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What is the imagination's role in human cognition and culture? This book explores the hypothesis that such role is larger than we commonly think: imagination is the key to understand many important domains of our lives - including religion, superstition, and ideology - that are often taken to be the province of belief alone. Combining traditional methods of philosophical inquiry with relevant findings from cognitive and social sciences, the author seeks to provide solid empirical support for that hypothesis, on the one hand, and to explore its important theoretical and practical implications, on the other. A novel, substantive theory of the imagination emerges as a result. Imagination, on this view, does not just allow us to escape from reality into fictional worlds, but plays a key, direct role in our representation of (and practical engagement with) the real world itself.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Accounts of Folk-Psychological States
1. Matching folk-psychological assumptions
2. Explanatory power
2.1. 'Accounts of folk-psychological states' vs. 'Folk-psychological accounts'
2.2. How good are folk-psychological explanations?
2.2.1. Conservative accounts
2.2.2. Revisionist accounts
2.2.3. Eliminativist accounts
2.3. Assessing explanatory power: more (or less) controversial cases
3. Folk psychology and scientific psychology (and other cognitive sciences)
Conclusion
Imagination and Belief: Similarities
1. Paradigmatic examples
2. Same contents, regarded in the same way
3. Regarding-as-true: phenomenal aspect (I)
3.1. Real emotions or quasi-emotions?
3.2. Real desires or 'make-desires'?
4. Regarding-as-true: phenomenal aspect (II)
4.1. Feeling it true
4.2. Conditions of manifestation: the 'Occurrence Condition'
4.3. Imaginings which feel true...
4.4. ... And imaginings which feel false
4.5. Conditions of manifestation: the 'Occurrent Meta-Belief Condition'
4.5.1. Belief and self-knowledge
4.6. Other relevant conditions of manifestation
4.7. Summing up
5. Regarding-as-true: cognitive aspect
Conclusion
Imagination and Belief: Where Is the Difference?
1. Input differences: sensitivity to evidence
1.1. Inferential integration and holistic coherence
2. Output differences: dispositions to action
2.1. Some doubts about output differences
3. Pretence
3.1. The 'Humean theory of motivation'
3.2. A Humean account of pretence?
3.2.1. Some problems for the Humean view
3.3. The Imagination-as-Motivation view of pretence
3.4. Problems (and solutions) for the Imagination-as-Motivation view
3.4.1. Desires and desire-like imaginings: same motivating powers?
3.4.2. Dead cats (and some tentative conclusions)
Conclusion
Wise Pens, Evil Cardigans, Thoughtful Doors, and Other Strange Things
1. Superstition and magic
1.1. Other 'magical' actions
1.2. Magical thinking: general principles and particular contents
1.3. The explanatory options
2. The standard Humean explanation
2.1. Doubts on the doxastic status of superstitions: inferential evidence and holistic (in)coherence
2.1.1. Coherent superstitions?
2.2. Further doubts: other sources of evidence and the origin of superstitions
2.2.1. A natural mind design
2.2.2. Supersense
2.3. Belief: epistemic and pragmatic dimensions
2.3.1. What grounds for epistemic rationality norms?
2.4. Where are we?
3. A more sophisticated Humean story 115 3.1. Emotion-driven beliefs and desires
3.1.1. How plausible is this 'sophisticated Humean account' of my action?
3.2. Unpleasant superstitions
4. Superstitious imaginings
4.1. The pervasiveness of superstitious thinking (and some conclusions about imagination's motivating power)
5. Superstitious aliefs?
5.1. What is an alief?
5.2. 'Poison' and 'Not poison'
5.3. The argument from hyperopacity
Conclusion
The Powers of Imagination
1. Where are we?
2. Velleman and I
2.1. Velleman's argument The Powers of Imagination
2.2. Velleman unpacked and defended
3. Excusing conditions
3.1. Meta-cognitive factors: the 'Meta-cognition Condition' 3.2. Contents and inferential network: the 'Know-how-to-do-that Condition'
3.3. My challenge
4. Velleman and I - and the legacy of the Standard View
Conclusion (and a look ahead)
Religious (So-Called) Beliefs and Ima gination
1. So-called religious 'beliefs'
2. Doxastic reasons
3. Anti-doxastic reasons
4. Religious imaginings
4.1. Two forms of religious imaginings
4.1.1. Meta-cognitive mistakes: religious 'beliefs' as unrecognized imaginings
4.1.2. Non-literal speaking: religious 'beliefs' as trusting imaginings
4.2. Religious contents and imaginative contents
Conclusion
References
