Imaginative Attitudes

Abstract

The point of this paper is to reveal a dogma in the ordinary conception of sensory imagination, and to suggest another way forward. The dogma springs from two main sources: a too close comparison of mental imagery to perceptual experience, and a too strong division between mental imagery and the traditional propositional attitudes (such as belief and desire). The result is an unworkable conception of the correctness conditions of sensory imaginings-one lacking any link between the conditions under which an imagining aids human action and inference and the conditions under which it is veridical. The proposed solution is, first, to posit a variety of imaginative attitudes-akin to the traditional propositional attitudes-which have different associated correctness (or satisfaction) conditions. The second part of the solution is to allow for imaginings with "hybrid" contents, in the sense that both mental images and representations with language-like constituent structure contribute to the content of imaginings.

Reconceiving representation-hungry cognition: an ecological-enactive proposal

“…The type of imagining involved in Shapiro’s example involves a kind of visualisation in which Shapiro deliberately re-enacts past experiences by remembering. We will call this ‘episodic memory (EM-) imagining’ following Langland-Hassan (2015) . Shapiro reactivates some past experience thereby bringing into the present in his episode of imagining something from his past.…”

There is Something about the Image: A Defence of the Two-Component View of Imagination

“…Instead, Kung hopes to rely on the two‐component view to vindicate the evidential role of imagination in modal epistemology: since qualitative content is arguably independent of our will, it sets epistemic constraints on our imaginings. Langland‐Hassan does point out that the two‐component view helps us explain how sensory imaginings can represent particulars, counterfactuals and temporal relations (, 680). But his main motivation is to argue that sensory imaginings can have correctness‐conditions – only when a sensory image is incorporated into a specific imaginative attitude (judgment‐imagining, memory‐imagining, etc.)…”

“…For instance, if I imagine that the Arc de Triomphe is a big silver arch, then the correctness‐conditions of that imagining, namely, that it is correct if the Arc de Triomphe really has the appearance of a big silver arch, are determined by the referent of the name “Arc de Triomphe” and the concepts of being big, of silver and arch‐like, none of which are imagistic. Since Langland‐Hassan also admits that mental images in isolation from propositional attitudes lack determinate contents and that their own content can be compared to indefinite descriptions (Langland‐Hassan , 676), Hutto's concern that imagistic content does not play any explanatory role seems justified.…”

“…Here, I am going to look at a particular way of responding to the problem which reconciles the two. Some authors, such as Peter Langland‐Hassan () and Peter Kung () have recently proposed that imagination involves two kinds of content, qualitative and assigned. While qualitative content is provided by a mental image and is limited to representing only sensory features like colours, shapes, smells, etc., assigned content is provided by an attitude whose representational content is not limited to perceptual features.…”

Imagining Experiences

“…To make progress on the questions we have been considering, I want to propose a framework for thinking about the contents and correctness conditions of sensory imaginings in general. This framework was first developed in an earlier paper, with other questions in mind (Langland‐Hassan, ). Sensory imaginings, as I will understand them, are instances of occurrent cognition that involve mental imagery.…”