Imagination (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Imagination (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
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Imagination
First published Mon Mar 14, 2011; substantive revision Mon Jan 12, 2026
To imagine
is to represent without aiming at things as they
actually, presently, and subjectively are. One can use imagination to
represent possibilities other than the actual, to represent times
other than the present, and to represent perspectives other than
one’s own. Unlike perceiving and believing, imagining something
does not require one to consider that something to be the case. Unlike
desiring or anticipating, imagining something does not require one to
wish or expect that something to be the case.
Imagination is involved in a wide variety of human activities, and has
been explored from a wide range of philosophical perspectives.
Philosophers of mind have examined imagination’s role in
cognitive processes such as mindreading and pretense. Philosophical
aestheticians have examined imagination’s role in creating and
in engaging with different types of artworks. Epistemologists have
examined imagination’s role in acquiring knowledge of various
sorts.
Because of the breadth of the topic, this entry focuses primarily on
contemporary discussions of imagination in the Anglo-American
philosophical tradition. For notable historical accounts of
imagination, see the entries on
Aristotle
Thomas Hobbes
David Hume
Immanuel Kant
Gilbert Ryle
Jean-Paul Sartre
and
R.G. Collingwood’s aesthetics
for a more detailed and comprehensive historical survey, see Brann
(1991); for a wide-ranging discussion of imagination in the
phenomenological tradition, see Casey (2000); for discussions of
imagination in South Asian philosophical traditions, see Shulman
(2012) and Thompson (2014); and for the same in Islamic philosophy,
see the entry on
Arabic and Islamic Psychology and Philosophy of Mind
1. The Nature of Imagination
1.1 Taxonomies of Imagination
1.2 Unified Theories of Imagination
2. Imagination in Cognitive Architecture
2.1 Imagination and Belief
2.2 Imagination and Mental Imagery
2.3 Imagination and Desire
2.4 Imagination and Memory
2.5 Imagination and Supposition
2.6 Imagination and Intention
3. Roles of Imagination
3.1 Mindreading
3.2 Pretense
3.3 Engagement with the Arts
3.4 Creativity
3.5 Knowledge
3.6 Imagination and Belief: Borderline Cases
Bibliography
Academic Tools
Other Internet Resources
Related Entries
1. The Nature of Imagination
A variety of roles have been attributed to imagination across various
domains of human cognition and activity
section 3
).
Not surprisingly, it is doubtful that there is one component of the
mind that can satisfy all the various roles commonly attributed to
imagination (Kind 2013; Strawson 1970). In the opening chapter of
Mimesis as Make-Believe
—perhaps the most influential
contemporary monograph on imagination—Kendall Walton throws up
his hands at the prospect of delineating the notion precisely. After
enumerating and distinguishing a number of paradigmatic instances of
imagination, he asks:
What is it to imagine? We have examined a number of dimensions along
which imaginings can vary; shouldn’t we now spell out what they
have in common?—Yes, if we can. But I can’t (Walton 1990,
19).
Although it may not be possible to give a completely general account
of all the cognitive phenomena we call “imagination,”
philosophers have attempted to eludicate the imagination in two ways.
Some aim to draw precise distinctions between types of imagination,
using these to build taxonomies (section 1.1). Others aim to develop
theories that unify many paradigmatic cases of imagination, even if
they leave some out (section 1.2).
1.1 Taxonomies of Imagination
Philosophers have attempted to draw distinctions between different
types of imagination (or different senses of the term
“imagination”), typically while acknowledging that these
distinctions are not exhaustive. Many of these taxonomies are
overlapping—i.e., a given instance of imagining may fall under
categories posited by more than one taxonomy.
Neil Van Leeuwen (2013, 2014a) draws a highly influential distinction
between
attitude imagining
and
imagistic imagining
Sometimes, when we say that a subject “imagines” some
content
(as in “S imagines that King’s College
is on fire”), we are referring to the
propositional
attitude
S takes towards
(see the entry on
propositional attitude reports
).
Roughly, we mean that S
regards P as fictional
, as opposed
to believing
is true (this category of imagination also
goes by various other names in the literature, including
“belief-like,” “cognitive,” and
“propositional” imagining). Other times, we instead use
“imagine” to refer to the
format
S uses to
mentally represent P—specifically, we mean that S represents
imagistically
, or using mental imagery (also known
as “sensory” imagining). Imagistic and attitude imagining
often occur together, as when S visualizes King’s College on
fire while taking this scenario to be fictional. It is also possible
for imagistic imagining to occur in absence of attitude imagining: if
S sees a news alert about King’s College being on fire, she
might both believe that King’s College is on fire and
imagistically imagine it. It is more controversial whether there is a
category of non-imagistic attitude imagining (see section 2.2).
We also use the word “imagine” in ways that distinguish
different
contents
imaginings can have.
Propositional
uses, which take the form “S imagines
that P,” describe S as imagining that some proposition P is the
case. For example, Juliet might imagine
that Romeo is by her
side
Objectual
uses, which take the form “S
imagines O,” describe S as imagining some entity or situation
(Yablo 1993; see also Martin 2002; Noordhof 2002; O’Shaughnessy
2000). For example, Prospero might imagine
an acorn
or
nymph
or
the city of Naples
or
a wedding feast
We also describe people as
imagining doing
or
experiencing
things, using the formulation “S imagines
X-ing” (Walton 1990). For example, Ophelia might imagine
getting herself to a nunnery
or
seeing Hamlet
. These
uses of “imagine” may not be mutually exclusive—when
Juliet sits on a bench and forms a mental image of Romeo next to her,
it seems equally apt to describe her as
imagining that Romeo is by
her side
, as
imagining Romeo
, and as
imagining
sitting beside Romeo
. However, it is more controversial how they
come apart from each other. For example, philosophers have debated
whether using mental imagery to imagine an object always involves
imagining experiencing
that object (Gregory 2016; Martin
2002; Noordhof 2002; Peacocke 1985; Williams 1973).
Another notable distinction is that between imagining
from the
inside
versus
from the outside
(Ninan 2016; Williams
1973; Wollheim 1973). To imagine from the outside that one is Napoleon
involves imagining a scenario in which one is Napoleon. To imagine
from the inside that one is Napoleon involves that plus something
else: namely, that one is occupying the
perspective
of
Napoleon. Imagining from the inside is essentially first-personal,
imagining from the outside is not. This distinction is especially
notable for its implications for thought experiments about the
metaphysics of personal identity (Nichols 2008; Ninan 2009; Williams
1973).
Various further distinctions can be drawn. Van Leeuwen (2013, 2014a)
also distinguishes attitude and imagistic imagining from
constructive imagining
, or the process of generating a mental
representation (e.g., the temporally extended process of piecing
together a mental image of King’s College on fire). Kendall
Walton (1990) distinguishes between
spontaneous
and
deliberate imagining
(acts of imagination that occur with or
without the one’s conscious direction) and between
occurrent
and
nonoccurrent imaginings
(acts of
imagination that do or do not occupy one’s explicit attention).
Amy Kind and Peter Kung (2016b) distinguish
transcendent
uses
of imagination, which enable one to escape from or look beyond the
world as it is, from
instructive
uses of imagination, which
enable one to learn about the world (a distinction especially relevant
to the epistemology of imagination; see section 3.5).
1.2 Unified Theories of Imagination
Instead of merely drawing distinctions between types of imagination,
some philosophers aim to develop theories that unify various
paradigmatic processes we intuitively recognize as imaginative. They
do so while acknowledging that their theories may not capture every
single such process. While this section is not an exhaustive overview
of every recent theory, it aims to give a representative look at the
types of theories on offer.
Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft (2002) develop a theory of
imagination as a
recreative
capacity (see also
Goldman’s 2006
enactive
theory). They start from the
intuitive observation that imagination enables us to mentally
“project” ourselves into perspectives different from our
own. This serves as the core of their theory, according to which
imagination is a capacity for recreating or simulating other mental
states. On this view, imagistic imagining involves simulating
perceptual experiences—for example, to visualize the Statue of
Liberty is to simulate a visual experience of the Statue of Liberty.
Similarly, attitude imagining involves simulating beliefs—for
example, to imagine that I am in New York City is to simulate the
belief that I am in New York City. Currie and Ravenscroft also posit
an imaginative analogue of desire (see section 2.3). This
“recreativist” theory of imagination has been both
influential and controversial (for more recent developments of it, see
Arcangeli 2020; Roelofs 2023; for criticisms, see Langland-Hassan
2020; Wiltsher 2019).
Amy Kind (2020) gives an account of imagination—specifically,
imagistic and experiential forms of imagination—as a cognitive
skill
. Kind starts from the intuitive observation that some
people are better at imagining things that others—for example,
Mozart might be better than the average person at imagining what a
symphony will sound like before hearing it, and one child might be
better than her friend at imagining a monster during their shared game
of make-believe. Drawing on an analysis of skilled action from Jason
Stanley and John Krakauer (2013), Kind proposes that paradigmatic
examples of skilled activities satisfy three conditions: (1) they can
be done more or less well; (2) they are under the intentional control
of the one performing them; and (3) one can improve at them through
practice or training. She argues that imagistic imagining satisfies
all three conditions (for further developments of this view, see
Blomkvist 2022a; Kind 2022a, 2023a, 2023b).
Peter Langland-Hassan (2020) gives a
reductive
account of
attitude imagining. He first defines attitude imagining as engagement
in “rich, elaborated cognition about the possible, fantastical,
pretended, and so on,” in a way that is “epistemically
safe” in that it does not commit us to believing that what we
imagine is true (5). He then argues that imagination in this sense is
not a
sui generis
propositional attitude distinct from others
like belief, intention, or desire. Instead, he argues that we engage
in attitude imagining whenever we form other propositional attitudes
in a way that involves epistemically safe cognition about the
possible, fantastical, pretended, and the like. For example: to
believe it is merely possible that the moon is made of blue cheese is
a way of imagining that the moon is made of blue cheese; to believe
that the fictional character Harry Potter studies at Hogwarts is a way
of imagining that Harry Potter studies at Hogwarts; and to desire or
intend to bring about a state of affairs in which I am rich and famous
is a way of imagining that I am rich and famous. Attitude imagining
therefore
reduces to
other, more basic mental states (see
Chasid 2025 for objections to this reductive view).
Nicholas Wiltsher (2023) develops a theory of imagination as a
process
. He distinguishes this from the more traditional view
that there are distinctive imaginative
states
, such as the
“recreative” states posited by Currie and Ravenscroft
(2002). Wiltsher objects to the state view on the grounds that it
fails to account for every type imaginative activity—in
particular, as Currie and Ravenscroft (2002) themselves grant, it
fails to apply to more creative forms of imagination. Wiltsher instead
proposes that imagination is a cognitive process, i.e., a particular
way of manipulating or transitioning between mental states, where this
includes states such as ordinary belief and desire (as opposed to
imaginative recreations of them). Wiltsher individuates cognitive
processes generally by appealing to the norms or principles that
govern transitions between states—the process of
epistemic
inference
, for example, is governed by truth-preserving and
evidential transitions. He argues that imagination likewise involves
certain kinds of transitions between states. He argues that one
promising candidate for understanding these transitions appeals to the
“lens” metaphor developed in Wiltsher (2019): much as
lenses “magnify, focus, clarify, attenuate, [and] distort”
the things on which they are trained, imagination does the same to
other mental states (445).
Finally, consider Bence Nanay’s (2023)
eliminativist
view (which provides a “unified” theory of imagination
insofar as it posits there is no such thing as imagination). Nanay
starts from the observation that concepts encoded in ordinary language
often fail to pick out what actually exists—for example, folk
biological concepts like “lily” and “beech
tree” fail to pick out real biological categories, and
scientists aim to replace these with classifications that pick out
genuine natural kinds. He argues that something similar goes for many
of our folk psychological categories, including imagination, which
fails to pick out a unified neurocognitive kind. Conversely, he points
out that the category
mental imagery
is well-established as a
theoretically useful classification in cognitive science; he therefore
argues that it is often more accurate to replace our talk of
“imagination” with talk of mental imagery. While Nanay
does not claim that we should stop using the term
“imagination” in ordinary, everyday communication, he
argues that we should drop it from scientifically informed attempts to
understand how the mind really works.
2. Imagination in Cognitive Architecture
One way to make sense of the nature of imagination is by drawing
distinctions between different types of imagination (section 1.1). We
can then further elucidate the nature of these different types by
figuring out, within a broadly functionalist framework, how they fit
in with other mental entities from folk psychology and scientific
psychology (see the entry on
functionalism
).
Amongst the most widely-discussed mental entities in contemporary
discussions of imagination are belief (section 2.1), mental imagery
(section 2.2), desire (section 2.3), memory (section 2.4), supposition
(section 2.5), and intention (section 2.6). See also the entry on
dreams
In discussing imagination’s relations to each of these states,
this section will continue to invoke the influential distinction,
covered above in section 1.1, between
attitude
and
imagistic
imagining.
2.1 Imagination and Belief
To
believe
is to take something to be the case or regard it
as true (see the entry on
belief
).
When one says something like “the liar believes that his pants
are on fire”, one attributes to the subject (the liar) an
attitude (belief) towards a proposition (his pants are on fire).
Likewise, when one says something like “the liar imagines that
his pants are on fire”, one attributes to the subject (the liar)
an attitude (imagination) towards a proposition (his pants are on
fire). The similarities and differences between the belief attribution
and the imagination attribution point to similarities and differences
between imagining and believing. Specifically, these apply to belief
in comparison with attitude imagining.
On the
single code hypothesis
, beliefs and attitude
imaginings share a common representational format, where this grounds
functional similarities between the two (Nichols 2004a; Nichols &
Stich 2000, 2003). These functional similarities include belief-like
inferential relations between imaginings that guide how an overall
imaginative episode unfolds over time. If one
believes
that a
cup is full of water and
believes
that it has been tipped
over onto a table, one will as a result believe that the cup is empty
and that the table is wet. Similar inferential relations typically
hold between attitude imaginings. For example, in a famous experiment
by Alan Leslie (1994), children are invited to engage in an imaginary
tea party (with empty cups); when they see that one cup has been
tipped over, their representation of the imagined situation is updated
such that they now imagine the tipped cup as empty and the non-tipped
cups as full (see Gendler 2003 for further discussion of this aspect
of imagination, as well as various ways in which imaginative episodes
can depart from it).
There are two main options for
distinguishing
imagining from
believing (Sinhababu 2016).
The first option characterizes their difference in normative terms.
While belief
aims
at truth, imagination does not (Humberstone
1992; Shah & Velleman 2005). If the liar did not regard it as true
that his pants are on fire, then it seems that he cannot really
believe that his pants are on fire. By contrast, even if the liar did
not regard it as true that his pants are on fire, he can still imagine
that his pants are on fire. While the norm of truth is constitutive of
the attitude of belief, it is not constitutive of the attitude of
imagination. In dissent, Neil Sinhababu (2013) argues that the norm of
truth is neither sufficient nor necessary for distinguishing imagining
and believing.
The second option characterizes their difference in functional terms.
One purported functional difference between imagination and belief
concerns their characteristic connections to actions. If the liar
truly believes that his pants are on fire, he will typically attempt
to put out the fire by, say, pouring water on himself. By contrast, if
the liar merely imagines that his pants are on fire, he will typically
do no such thing. In other words, while beliefs directly guide and
motivation action, imagination typically does not (Nichols & Stich
2000, 2003). It is controversial whether there are ordinary contexts
in which imagination directly motivates or guides action the way
belief does. Some argue that it does so during contexts such as
pretend play (Doggett & Egan 2007; Velleman 2000), while others
argue that the connection between imagination and action in such
contexts is less direct (Everson 2007; Funkhouser & Spaulding
2009; Kind 2011; O’Brien 2005; Van Leeuwen 2009).
Another purported functional difference between imagination and belief
concerns their characteristic connection to emotions. If the liar
truly believes that his pants are on fire, then he will be genuinely
afraid of the fire; but not if he merely imagines so. While belief
evokes genuine emotions toward real entities, imagination does not
(Walton 1978, 1990, 1997; see also the entry on
emotional responses to fiction
).
This debate is entangled with controversies concerning the nature of
emotions (see the entry on
emotion
).
Those who reject this purported functional difference also typically
reject narrow cognitivism about emotions (Carruthers 2003, 2006; Kind
2011; Nichols 2004a; Meskin & Weinberg 2003; Spaulding 2015;
Weinberg & Meskin 2005, 2006).
Tamar Szabó Gendler’s (2003) notion of imaginative
quarantining
is useful for summing up putative functional
differences between attitude imagining and belief, when it comes to
their effects on both action and emotions. Quarantining is manifest to
the extent that events within an imagined or pretended episode are
taken to have effects only within a relevantly circumscribed domain.
So, for example, children engaging in a make-believe tea party do not
expect that “spilling” (imaginary) “tea” will
result in the table
really
being wet, nor does a person who
imagines winning the lottery expect that when she visits the ATM, her
bank account will contain a million dollars. More generally,
quarantining is manifest to the extent that imagined contents are not
treated as relevant to guiding action in, or attitudes towards, the
actual world. Quarantining can be disrupted by imaginative
contagion
, when imagined content directly influences actual
attitudes or behaviors (see also Gendler 2008a, 2008b). For example,
in
affective transmission
, an emotional response to an
imagined situation constrains subsequent behavior (e.g., imagining a
scary monster in a closet leads to hesitation to open the door).
Philosophers have debated whether the phenomenon of
imaginative
immersion
shows that the propositional attitudes of imagination
and belief lie on opposite ends of a continuum, with intermediate
states in between. Susanna Schellenberg (2013) argues that, when one
becomes deeply immersed in an imagining (as when, e.g., an actor
becomes deeply immersed in a role she is playing), one to some extent
loses awareness of reality and the fact that one is merely imagining,
thereby coming closer to regarding the imagined content as true; one
therefore comes to occupy a mental state somewhere in between
imagination and belief. In response, Shen-yi Liao and Tyler Doggett
(2014) argue that a cognitive architecture that collapses distinctive
attitudes on the basis of borderline cases is unlikely to be fruitful
in explaining psychological phenomena. Others propose alternative
explanations of imaginative immersion (Chasid 2017, 2021; Kind 2024;
see also Kampa 2017 on imaginative “transportation”).
2.2 Imagination and Mental Imagery
Mental images are, roughly, perception-like representations triggered
by something other than the appropriate external stimulus; so, for
example, one might have “a picture in the mind’s eye or
… a tune running through one’s head” (Strawson
1970, 31) in the absence of any corresponding visual or auditory
stimulation (see the entry on
mental imagery
).
While attitude imagining is often compared to belief, imagistic
imagining is often compared to perception (Currie & Ravenscroft
2002). It is possible to form mental images in any of the sensory
modalities, though it is most common to focus on examples of visual
imagery.
Broadly, there is agreement that mental imagery and perception have
similar phenomenologies, which can be explicated in terms of their
similar content and representational formats (Nanay 2016b; see, for
example, Kind 2001; Nanay 2015; Noordhof 2002). Potential candidates
for distinguishing mental imagery from perception include their
relative degrees of intensity or vividness (Hume’s
Treatise
of Human Nature
), voluntariness (Ichikawa 2009; McGinn 2004), or
causal relationship with the represented object (Noordhof 2002).
However, no consensus exists on features that clearly distinguish the
two. This is in part because of ongoing debates about the nature of
perception itself (see the entries on
contents of perception
and
epistemological problems of perception
).
It also stems from difficulties defining notions like experiential or
imaginative vividness. Amy Kind (2017) goes as far as arguing that
various potential ways of understanding imaginative vividness are
problematic, such that the very idea is philosophically untenable;
others are more optimistic that some kind of positive account can be
given (Fazekas 2024; Langkau 2021; Tooming & Miyazono 2021; Riley
& Davies 2023).
Some philosophers argue that, during imagistic imaginings,
what
one imagines is determined by more than just what is
represented in one’s mental image alone, or when considered in
isolation from the broader imagining of which it is part. This idea is
often motivated by the observation that identical mental images can be
used to imagine different things (what Noordhof 2002 calls the
“Multiple Use Thesis”). I can, for example, use identical
visual images to imagine both a suitcase sitting alone in my living
room and a suitcase sitting in my living room with a cat fully hidden
from view behind it. Likewise, I can use identical visual images to
imagine both Elvis Presley and a very convincing Elvis impersonator.
This suggests that the image itself is insufficient for determining
what one imagines (at least, it suggests this is sometimes
true—see Gregory’s 2016 argument that some imaginings are
“purely imagistic”). Philosophers have therefore argued
that imagistic imaginings are hybrids of both a mental image and a
purely propositional or linguistic component. The latter is taken to
be something like a supposition about what the image represents, or a
linguistic “label” that partially fixes what is
represented (Fodor 1975; Kung 2010; Langland-Hassan 2020; Noordhof
2002; Peacocke 1985; but see Wiltsher 2016 for dissent).
It is controversial whether there is such as a thing as
purely
propositional
imaginings, or imaginings that do not involve
mental imagery at all. Historical philosophers such as Aristotle
De Anima
), René Descartes (
Meditations on First
Philosophy
), and David Hume (
Treatise of Human Nature
thought that imagination must involve mental imagery. Against this
historical orthodoxy, the contemporary tendency is to recognize that
there can be non-imagistic attitude imaginings. To defend this idea,
some philosophers argue that, intuitively, it is possible to imagine
contents that
cannot
be represented in mental imagery. Neil
Van Leeuwen (2013) gives one such example: “When I imagine, on
reading
Lord of the Rings
, that elves can live forever,
I’m fictionally imagining a proposition that I couldn’t
imagine using mental imagery. It would take too long!” (222).
Similarly, Peter Langland-Hassan (2020) argues that it is possible to
imagine unobservable entities such as the theoretical posits of
physics or legal and moral principles. Against this contemporary
tendency, Kind (2001) argues that an image-based account can explain
three crucial features of imagination—its directedness, active
nature, and phenomenological character—better than its imageless
counterpart. Magdalena Balcerak Jackson (2016) argues that an
image-based account is necessary for differentiating imagination from
the distinct propositional attitudes of supposing and conceiving.
The question of whether there is such a thing as non-imagistic
imagining takes on new significance in relation to recent research on
aphantasia
. Aphantasia is a condition in which subjects
report an inability to form mental images. It remains controversial
exactly how to understand aphantasia—for example, whether
aphantasic subjects genuinely lack the ability to form mental imagery
altogether, or whether they merely seem to lack imagery because their
imagery is very weak, unconscious, or non-introspectable.
Psychologists continue to investigate this question, while
philosophers attempt to contribute conceptual clarity to empirical
investigations (for overviews, see Arcangeli 2023; Blomkvist 2022b;
Blomkvist & Marks 2023; Nanay 2021a, 2025). If aphantasics do
genuinely lack mental imagery, it is natural to ask whether they are
still capable of imagination in some sense, or whether they simply
lack imagination. Answering this requires settling whether there is
such a thing as non-imagistic imagining.
Finally, the relationship between mental imagery and perception has
potential implications for the connection between imagination and
action. Working from the starting point that imagistic imagination is
similar to perception, some philosophers have argued that—much
as perception directly outputs to action-generation systems (cf. Nanay
2013)—imagistic imagination can, too (Langland-Hassan 2015;
Nanay 2016a; Van Leeuwen 2011, 2016b). For example, Van Leeuwen (2011)
argues that an account of imagination that is imagistically-rich is
useful for explaining pretense behaviors. Furthermore, Robert Eamon
Briscoe (2008, 2018) argues that representations that blend inputs
from perception and mental imagery, which he calls
“make-perceive”, guide many everyday actions. For example,
a sculptor might use a blend of the visual perception of a stone and
the mental imagery of different parts of the stone being subtracted to
guide their physical manipulation of the stone.
2.3 Imagination and Desire
To
desire
is to want something to be the case (see the entry
on
desire
).
Standardly, the
conative
attitude of desire is contrasted
with the
cognitive
attitude of belief in terms of
“direction of fit”: while belief aims to make one’s
mental representations match the way the world is, desire aims to make
the way the world is match one’s mental representations. Recall
that on the
single code hypothesis
, there exists a cognitive
imaginative attitude that is structurally similar to belief (section
2.1). Is there a conative imaginative attitude—call it
desire-like imagination
(Currie 1997, 2002a, 2002b, 2010;
Currie & Ravenscroft 2002),
make-desire
(Currie 1990;
Goldman 2006), or
i-desire
(Doggett & Egan 2007,
2012)—that is structurally similar to desire?
One impetus for positing a conative imaginative attitude comes from
behavior motivation in imaginative contexts, such as pretend play (see
section 3.2). Tyler Doggett and Andy Egan (2007) argue that, in such
contexts, cognitive and conative imagination jointly output to
action-generation systems, in the same way that belief and desire
jointly do. Another impetus for positing a conative imaginative
attitude comes from emotions in imaginative contexts. Gregory Currie
and Ian Ravenscroft (2002) and Doggett and Egan (2012) argue the best
explanation for people’s emotional responses toward non-existent
fictional characters (e.g., apparent feelings of grief at
Juliet’s suicide) call for positing conative imagination (e.g.,
a desire-like imagining that Juliet live). Currie and Ravenscroft
(2002), Currie (2010), and Doggett and Egan (2007) argue that the best
explanation for people’s apparently conflicting emotional
responses toward tragedy and horror also call for positing conative
imagination. In response, others give alternative explanations of such
phenomena which do not require positing a conative imaginative
attitude (Carruthers 2003, 2006; Funkhouser & Spaulding 2009; Kind
2011; Langland-Hassan 2020; Meskin & Weinberg 2003; Nichols 2004a;
Spaulding 2015; Van Leeuwen 2011; Weinberg & Meskin 2005,
2006).
Some object to the idea of conative imagination by arguing that its
different impetuses call for conflicting functional properties. Amy
Kind (2016b) notes a tension between the argument from behavior
motivation and the argument from fictional emotions: conative
imagination must be connected to action-generation in order for it to
explain pretense behaviors, but it must be disconnected from
action-generation in order for it to explain fictional emotions.
Similarly, Shaun Nichols (2004b) notes a tension between Currie and
Ravenscroft’s (2002) argument from the paradox of fictional
emotions and argument from paradoxes of tragedy and horror.
Kind (2016b) also objects to positing a conative imaginative attitude
on the grounds that, unlike belief-like imagining, such an attitude is
not reflected in our folk psychological understanding of activities
such as engagement with fiction (see also Doggett & Egan 2012).
She argues that this distinction is not apparent in introspection, and
that people typically simply take themselves to have genuine desires
about what happens in works of fiction. Luke Roelofs (2023) responds
that it is difficult for us to recognize the existence of conative
imaginings because we are often in states which fall somewhere in
between genuine desire and its imaginative analogue, being
indeterminate between the two.
Blumberg and Strohminger (2025) argue that, if understanding
engagement with fiction motivates us to posit an imaginative analogue
of desire, then we should also posit imaginative analogues of other
desire-involving states, such as hoping, wishing, and regretting.
However, they argue that positing such states is in tension with the
standard view that conative imaginings interact with cognitive
imaginings but remain insulated from actual beliefs.
2.4 Imagination and Memory
Episodic memory
is, roughly, memory for one’s own past
experiences, such as one’s firsthand memory of last
Tuesday’s lunch, one’s tenth birthday party, or the birth
of one’s child. While episodic memory is just one among various
forms of memory that make up standard taxonomies (see the entry on
memory
),
it is the type that features most prominently in philosophical
discussions about the relationship between memory and imagination.
This is unsurprising given obvious similarities between imagination
and episodic memory: for example, both typically involve mental
imagery, both typically represent what is not presently the case, and
both frequently involve recreating or simulating experiences.
Recent philosophical literature on memory and imagination has been
dominated by a disagreement between two views. According to
discontinuism
, episodic memory and imagination
are—despite some obvious similarities—distinct
psychological kinds. According to
continuism
, episodic memory
and imagination are the same sort of psychological process,
distinguished merely by the fact that episodic memory is directed
towards one’s past while imagination represents things that are
past, future, and merely possible (for a detailed review of the
continuism-discontinuism debate, see Rudnicki et al. forthcoming).
Discontinuism was the orthodox view in the history of philosophy (see
De Brigard 2017 for a historical overview). In contemporary
philosophy, the most common form of discontinuism posits that memory,
unlike imagination, requires a
causal connection
to a past
experience (Martin & Deutscher 1966 develop the most prominent
contemporary formulation of this view). On this view, genuinely
remembering an event E (as opposed to merely imagining it) requires
that one experienced E oneself in the past, and that an appropriate
causal connection (via, e.g., some form of stored “trace”
of the experience) holds between the original experience and
one’s present remembering.
In recent years, two sets of findings from cognitive science have
given philosophers reasons to push back against this
“causalist” form of discontinuism, instead defending
continuism.
The first set of findings concern distortions and confabulations. The
traditional conception of memory is that it functions as an archive:
past experiences are encapsulated and stored in the archive, and
remembering is just passively retrieving the encapsulated mental
content from the archive (Robins 2016). Behavioral psychology has
found numerous effects that challenge the empirical adequacy of the
archival conception of memory. Perhaps the most well-known is the
misinformation effect, which occurs when a subject incorporates
inaccurate information into their memory of an event—even
inaccurate information that they received after the event (Loftus 1979
[1996]).
The second set of findings concerns the psychological underpinnings of
“mental time travel,” or the similarities between
remembering the past and imagining the future (see Schacter et al.
2012 for a review). Using fMRI, neuroscientists have found a striking
overlap in the brain activities for remembering the past and imagining
the future, which suggest that the two psychological processes utilize
the same neural network (see, for example, Addis et al. 2007; Buckner
& Carroll 2007; Gilbert & Wilson 2007; Schacter et al. 2007;
Suddendorf & Corballis 1997, 2007). Note that, despite the
evocative contrast between “remembering the past” and
“imagining the future,” it is questionable whether
temporality is the central contrast. Indeed, some philosophers and
psychologists contend that temporality is orthogonal to the comparison
between imagination and memory (De Brigard & Gessell 2016;
Schacter et al. 2012).
These two set of findings have given rise to a conception of episodic
memory as essentially
constructive
, in which remembering is
actively generating imagistic mental representations that more or less
accurately represent the past. This constructive conception of memory
is in a better position to explain why memories commonly contain
distortions and confabulations, and why remembering makes use of the
same neural networks as imagining.
This constructive turn in memory science has inspired philosophical
defenses of continuism. Kourken Michaelian (2016, 2024) defends the
view that episodic memory is nothing more than imagining the past.
Similarly, Felipe De Brigard (2014) characterizes remembering as just
one among other forms of episodic hypothetical thought, a category
that also includes imagining future and counterfactual events. On
these views, one can genuinely remember a past event even if
one’s memory bears no causal connection to that event. They thus
deny the orthodox discontinuist view according to which causal
connections distinguish memory from imagination.
In response, many have argued that empirical findings about the
constructive nature of memory are compatible with discontinuism. Some
defend the idea that a causal connection really is necessary for
genuine remembering, often by attempting to develop more nuanced
versions of causal conditions (Munro 2021; Perrin 2018; Werning 2020).
Others defend discontinuism by appealing to metaphysical differences
in the ways memory and imagination relate subjects to events being
remembered or imagined (Aranyosi 2020; Debus 2014). Some argue that,
although both memory and imagination involve constructive processes,
the specific types of constructive processes involved are different in
each (Robins 2022; Sant’anna 2023). Sarah Robins (2020) also
argues that memory involves a distinct cognitive attitude from
imagination—namely, the attitude of
seeming to
remember
As in this subsection thus far, the debate between continuists and
discontinuists is often conducted without much attention to what is
meant by “imagination.” This leads to some lack of clarity
given that, as per section 1.1, the term “imagination” is
used to refer to various kinds of processes. Peter Langland-Hassan
(2021) attempts to rectify this by appealing to Neil Van
Leeuwen’s (2013) notion of
constructive imagining
, the
temporally extended process of generating mental representations.
2.5 Imagination and Supposition
To
suppose
that
is true is to form a hypothetical
mental representation of
, typically for the purpose of
reasoning through
’s consequences. You might, for
example, suppose that a certain political candidate wins the next
election, then think through what would follow for the country’s
economy under that supposition. There exists a highly contentious
debate on whether supposition is a form of attitude imagining, or
whether there are enough differences to make them distinct mental
states. There are obvious similarities between the two, such as the
fact that both are under our voluntary control and can be used to
explore the implications of hypothetical scenarios. There are two main
options for distinguishing imagination and supposition: by their
contents or by their functions.
The content-based distinction is often cashed out in terms of
imaginings containing richer or more elaborate detail than
suppositions—for example, Brian Weatherson (2004) claims
suppositions are “coarser” than imaginings, since the
latter contain more fine-grained details (but see Weinberg &
Meskin 2006 for objections). One way of further fleshing out this idea
is to claim that imagination has a rich imagistic, experiential, or
sensory element that supposition does not (Balcerak Jackson 2016; Kind
2001; Peacocke 1985). However, it is controversial whether all
imagining involves imagistic phenomenology, since many philosophers
hold that there is such a thing as non-imagistic attitude imagining
(see section 2.2). So, whether to accept this way of understanding the
distinction turns on whether one accepts the existence of
non-imagistic imaginings.
There have been diverse functional distinctions attributed to
imagination and supposition, but none has gained universal acceptance.
Richard Moran (1994) contends that imagination tends to give rise to a
wide range of further mental states, including affective responses,
whereas supposition does not (see also Arcangeli 2014, 2017). Tamar
Szabó Gendler (2000) contends that, while attempting to imagine
morally repugnant propositions (e.g., that female infanticide is
morally right) generates
imaginative resistance
supposing them does not. Tyler Doggett and Andy Egan (2007) contend
that imagination tends to motivate pretense actions, but supposition
tends not to. Magdalena Balcerak Jackson (2016) argues that
imagination involves simulating other possible perspectives and
experiences while supposition involves merely accepting a proposition
while reasoning through its implications. Jonathan Weinberg and Aaron
Meskin (2006) argue that, while there is no necessary functional
characteristic that distinguishes imagination from supposition, there
are certain clusters of properties characteristic of each that allow
us to distinguish them as mental activities.
Others are skeptical that there are genuine discontinuities between
imagination and supposition. Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft (2002)
argue that supposition is a kind of belief-like attitude imagining,
albeit one that differs from most instances of attitude imagining in
that it remains isolated from desire-like imaginings. Peter
Langland-Hassan (2020) subsumes supposition under his account of
attitude imagining, arguing that there is little introspective reason
to think the two are different in kind. Bence Nanay (2023) argues that
what philosophers call “propositional imaginings” are
really just suppositions elaborated through the use of mental imagery,
thus blurring any sharp theoretical distinction between supposition
and imagination.
Arcangeli (2019) finds some middle ground: she argues that supposition
is a type of imagination, but she views it as its own category of
imagination distinct from both attitude and imagistic imagining.
2.6 Imagination and Intention
To
intend
something is, roughly, to plan or decide to bring
it about (see the entry on
intention
).
Definitions of imagination often focus in part on the extent to which
imagination is under our voluntary control, compared with other mental
states such as perception and belief (see, e.g., Arcangeli 2019). One
aspect of this control is that
what
we imagine seems to be
largely fixed by our intentions about what to imagine. Suppose I
intend to imagine Elvis Presley, and that I carry out this intention
by forming a mental image of someone who looks exactly like Elvis.
What determines the fact that I have imagined Elvis himself, as
opposed to imagining a very convincing impersonator or wax replica? A
natural answer is that I imagined Elvis simply because that is who I
intended to imagine.
Based on such intuitions, philosophers of imagination have claimed
that our intentions about what to imagine are
sufficient
for
determining what we imagine—i.e., that when you intend to
imagine X and then act on that intention, you cannot fail to imagine
X. This view, which Daniel Munro and Margot Strohminger (2021) dub
intentionalism
, traces back at least to Ludwig Wittgenstein,
who claims:
Forming an image can also be compared to creating a picture in this
way—namely, I am not imagining whoever is like my image; no, I
am imagining whoever it is I mean to imagine (1980, §115).
Following Wittgenstein, formulations of intentionalism often focus
specifically on imagistic imaginings (or mental images generally).
Many contemporary philosophers endorse intentionalism, often simply
taking it as an intuitive starting point rather than giving
substantive arguments for it (Balcerak Jackson 2018; Dorsch 2012;
Fodor 1975; Kind 2019; Langland-Hassan 2016; McGinn 2004; Noordhof
2002).
Against this orthodoxy, Munro and Strohminger (2021) argue that
intentionalism is subject to counterexamples in which the causal
history of a mental image, not an imaginer’s intentions,
determines imagined content. Some accept these as legitimate
counterexamples (Carbonell 2024; Goldwasser 2024), while others argue
for alternative interpretations (Langland-Hassan 2024a; 2024b).
3. Roles of Imagination
Much of the contemporary discussion of imagination has centered around
particular roles that imagination is purported to play in domains of
human psychology and activity. Amongst the most widely-discussed are
the roles of imagination in understanding other minds (section 3.1),
in pretense (section 3.2), in engaging with the arts (section 3.3), in
creativity (section 3.4), in acquiring knowledge (section 3.5), and in
various psychological phenomena that seem difficult to classify as
either belief or imagination (section 3.6).
The topics covered in this section are far from exhaustive. For
additional relevant topics, see the entries on
metaphor
empathy
and
transformative experience
3.1 Mindreading
Mindreading
is the activity of attributing mental states to
oneself and to others, and of predicting and explaining behavior on
the basis of those attributions. Discussions of mindreading in the
1990s were often framed as debates between two families of views.
Theory theory
views hold that the attribution of mental
states to another person (the “target”) is guided by the
application of some (tacit) folk psychological theory that allows one
to make predictions and offer explanations of the target’s
beliefs and behaviors (see entry on
folk psychology as a theory
).
Simulation theory
views hold that the attribution of mental
states is guided by a process of replicating or emulating the
target’s mental states within one’s own mind (classic
formulations of simulation theory include Goldman 1989; Gordon 1986;
Heal 1986; see entry on
folk psychology as mental simulation
).
(Influential collections of papers on this debate include Carruthers
& Smith (eds.) 1996; Davies & Stone (eds.) 1995a, 1995b.)
On pure versions of theory theory views, imagination plays no special
role in the attribution of mental states to others. Conversely,
traditional versions of simulation theory typically describe
simulation using expressions such as “imaginatively putting
oneself in the other’s place.” How this metaphor is
understood depends on the specific account (see Dokic & Proust
(eds.) 2002 for a collection of papers exploring various versions of
simulation theory). On many accounts (e.g., Goldman 1989), simulation
involves imaginatively running mental processes “off-line”
that are directly analogous to those being run “on-line”
by the target. For example, a target that is deciding whether to eat
sushi for lunch is running their decision-making processes
“on-line”; and a subject that is simulating the
target’s decision-making is running the analogous processes
“off-line”—in part, by imaginatively simulating or
recreating the relevant mental states of the target.
Though classic simulationist accounts have tended to assume that the
simulation process is at least in-principle accessible to
consciousness, a number of more recent accounts appeal to
neuroscientific evidence suggesting that at least some simulative
processes take place completely unconsciously. On such accounts, no
special role is played by conscious imagination (Goldman 2009; Saxe
2009).
Many contemporary views of mindreading are
hybrid theories
according to which both theorizing and simulation play a role in the
understanding of others’ mental states. Alvin Goldman (2006),
for example, argues that while mindreading is primarily the product of
simulation, theorizing plays a role in certain cases as well. Many
recent discussions have endorsed hybrid views of this sort (see
Carruthers 2003; Nichols & Stich 2003).
A number of philosophers have also suggested that the mechanisms
underlying subjects’ capacity to engage in mindreading also
enable engagement in pretense behavior (Currie & Ravenscroft 2002;
Goldman 2006; Nichols & Stich 2003; for an overview, see
Carruthers 2009.) According to such accounts, engaging in pretense
involves imaginatively taking up perspectives other than one’s
own, and the ability to do so skillfully may rely on—and
contribute to—one’s ability to understand alternate
perspectives.
3.2 Pretense
Pretending
is an activity that occurs during diverse
circumstances, such as when children play games of make-believe, when
criminals deceive, and when thespians act (Langland-Hassan 2014).
Although “imagination” and “pretense” have
been used interchangeably (Ryle 1949), this section uses
“imagination” to refer to a state of mind (e.g., imagining
that one is at a tea party) and “pretense” to refer to
actions in the world (e.g., the act of setting out a plastic tea set
during a make-believe tea party).
There are two main families of views about the nature of the mental
states involved in pretense (see Liao & Gendler 2011 for an
overview).
Metarepresentational
theories hold that engaging
in pretense requires the innate mental-state concept
pretend
(Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith 1985; Friedman 2013; Friedman &
Leslie 2007; Leslie 1987, 1994). For such theories, to pretend is to
represent one’s own representations under this concept.
Behaviorist
theories hold that engaging in pretend play
requires a process of “behaving-as-if,” as when children
pretending to be at a tea party behave
as if
they are at a
tea party (Harris 1994, 2000; Harris & Kavanaugh 1993; Jarrold et
al. 1994; Lillard & Flavell 1992; Nichols & Stich 2003; Perner
1991; Rakoczy, Tomasello, & Striano 2004; Stich & Tarzia
2015). Different behaviorist theories explicate behaving-as-if in
different ways, but all aim to provide an account of pretense without
recourse to a mental-state concept of pretense. These two, competing
families of theories seek to explain both the performance of pretense
and our ability to recognize others as pretending, often by focusing
on evidence about childhood pretense from developmental psychology
(see Lillard 2001 for an early overview).
This debate has implications for the role of imagination in pretense.
Behaviorist theories generally tend to invoke imagination to explain
pretense performance; metarepresentational theories do not (although
the mental-state concept
pretend
posited by
metarepresentational theories arguably serves similar functions; see
Nichols & Stich 2000). On some behaviorist theories, imagination
is essential for guiding behaviors during pretense (Velleman 2000;
Gendler 2007; Van Leeuwen 2011; Picciuto & Carruthers 2016; Stich
& Tarzia 2015). Others loosen this connection, arguing that, while
imagination
can
be (and often is) involved in guiding
pretense behavior, it need not be (Currie & Ravenscroft 2002;
Adair & Carruthers 2023). Theories differ as to exactly what kind
of imagination they have in mind, such as whether they mean to focus
on imagistic forms of imagination or on attitude imagining more
broadly (see Adair & Carruthers 2023 for discussion of this
point).
Peter Langland-Hassan (2012, 2014, 2020) has developed a theory that
aims to explain pretense behavior and recognition without appeal to
either metarepresentation or imagination. Langland-Hassan argues that
pretense behaviors can be adequately explained by beliefs, desires,
and intentions. While he does not deny that pretense is in some sense
an imaginative activity (see the description of his
reductive
account of imagination in section 1.2), he argues that we do not need
to posit a sui generis component of the mind to account for it.
3.3 Engagement with the Arts
The most prominent contemporary theory of imagination’s role in
engagement with the arts is presented in Kendall Walton’s
Mimesis as Make-Believe
(1990). Although Walton uses
“fictions” as a technical term to refer to artworks, his
conception of the arts is broad enough to include both high-brow and
low-brow; popular and obscure; and a variety of specific arts such as
literature, poetry, paintings, and videogames. Walton’s core
idea is that engagement with the arts is fundamentally similar to
children’s games of make-believe. When one engages with an
artwork, one uses it as a prop in a make-believe game. As props,
artworks generate prescriptions for imaginings. These prescriptions
also determine the representational contents of artworks (that is,
what is true in a fictional world). To correctly engage with an
artwork, then, is to imagine the representational contents it
prescribes. While Walton (1990) took prescriptions to imagine to be
sufficient for fictionality, he argues in later work that they are
merely necessary but not sufficient (Walton 2015; see also Chasid
2020).
Walton’s (1990) account understands “imagination”
broadly, in a way that can be either imagistic or non-imagistic. Many
subsequent discussions have followed him in this (see, e.g., Kim 2025;
Stock 2013). Stacie Friend (2021) argues that Walton’s account
is best construed in terms of a particular, immersive kind of
imagining she calls
imagining a storyworld.
Recent
discussions of Walton-style frameworks have continued to explore what
the connection between imagination and fiction can tell us about the
nature of fictional truths, as well as its implications for the limits
on what sorts of contents can be true within works of fiction (Friend
2011, 2017; Kim 2025; Xhignesse 2021). Friend (2008) argues that this
sort of account can be extended even to many works of nonfiction that
invite imaginings, and therefore that it cannot be used to distinguish
fiction from nonfiction.
Out of all the arts, it is the engagement with
narratives
that philosophers have explored most closely in conjunction with
imagination (see Stock 2013 for an overview; see also the papers in
Nichols (ed.) 2006). Gregory Currie (1990) offers an influential
account of imagination and fictional narratives, and Peter Lamarque
and Stein Haugom Olsen (1996) discuss literature specifically. Many
accounts either incorporate or respond to the Waltonian idea that
narratives prescribe imaginings. For example, Kathleen Stock (2017)
argues that a specific kind of propositional imagination is essential
for engagement with narrative fiction. In dissent, Derek Matravers
(2014) argues that, contra Walton, imagination is not essential.
Philosophers have also articulated connections between imagination and
engagement with
music
(see the entry on
philosophy of music
see also Trivedi 2011). Some focus on commonalities between
engagement with narratives and engagement with music. For example,
even though Walton (1990, 1994, 1999) acknowledges that fictional
worlds of music are much more indeterminate than fictional worlds of
narratives, he maintains that the same kind of imagining used in
experiencing narratives is also used in experiencing various elements
of music, such as imagining continuity between movements and imagining
feeling musical tension. Similarly, Andrew Kania (2015) argues that
experiencing musical space and movement is imaginative like our
experience of fictional narratives. Jerrold Levinson (1996) draws
parallels between engaging with music and imaginatively engaging with
other minds (section 3.1), arguing that the best explanation of
musical expressiveness requires listeners to imagine a persona
expressing emotions through the music. Scruton (1997) argues that
musical experience is informed by spatial concepts applied
metaphorically, and that imaginative perception is therefore necessary
for musical understanding (but see Budd 2003 for a criticism; see also
De Clercq 2007 and Kania 2015). Stephen Davies (2005, 2011) and Peter
Kivy (2002) notably criticize imaginative accounts of engagement with
music on empirical and theoretical grounds.
Other imaginative accounts of engagement with specific arts can be
found in the entries on
philosophy of film
and
philosophy of dance
See also discussions of imagination in the entries on the
aesthetics of the everyday
and
environmental aesthetics
Philosophers have also considered how imaginative engagement with
works of art can play a role in
moral
persuasion
. Plato famously warned against the power of
poetry to morally corrupt its audience (
Republic
X; see the
entry on
Plato on rhetoric and poetry
).
Conversely, contemporary philosophers tend to focus more on the
prospect of moral education (see, e.g., Carroll 2002; Currie 1995;
Jacobson 1996; Kieran 1996; Murdoch 1970; Nussbaum 1990; Robinson
2005). This includes attempts to unpack the psychological processes
involved when merely imaginative representations change one's moral
perspective on the real world. Martha Nussbaum (1990), for
example, maintains that one of the central moral skills is the
ability to discern morally salient features of one’s situation.
This skill, she contends, is one that must be developed, and one to
which the engagement with literature might effectively contribute, by
providing “close and careful interpretative descriptions”
of imagined scenarios that enable emotional involvement untainted by
distorting self-interest (see also Carroll 2000; Gendler 2000, 2006;
Hakemulder 2000; Liao 2013).
Finally, philosophers have sought to further clarify the role of
imagination in engagement with the arts by focusing on a number of
apparent puzzles and paradoxes in the vicinity. For discussion of
several of these, see the entries on
imaginative resistance
emotional responses to fiction
and
the paradox of tragedy
3.4 Creativity
While the precise characterization of
creativity
remains
controversial, contemporary philosophers generally agree that some
processes
count as creative (see Gaut & Kieran (eds.)
2018; Paul & Kaufman (eds.) 2014; and the entry on
creativity
).
Paradigmatic examples of creative processes are those involved in
producing valuable works of art. Philosophers also consider creative
processes in other domains, including “science, craft, business,
technology, organizational life and everyday activities” (Gaut
2010, 1034; see also Stokes 2011). A scientist, for example, might
employ a creative process to design a thought experiment or generate
an innovative, novel theory (Murphy forthcoming).
Historically, imagination has often been thought to play a central
role in creative processes. Immanuel Kant (
Critique of Pure
Reason
) argued that, when imagination aims at the aesthetic, it
is allowed to engage in free play that goes beyond one’s current
knowledge or understanding. The unconstrained imagination can thereby
take raw materials and produce outputs that transcend concepts that
one possesses. Michael Polanyi (1966) gives imagination a central role
in the creative endeavor of scientific discovery, by refining and
narrowing the solution space to open-ended scientific problems (see
Stokes 2016, 252–256).
Contemporary philosophers have continued exploring the role of
imagination in creativity (for an overview, see Kind & Langkau
(eds.) forthcoming). Peter Carruthers (2002) argues that the same
cognitive resources, including imagination, underlie children’s
pretend play and adults’ creative thinking, hypothesizing that
the former developed as precursors to, and practice for, the latter.
Berys Gaut (2003) and Dustin Stokes (2014) argue that two
characteristic features of imagination—its lack of aim at truth
and its dissociation from guiding action—make it especially
suitable for facilitating creative processes. Amy Kind (2022b) builds
on this by emphasizing the imagination’s power for combining
ideas in novel ways.
Kant took imagination to be
constitutive
of creativity: what
makes a creative process creative is the involvement of imagination
aiming at the aesthetic. Most contemporary philosophers see the
connection between imagination and creativity as weaker: while they
agree that imagination is often involved in creative processes, and
even that it may be uniquely well-suited to facilitating creativity,
they do not see it as a
necessary
component of creativity
(for views along these lines, see Beaney 2005; Gaut 2003; Kind 2022b;
Kind & Langkau forthcoming; Langkau 2025; Langland-Hassan 2020;
Stokes 2014, 2016; for arguments that imagination really is a
necessary part of creativity, see Hills & Bird 2019; Arcangeli
2022).
Philosophers also disagree about the
type
of imagination
involved in creative processes. Gregory Currie and Ian Ravenscroft
(2002) sharply distinguish recreative imagination, which is involved
in activities such as pretense and mindreading, from creative
imagination, or the capacity to combine ideas in novel or unexpected
ways (though they argue that the two categories overlap). Others
object that creative imagining is not a distinct type of imagination,
preferring to view it as a distinct
use
to which other kinds
of imagination can be put (Arcangeli 2022; Kind & Langkau
forthcoming). Gaut (2003) argues that imagistic imagining is
especially well-suited for artistic creativity while non-imagistic
attitude imagining is better suited for finding creative solutions to
intellectual problems. Julia Langkau (2025) argues that creative
imagination is a distinct use of imagistic imagining that involves
intentionally manipulating and combining contents represented in
imagination, where this manipulation is guided by attention to the
subjective value of experiences being imagined.
3.5 Knowledge
Can imagination be a source of knowledge, or at least a source of
justification for beliefs? This question has been considered with
respect to various domains of knowledge, including modal, scientific,
and empirical. It has received increased attention in recent years
(marked by two significant collections: Badura & Kind 2021; Kind
& Kung 2016). Optimists contend that imaginings can yield
justification and knowledge, while pessimists disagree.
First, consider the acquisition of metaphysical modal knowledge, or
knowledge about necessity and possibility. Many philosophical
arguments take for granted that what we can imagine is (to at least
some extent) a good guide to what is possible (for overviews, see the
entry on
epistemology of modality
sec. 4; Kung 2016; and Strohminger & Yli-Vakkuri 2017). For
example, René Descartes (
Meditations on First
Philosophy
) argued from the fact that he could conceive of his
mind and body as existing apart from each other to the conclusion that
they really are distinct (see entry on
Descartes’ modal metaphysics
).
Various modal arguments in contemporary philosophy rely on the
assumption of a fallible and defeasible connection between what can be
imagined and what is possible.
Pessimists—notably Peter Van Inwagen (1998, 70)—doubt that
imagination can give us an accurate understanding of scenarios that
are “remote from the practical business of everyday life,”
such as those called upon in philosophical modal arguments (see also
Hawke 2011). Optimists believe that imagination can do so, though they
grant that modal errors occur when the connection between
imaginability and possibility is imperfect (Chalmers 2002; Ichikawa
2016; Kripke 1972 [1980]; Williamson 2007, 2016; Yablo 1993). In
recent years, this debate has been refined with respect to different
types of imaginings. Dominic Gregory (2004, 2010) and Peter Kung
(2010) are pessimists about non-imagistic propositional imaginings but
optimists about imagistic imaginings, arguing that imaginings with
mental imagery can be sufficiently constrained to function as a
reliable or rational guide to metaphysical possibility (see also
Peacocke 1985). Similarly, Magdalena Balcerak Jackson (2018) argues
that a careful use of recreative imagination can give indirect insight
into metaphysical possibility by simulating possible experiences. In
contrast, Derek Lam (2018, 2021) argues that imagistic and
non-imagistic imagination are epistemically on par, but that there are
in fact reasons to be optimistic about both.
Second, consider imagination’s role in the acquisition of
scientific knowledge. Scientific theorizing regularly calls on thought
experiments (see the entry on
thought experiments
).
For example, Galileo (
On Motion
) offered a thought
experiment that disproved Aristotle’s theory of motion, which
predicts that heavier objects fall more quickly (see also Brown 1991;
Gendler 1998, 2004; Strohminger 2021). Galileo asked people to imagine
the falling of a composite of a light and heavy object versus the
falling of the heavy object alone. When one runs the thought
experiment—that is, when one elaborates on the starting point of
this imaginary scenario—one notices an incoherence in
Aristotle’s theory: on the one hand, it should predict that the
composite would fall more slowly because the light object would slow
down the heavy object; on the other hand, it should also predict that
the composite would fall more quickly because the composite is heavier
than the heavy object alone.
In recent years, the focus on imagination’s role in science has
moved from thought experiments to models, including
“fictionalist” accounts inspired by Kendall Walton’s
(1990) theory of make-believe (see entry on
models in science
Frigg 2023; Levy 2012, 2015; Murphy 2022: sec. 2; Salis 2021; Toon
2015). While the relationship between thought experiments and models
remains contested, they have been treated similarly when it comes to
debates over optimism versus pessimism about imagination’s
epistemic value (see the papers collected in Levy & Godfrey-Smith
2020). Philosophers have connected both thought experiments and models
to mental imagery (Gooding 1992; Levy 2015; Miščević
1992). Optimists have argued that the imagistic nature of these
imaginings explains how thought experiments and models can provide
justification (Gendler 2004; Nersessian 1992, 2007); pessimists
dismiss this mental imagery as mere picturesque illustration (Norton
2004; Weisberg 2013). Other optimists link the epistemic value of
thought experiments and models to non-imagistic imagining (Arcangeli
2010, 2021), while pluralists argue that scientific knowledge arises
from different types of imagination (French 2020; Murphy 2020).
Third, consider imagination’s role in the acquisition of
empirical knowledge, or knowledge of contingent matters of fact, as
opposed to knowledge of what is merely possible. We seem to use
imagination this way in daily life—for example, you might use
imagistic imagination when considering whether an old couch would fit
in a new apartment. At the same time, imagination is often thought of
as totally “free,” in the sense that the contents we
imagine are up to us, are often insensitive to the way things are in
reality, and can depart from reality in highly fantastical ways
(unlike, e.g., perception, which is epistemically useful because what
we perceive is directly sensitive to how things are in the world
around us). This gives rise to what Amy Kind and Peter Kung (2016b)
call the
puzzle of imaginative use
: the puzzle of how to
reconcile
transcendent
uses of imagination, which enable one
to escape from or look beyond the world as it is, and
instructive
uses of imagination, which enable one to learn
about the world as it is.
On Kind and Kung’s (2016b) highly influential resolution of the
puzzle, the same cognitive faculty can be put to such disparate uses
because instructive uses involve imposing more
constraints
on
imagination, while transcendent uses are comparatively unconstrained.
For example, instructively imagining trying to fit a couch in an
apartment arguably requires constraining what one imagines, as well as
the way one’s imagining unfolds over time, using information
from intuitive physics, about the size and shape of the couch and
apartment, and the like. More generally, Kind (2016c, 2018) proposes
two types of constraints that need to be satisfied: the imaginings
capture the world as it is (the
reality constraint
), and
imaginings of changes to the world are guided by logical consequences
of that change (the
change constraint
).
Optimists have taken up the task of specifying exactly what such
constraints are. Some characterize them as
structure-based
the constraints are part of our built in psychological architecture
(Langland-Hassan 2016; Miyazono & Tooming 2024; Williamson 2007,
2016). Others characterize them as
content-based
: the
constraints are imposed by the content of other mental states, such as
beliefs and prior experiences (Kind 2016c, 2018; Myers 2021a, 2021b).
Most optimists focus specifically on imagistic imagining under
constraints (Balcerak Jackson 2016, 2018; Dorsch 2016; Kind 2016c,
2018; Miyazono & Tooming 2024; Myers 2021a, 2021b; Williams 2021),
though a few also discuss propositional imagining (Badura 2021;
Langland-Hassan 2016; Williamson 2007, 2016). Moreover, there are
subtle differences amongst optimist positions: while some focus on
showing that imagining under constraints can
preserve
justification (such as Myers 2021a, 2021b), others focus on showing
that imagining under constraints can
generate new
justification (such as Miyazono & Tooming 2024). See also
Spaulding’s (2016) more qualified optimistic view, according to
which, while imagination itself cannot provide justification, it can
still play an epistemic role in generating new ideas that other
cognitive processes must evaluate.
Pessimists raise different worries for different approaches to
specifying constraints. For example, while many optimists appeal to
intuitive physics as an example of structure-based constraints on
imaginative simulations, Ori Kinberg and Arnon Levy (2023) point out
that the biases and errors inherent to intuitive physics make it a
poor guarantor for the reliability of such imaginings. For another
example, Christopher Gauker (2024) poses a dilemma for optimists who
appeal to content-based constraints: either such constraints are
deterministic of imaginings, in which case they would not be able to
handle the simulation of non-closed systems; or they are not, in which
case they would be too permissive to guarantee realistic imaginings.
Finally, Michael Stuart (2020) is skeptical of constraint-based
accounts in general, arguing that they do not leave room for
scientific knowledge that comes from breaking constraints.
3.6 Imagination and Belief: Borderline Cases
Section 2.1 covered the similarities and differences between belief
and attitude imagining. Many grant that the two are similar in
representational format and the inferential relations that hold
between them, while distinguishing them by appealing to each
state’s distinctive norms and/or functional profiles.
Philosophers of imagination have attempted to apply their preferred
accounts of the distinction to analyze psychological phenomena that
seem difficult to straightforwardly classify as either belief or
imagination. This includes
delusions
implicit
biases
religious beliefs
, and
conspiracy
theories
Delusions can be characterized as belief-like mental representations
that manifest an unusual degree of disconnectedness from reality
(Bortolotti & Miyazono 2015). For example, those suffering from
Capgras delusion take their friends and family to have been replaced
by imposters, and those suffering from Cotard delusion take themselves
to be dead. One approach to delusions characterizes them as beliefs
that are dysfunctional in their content or formation (see Coltheart
& Davies (eds.) 2000). However, another approach characterizes
them as dysfunctions of imagination. Gregory Currie and Ian
Ravenscroft (2002) argue that delusions are imaginings that are
misidentified by the subject as being beliefs, as the result of an
inability to keep track of the sources of one’s thoughts. Tamar
Szabó Gendler (2007) argues that, in delusions, imaginings come
to play a role in one’s cognitive architecture similar to that
typically played by beliefs. Andy Egan (2008) likewise argues that the
mental states involved in delusions are both belief-like (in their
connection to behaviors and inferences) and imagination-like (in their
circumscription); however, he argues that these functional
similarities suggest the need to posit an in-between attitude called
“bimagination”. For more on this topic, see the entry on
delusion
Implicit biases are, roughly, stereotypes or prejudices that influence
our behavior in ways that are involuntary, outside of our awareness,
and/or in conflict with our explicit beliefs and values. They have
been invoked to explain, among other things, subtly prejudiced
behaviors that contradict explicit, professed values—for
example, someone genuinely committed to gender equality may
nevertheless rate female job candidates as weaker than males without
realizing it. Philosophers and psychologists continue to disagree
about how to more precisely define this notion, and even over whether
implicit biases really exist (see the entry on
implicit bias
).
Some philosophers have proposed that we view implicit biases as
imaginings (Sullivan-Bissett 2019, 2024; Welpingus 2020; see also
Nanay’s 2021b mental imagery account). For example, Ema
Sullivan-Bissett (2019) argues that implicit biases are
unconscious
imaginings triggered by stimuli (e.g., seeing a
woman might trigger a
there is a woman
imagining, which then
triggers an additional imagining
that women are weak
). She
defends her account in part by appealing to considerations about what
distinguishes imagination from belief.
It is natural to assume that the cognitive attitudes we ordinarily
refer to as religious “beliefs” involve simply taking
something to be true—for example, that God exists, that Jesus
rose from the dead, or that the Qur’an is the literal word of
God. Recently, philosophers have debated whether religious
“beliefs” are something more like attitude imaginings (for
an overview, see Ichino forthcoming-a). Those who defend this view
appeal primarily to functional differences between imagination and
belief (Ichino 2024; Van Leeuwen 2014b, 2023). For example, while what
we imagine is to a large extent under our voluntary control and
subject to our intentions about what to imagine, beliefs are generally
not under voluntary control and are constrained by what evidence we
possess (Currie & Ravenscroft 2002, sec. 1.3). Philosophers
defending the “make-believe” view of religion point to the
way people describe religious “beliefs” as consciously
chosen
, and thus as under voluntary control (for relevant
empirical work, see Luhrmann 2012, 2020). Van Leeuwen (2023) also
argues that, much as imaginings only guide actions for the duration of
episodes of pretense or pretend play, religious commitments guide
actions only in temporary, highly specific contexts—for example,
religious people often truly act as if God is real only on Sundays and
during other sacred times. The make-believe view of religion continues
to generate discussion and debate (Boudry & Coyne 2016; De Cruz
2024; Levy 2017, 2024a; Van Leeuwen 2025).
It is also at first natural to assume that conspiracy theorists simply
believe their theories—for example, that the moon landing was
faked, that the scientific establishment is covering up the flat
Earth, or that vaccines secretly contain microchips. However,
philosophers have also recently defended make-believe views of
conspiracy theorizing (for overviews, see Ichino forthcoming-b; Munro
forthcoming). According to these views, a large proportion of (if not
most) conspiracy theorists treat their theorizing as akin to telling
fictional stories (Ganapini 2022; Ichino 2022; Munro & Rini 2025),
playing games of make-believe (Levy 2022, 2024b), or fantasizing
(Munro 2024). Proponents again appeal to functional differences
between imagination and belief. For example: there is empirical
evidence that conspiracy theorists are guided not by evidence but by a
desire to be special (Imhoff & Lambert 2017) or by the
entertainment value of conspiracy theories (van Prooijen et al. 2022).
Conspiracy theorists’ attitudes also do not seem to guide action
the way beliefs do—for example, there is no reliable correlation
between endorsing conspiracy theories that recommend extreme or
violent actions and actually committing those actions (Uscinski et al.
2022).
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Acknowledgments
As of the January 2026 update, Daniel Munro has taken over
responsibility for updating and maintaining this entry. No one can
have encyclopedic knowledge on a topic as vast as
imagination. Previous versions of the entry could not have existed
without the help of Paul Bloom, Elisabeth Camp, David Chalmers,
Gregory Currie, Felipe De Brigard, Tyler Doggett, Jonathan Jenkins
Ichikawa, Anna Ichino, Andrew Kania, Amy Kind, Peter Langland-Hassan,
Aaron Meskin, Kengo Miyazono, Shaun Nichols, Aaron Norby, Eric
Peterson, Mark Phelan, Dustin Stokes, Margot Strohminger, Mike Stuart,
Zoltán Gendler Szabó, Neil Van Leeuwen, Jonathan
Weinberg, Nick Wiltsher, Ed Zalta, and several anonymous referees. The
current iteration owes much to Olivia Bailey, Alon Chasid, Peter
Langland-Hassan, Anna Ichino, Amy Kind, Derek Lam, Alice Murphy,
Joshua Myers, Evan Thompson, Neil Van Leeuwen, I-jan Wang, and Nick
Wiltsher.
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Shen-yi Liao
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