This volume presents new essays on the propositional imagination by leading researchers. The propositional imagination---the mental capacity we exploit when we imagine that everyone is colour-blind or that Hamlet is a procrastinator---plays an essential role in philosophical theorizing, engaging with fiction, and indeed in everyday life. Yet only recently has there been a systematic attempt to give a cognitive account of the propositional imagination. These thirteen essays, specially written for the volume, capitalize on this recent work, extending the theoretical picture of the imagination and exploring the philosophical implications of cognitive accounts of the imagination. The book also investigates broader philosophical issues surrounding the propositional imagination.
The first section addresses the nature of the imagination, its role in emotion production, and its sophistication manifestation in childhood. The essays in the second section focus on the nature of pretence and how pretence is implicated in adult communication. The third section addresses the problem of 'imaginative resistance', the striking fact that when we encounter morally repugnant assertions in fiction, we seem to resist imagining them and accepting them as fictionally true. In the final section, contributors explore the relation between imagining, conceiving, and judgements of possibility and impossibility.
The Architecture of the Imagination will be an essential resource for the growing number of philosophers and psychologists studying the nature of the imagination and on its role in philosophy, aesthetics, and everyday life.
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Propositional imagination is the mental capacity we exploit when we imagine that Holmes has a bad habit or that there are zombies. This work brings together essays on the propositional imagination. It provides a cognitive account of this capacity, extending the theoretical picture and exploring the philosophical implications.
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THE NATURE OF THE IMAGINATION ; PRETENCE ; IMAGINATIVE RESISTANCE ; IMAGINATION AND POSSIBILITY
Focuses on an area of intense current interest in philosophy and psychology
All new essays by leaders in the field
Capitalizes on and extends recent advances in the theory of the imagination
The starting point for future work on the subject
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Shaun Nichols is Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Sentimental Rules (OUP, 2004), and co-author, with Stephen Stich, of Mindreading (OUP, 2003).
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Focuses on an area of intense current interest in philosophy and psychology
All new essays by leaders in the field
Capitalizes on and extends recent advances in the theory of the imagination
The starting point for future work on the subject
Read more
Product details
ISBN
9780199275731
Published
2006
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Weight
457 gr
Height
234 mm
Width
156 mm
Thickness
18 mm
Age
P, 06
Language
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Number of pages
290
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