Imagery and the Coherence of Imagination

Are Theories of Imagery Theories of Imagination? An Active Perception Approach to Conscious Mental Content

“…A widely used Dictionary of Philosophy (Flew, 1979) warns us firmly against confusing them. Philosophers routinely treat "imagine" as polysemous, as if its usages were a collection of homonyms, sometimes equivalent to "form (or experience) imagery," but, in other cases, to "suppose," or "pretend," "believe," "think creatively," and so on (Thomas, 1997a). This orthodoxy, however, has been powerfully criticized by White (1990).…”

“…White, however, holds that although there is only one sense of "imagination," it has nothing whatsoever to do with imagery! As I have argued in detail elsewhere (Thomas, 1997a; see also Thomas, 1999a), White makes a persuasive case against the polysemy view, but he fails to make the case for dissevering imagination from imagery. A more plausible view is that "imagination" is a "family resemblance" term (Wittgenstein, 1953) whose prototypical (but not exclusive) application is to the production of imagery.…”

“…To reduce it entirely to these bloodless terms is simply to duck the most significant issues that the concept raises. They are perfectly proper usages, but only distantly related to the idea of creative imagination (Thomas, 1997a).…”

“…Such functions range from ordinary supposal to the most valued aspects of human insight and creativity (Thomas, 1997a(Thomas, , 1999a, but it is the latter that will be of particular concern here. The issue is raised not only to bring a fresh perspective to the notoriously recalcitrant scientific debate about the nature and cognitive importance of imagery, but also to try to illuminate the obscure topic of imagination itself.…”

Aristotle’s concept of mental imagery in sports

“…Though Aristotle's mind concept may not be acceptable by several scholars; possibly due to the fact that Aristotle associates phantasia to a considerable amount of different psychological processes, Aristotle admirably may be characterized as the prime thinker in philosophy's history to critically accept phantasia as a philosophical idea, developing its ontological presence. Hereupon, he deservedly has been accredited with the discovery of the concept of mental imagery (Schofield, 1978;Scruton 1974), and certainly, it seems fair to say that the origins of most subsequent discussions of the mental imagery concept may be traced back to his work (Thomas, 1997;Tye, 1984;Watson, 1988aWatson, , 1988b.…”