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Imagery: From Hume To Cognitive Science*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Kenneth J. Bower
Kenneth J. Bower*
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
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Extract

Hume said that to have a memory image of some individual, x, is to perceive a ‘faint copy’ of some prior perception of x. This classical view of memory images includes three distinct claims:

(1) Images and percepts are mental entities which serve as objects for a ‘direct’ or ‘non-inferential’ perception.

(2) A memory image of some individual, x, shares numerous properties with some prior perception of x. (’ … great resemblance … in every other particular, except their degree of force and vivacity.’)

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , June 1984 , pp. 217 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1984

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References

* I am grateful for the help offered by Zeno Vendler, Avrum Stroll, Paulo Dau, and especially Mark Wilson.

1 Hume, D. A Treatise of Human Nature (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1968), 1–5Google Scholar

2 Ryle, G. The Concept of Mind (London: Harper and Row 1949)Google Scholar

3 Ibid., 248

4 Ibid., 319-21

5 Ibid., 266. Also see Wittgenstein, L. Zettel (Oxford: Blackwell 1967), 109.Google Scholar

6 Ryle, 272. Also see Malcolm, N. Memory and Mind (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1977), 183Google Scholar

7 The most speculative of information processing philosophers have had little to say about the copy theory. D. C. Dennett, in fact, even denies that mental images exist. J. Fodor acknowledges that imagery and perception are similar, but does not examine the copy metaphor. See Dennett, D. Content and Consciousness (Ithaca, NY: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1969), 132-46Google Scholar. Also see Fodor, J. The Language of Thought (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co. 1975), 184-95.Google Scholar

8 Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell 1963), 177Google Scholar

9 Shepard, R. and Metzler, J. ‘Mental Rotation of Three-Dimensional Objects,’ Science, 171 (1971) 701-3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed Also see Kosslyn, S. and Pomerantz, J. ‘Imagery, Propositions, and the Form of Internal Representation,’ Cognitive Psychology, 9 (1977) 52–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Kosslyn, S. ‘Scanning Visual Images: Some Structural Implications,’ Perception and Psychophysics, 14 (1973) 90-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Kosslyn, S. ‘Can Imagery Be Distinguished From Other Forms of Internal Representation?', Memory and Cognition, 4 (1976) 291-7CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

12 Dennett, 136

13 Segal, S. ‘Processing of the Stimulus in Imagery and Perception,’ in Imagery: Some Current Cognitive Approaches (New York: Academic Press 1971), 69–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also see Perky, C. W. ‘An Experimental Study of Imagination,’ American Journal of Psychology, 21 (1910) 422-52.Google Scholar

14 See Evans, G. ‘The Causal Theory of Names,’ in Schwartz, Stephen P. ed., Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1977), 208.Google Scholar