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5 - Philosophical Perspectives on Imagination in the Western Tradition

from Part I - Theoretical Perspectives on the Imagination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2020

By
Amy Kind
Edited by
Anna Abraham
Anna Abraham
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
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Summary

Philosophers in the Western tradition have both theorized about imagination and used imagination in their theorizing about other matters. In this chapter, I first provide a brief overview of philosophical theorizing about imagination with a special focus on its relation to other mental states such as belief and perception. I then turn to a discussion of the methodological role that imagination has played in philosophy. I here focus on the imaginability principle, i.e. the claim that the imaginability of a given scenario entails that such a scenario is in some sense possible. Relying on this kind of principle, philosophers have used imagination to justify theories in domains such as philosophy of mind, metaphysics and ethics.

Keywords

Imaginationbeliefperceptionmodal epistemologythought experimentsimaginabilityconceivabilitypossibility
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination , pp. 64 - 79
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

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