On the leaks and boundaries of imagination

Abstract

The present dissertation explores the role of imagination in different philosophical domains of inquiry. The thesis set out as a collection of self- standing essays and can be divided into two parts: leaks of imagination and boundaries of imagination. The first part concerns what I name leaks of imagination: Effects imagination has on attitudes and behavior. In Chapter 1, I review clinical and empirical evidence on the consequences imagining experiences has. To account for this evidence, I propose a theory—the Prima Facie View—and argue for the implicit assertoric force of imagination. According to this view, experiential imagination is not epistemically innocuous. Chapter 2 concerns the role of imagination in intrinsic symbolic actions. I argue that these actions elude an explanation in terms of a belief- desire pair or an emotion, and characterize them as symbolically displaced imaginings. The second part of the thesis, boundaries of imagination, delimits the appeal to the imagination. Chapter 3 criticizes the appeal to the imagination to explain the functional profile of delusions. This criticism is followed by a positive doxastic account of delusions in a fragmented and psychofunctional system of belief. Chapter 4 examines the Simulation Theory of Memory, which reduces episodic memory to imagination. I argue that given the way it equates episodic memory with imagination, the theory is in a compromised position to account for the characteristic phenomenology of episodic memory, and thus for its reliability. Overall, in this dissertation, I present a critical overview of four independent fields and propose new accounts of the problems at hand.