Towards a dual process epistemology of imagination

Stuart, Michael T.

doi:10.1007/s11229-019-02116-w

Cited by 33 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 83 publications

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“…For an argument that these different approaches are mutually consistent, but that we should neverthless focus our attention on scientific imagination as an act/process, seeStuart (2019).…”

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confidence: 99%

Arnon Levy, Peter Godfrey-Smith (Eds.): The Scientific Imagination: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives

Stuart

2021

J Gen Philos Sci

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The imagination is a mysterious thing. We criticize some people for having too much of it, and others for not having enough. Without imagination, there would be no art, no science, and perhaps no meaningful thought at all. But it is notoriously hard to define, extremely variable between individuals, and entangled with so many similar cognitive processes that it often seems impossible to say anything specific about it at all. 1 Given these theoretical difficulties and a historical aversion in philosophy of science to anything psychological, it is not surprising that the role of imagination in science has gone mostly unremarked until recently. 2 Nevertheless, thanks to new work in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, psychology and epistemology (not to mention the cognitive and social science of science and science education studies), we are now in a position to investigate the supermassive black hole at the center of scientific practice. What is scientific imagination? How, if at all, does it differ from non-scientific imagination? When is it deployed, and for what purposes? What justifies its use? What are its epistemic outputs? How is it taught, evaluated, and understood by scientists? Can it be improved or calibrated? How is it enhanced by collaboration and computers? How can imaginative biases be overcome? Who gets to do the imagining in science? These are questions we are now beginning to answer.The Scientific Imagination, edited by Arnon Levy and Peter Godfrey-Smith, seeks "to provide a comprehensive and exciting picture of the scientific imagination" (book jacket), and "to showcase current thinking ["the role and character of imagining within science"] and try to organize it into a coherent research agenda" (p. 1). There are thirteen chapters and an introduction. Ten are written by philosophers, and three by cognitive scientists. Of

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“…For an argument that these different approaches are mutually consistent, but that we should neverthless focus our attention on scientific imagination as an act/process, seeStuart (2019).…”

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confidence: 99%

Arnon Levy, Peter Godfrey-Smith (Eds.): The Scientific Imagination: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives

Stuart

2021

J Gen Philos Sci

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“…We need to formulate it not as a question about the distinction between useful and useless courses of 3 For other contributions to the topic of useful imagination, see Williamson (2007, ch. 5), van Leeuwen (2013, Dorsch (2016), Balcerak Jackson (2018), Williams (2021) and Stuart (2021). Like Kind and Myers, Dorsch is concerned with the place of imagination in epistemology; he holds that those beliefs may count as knowledge because 'we make sure that they are formed in a reliable manner, namely in strict conformity to the truth-preserving constraints that we have imposed ourselves on our imaginative project' (2016,99).…”

Section: What Some People Have Saidmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Williamson (2007) is concerned with the evaluation of counterfactual conditionals and supposes that our endorsement of a counterfactual conditional is underlain by acts of imagination that accord with an intuitive physics, but he does not explain what kind of knowledge he takes intuitive physics to be. Stuart (2021) distinguishes between two kinds of imaginative process, unconscious and automatic versus conscious and controlled, and describes both as constrained in various ways. In passing he compares the constraints to inference rules, but otherwise does not attempt to explain what they are.…”

Section: What Some People Have Saidmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imagination constrained, imagination constructed

Gauker

2021

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A number of authors have asked what it takes for a course of mental imagery to be epistemically or practically useful. This paper addresses a prior question, namely, the difference between courses of imagination that are realistic and those that are fantastic. One approach, suggested by recent literature concerning the utility of imagery, holds that a course of imagination represents realistically if and only if the course of events represented conforms to certain accepted constraints. Against this it will be argued that the constraints cannot be both permissive enough and restrictive enough. An alternative approach adds as a necessary condition that realistic courses of imagination are constructed in accordance with certain procedures on the basis of remembered perceptions.

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“…Not many philosophers focus on these virtues of thought experimenters, but some do. For example, Buzzoni (2008) and Stuart (2017Stuart ( , 2019 examine the epistemology of the faculty of imagination in relation to thought experiments. Specifically, they ask how the imagination, a faculty utilized during all thought experiments, can be investigated such that those with strong and weak imaginations make better or worse thought experimenters.…”

Section: The Argument View and Thought Experimenting Agentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The material theory of induction and the epistemology of thought experiments

Stuart

2020

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A

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is responsible for a number of influential views in contemporary philosophy of science. This paper will discuss two of them. The material theory of induction claims that inductive arguments are ultimately justified by their material features, not their formal features. Thus, while a deductive argument can be valid irrespective of the content of the propositions that make up the argument, an inductive argument about, say, apples, will be justified (or not) depending on facts about apples. The argument view of thought experiments claims that thought experiments are arguments, and that they function epistemically however arguments do. These two views have generated a great deal of discussion, although there hasn't been much written about their combination. I argue that despite some interesting harmonies, there is a serious tension between them. I consider several options for easing this tension, before suggesting a set of changes to the argument view that I take to be consistent with Norton's fundamental philosophical commitments, and which retain what seems intuitively correct about the argument view. These changes require that we move away from a unitary epistemology of thought experiments and towards a more pluralist position.

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Towards a dual process epistemology of imagination

Cited by 33 publications

References 83 publications

Arnon Levy, Peter Godfrey-Smith (Eds.): The Scientific Imagination: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives

Arnon Levy, Peter Godfrey-Smith (Eds.): The Scientific Imagination: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives

Imagination constrained, imagination constructed

The material theory of induction and the epistemology of thought experiments

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