo (*On Motion*) famously offered a
thought experiment that disproved Aristotle's theory of motion,
which predicts that heavier objects fall more quickly. In this thought
experiment, Galileo asked people to imagine the falling of a composite
of a light and heavy object versus the falling of the heavy object
alone. When one runs the thought experiment--that is, when one
elaborates on the starting point of this imaginary scenario--one
notices an incoherence in Aristotle's theory: on the one hand,
it should predict that the composite would fall more slowly because
the light object would slow down the heavy object; on the other hand,
it should also predict that the composite would fall more quickly
because the composite is heavier than the heavy object alone. While it
is incontrovertible that imagination is central to thought
experiments, debates remain on whether imagination can be invoked in
the context of justification (Gendler 2000b; Williamson 2016) or only
in the context of discovery (Norton 1991, 1996; Spaulding 2016).



The role of imagination in counterfactual reasoning--and, in
particular, the question of what tends to be held constant when one
contemplates counterfactual scenarios--has been explored in
detail in recent philosophical and psychological works (Byrne 2005;
Williamson 2005, 2007, 2016). Williamson suggests that 



> 
> 
> When we work out what would have happened if such-and-such had been
> the case, we frequently cannot do it without imagining such-and-such
> to be the case and letting things run. (2005: 19) 
> 
> 
> 



It is imagination that lets one move from counterfactuals'
antecedents to their consequents. Williamson (2016) argues that our
imaginings have evolved to be suitably constrained, such that such
counterfactual reasoning can confer knowledge. Indeed, he argues that
if one were to be skeptical about gaining knowledge from such a
hypothetical reasoning process, then one would be forced to be
(implausibly) skeptical about much of ordinary reasoning about
actuality. Developing an idea anticipated by Williamson (2007), Margot
Strohminger and Juhani Yli-Vakkuri (forthcoming) argue that the same
imaginative mechanisms that capable of producing metaphysical modal
knowledge are also capable of producing knowledge of other restricted
modalities, such as nomic and practical modality. In parallel, Amy Kind (2016c, 2018) argues that imaginings can confer knowledge when they are guided by reality-sensitive constraints, in a manner akin to computer simulations.



Thinking about counterfactuals is just one way that imagination can
factor into mundane decision-making. Neil Van Leeuwen (2011, 2016a,
2016b) and Bence Nanay (2016a) have recently started to elaborate on the connection
between imagination and actions via decision-making. Although neither
authors focus on the epistemic status of imagination, their accounts
of decision-making seem to suggest that imagination is used to gain
practical knowledge about the probability and value of actions'
possible outcomes.



At the same time, the recently prominent discussion of transformative
experiences calls into question the extent to which imagination can be
epistemically useful for making life-altering decisions. L.A. Paul
(2014, 2015, 2018; see also Jackson 1982, 1986; D. Lewis 1988) argues
that some types of knowledge--especially *de se* knowledge
concerning one's values--are inaccessible by imaginings;
only actual experiences can confer these types of knowledge. For
example, one cannot really know whether one wants to become a parent
without experiencing being a parent because parenthood itself can
transform one's values. If one cannot reasonably imagine oneself
with radically different values, then plausibly one cannot
appropriately imagine the values associated with the outcomes of
one's actions. As such, despite their epistemic worth in
ordinary contexts, imaginings might not help in making life-altering
decisions.


### 3.7 Figurative Language



Finally, imagination might play a role in interpreting figurative
language. The exact role ascribed to imagination varies greatly from
theory to theory. In part, this variation arose from a longstanding
debate in philosophy of language concerning the divide between literal
and figurative language: while some imaginative theories of figurative
language (such as Walton 1990) accept a strong divide, others (such as
Lepore & Stone 2015) reject it. Although this controversy cannot
be avoided entirely, it is worth reiterating that the present aim is
only to highlight the possible role(s) that imagination might play in
the psychology of irony, metaphor, and nearby linguistic
phenomena.



Despite immense differences between them, numerous theories of irony
have converged on the idea that interpreting irony involves
imagination. Kendall Walton (1990) treats ironic and metaphoric speech
as props in momentary games of make-believe. On Walton's theory,
imagination is central to understanding and interpreting such
figurative speech. Herbert Clark and Richard Gerrig (1984) and Gregory
Currie (2006) connect irony to pretense, but without further linking
all cases of pretense to imaginative capacities. Elisabeth Camp (2012)
similarly endorses a role for pretense in the interpretation of irony
and the related case of sarcasm. Finally, this idea that interpreting
irony involves imagination is corroborated by psychological research:
irony recognition is difficult for neurodivergent individuals who lack
imaginative capacities (Happe 1991)--specifically, in
individuals with Asperger's syndrome, who have deficits with
meta-representation--and in individuals with schizophrenia, who
have deficits with theory-of-mind (Langdon et al. 2002).



Again, despite immense differences between them, numerous theories of
metaphor have also converged on the idea that interpreting metaphor
involves imagination (see the entry on
 metaphor).
 The first family of theories focus on imagination's role in
pretense. As mentioned earlier, Walton (1990) takes metaphors to be
props in momentary games of make-believe. Walton (1993, 2000) and
David Hills (1997) further develop this idea. (Importantly, Walton
(1993) notes that interpretation of a metaphor may not involve actual
imaginings, but only the recognition of the type of imaginings
prescribed.) Andy Egan (2008b) extends the idea to account for idioms.
These theories remain controversial: in particular, Camp (2009) and
Catherine Wearing (2011) have offered forceful criticisms. The second
family of theories focus on imagination's role in providing
novel perspectives. While Camp (2009) criticizes the first family of
theories, she also acknowledges a role for imagination. On her
account, pretense and metaphor typically involve distinct types of
imaginings: pretense-imaginings allow one to access counterfactual
content, but metaphor-imaginings allow one to re-interpret actual
content from a novel perspective. Indeed Camp (2007) argues that the
kind of imagination involved in interpreting metaphors is also used to
interpret similes and juxtapositions. The third family of theories
focus on imagination's role in providing mental images. Paul
Ricoeur (1978), Richard Moran (1989), and Robyn Carston (2010) all
propose theories on which mental imagery plays an important role in
processing metaphors. Outside of philosophy of language, James Grant
(2011) argues that metaphors are prevalent in art criticism because
they prompt readers' imaginings.