Skip to main content

Configuring the Cognitive Imagination

  • Chapter
New Waves in Aesthetics

Part of the book series: New Waves in Philosophy ((NWIP))

Abstract

My goal here is to advocate for a naturalistic theory of the imagination that concerns the ways that different parts of our mind can be configured to interact with the imagination. This account will serve as a framework for investigating a range of imaginative phenomena of interest to aestheticians, including genre, imaginative blockage, and the range of conative states we take on in engaging with various fictions. But to tell this story about how the imagination interacts with various parts of the mind, I first need to tell the tale of what those parts are, and indeed what the imagination is such that it makes sense to talk about such interactions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Bibliography

  • Alexander, J. and Weinberg, J. 2007. ‘Analytic Epistemology and Experimental Philosophy’, Philosophy Compass, 2: 56–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Atran, S. 1998. ‘Folk Biology and the Anthropology of Science: Cognitive Universals and Cultural Particulars’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 21: 547–609.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baron-Cohen, S. 1995. Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bingham, G. 1988. ‘Task-specific Devices and the Perceptual Bottleneck’, Human Movement. Science, 7: 225–264.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blair, J. Marsh, A.A. Finger, E. Blair, and Luo, J. 2006. ‘Neuro-cognitive Systems Involved in Morality’, Philosophical Explorations, 9.1: 13–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, N. 1990. Paradoxes of the Heart, or, A Philosophy of Horror, London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, N. 1998. Philosophy of Mass Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carruthers, P. 2006. ‘Why Pretend?’ in S. Nichols (ed.), The Architecture of the Imagination, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 89–111.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Cavell, S. 1979. The World Viewed, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, A. 1997. Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Currie, G. 1995. ‘The Moral Psychology of Fiction’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 73: 250–259.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Currie, G. 2001. ‘Imagination and Make-Believe’ in B. Gaut and D. McIver Lopes (eds), Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Currie, G. 2002. ‘Imagination as Motivation’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 102.1: 201–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Currie, G. and Ravenscroft, I. 2002. Recreative Minds: Imagination in Philosophy and Psychology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Doggett, T. and Egan, A. 2007. ‘Wanting Things You Don’t Want’, Philosopher’s Imprint.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gendler, T.S. 2000. ‘The Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance’, Journal of Philosophy, 94: 55–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gendler, T.S. (forthcoming) 2008. ‘Alief and Belief’, Journal of Philosophy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haidt, J. 2007. ‘The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology’, Science, 316: 998–1002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haidt, J. and Graham, J. 2007. ‘When Morality Opposes Justice: Conservatives have Moral Intuitions that Liberals may not Recognize’, Social Justice Research, 20: 98–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haidt, J. and Joseph, C. 2007. ‘The Moral Mind: How Five Sets of Innate Intuitions Guide the Development of Many Culture-Specific Virtues, and Perhaps Even Modules’ in P. Carruthers, Laurence, S. and Stich, S. (eds), The Innate Mind, Vol. 3: Foundations and the Future, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 367–391.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harold, J. Unpublished. ‘The Value of Fictional Worlds; Or, Why, Lord of the Rings is Worth Reading.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, P. 2000. The Work of the Imagination, Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ichikawa, J. and Jarvis, B. (forthcoming) ‘Thought-experiment intuitions and truth in fiction’, _Philosophical Studies_.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leslie, A. 1994. ‘ToMM, ToBy, and Agency: Core Architecture and Domain Specificity’ in L. Hirschfeld and S. Gelman (eds), Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture, New York: Cambridge University Press, 119–148.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • McCloskey, M. 1983. ‘Intuitive Physics’, Scientific American, 248.4: 122–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meskin, A. and Weinberg, J.M. 2003. ‘Emotions, Fiction, and Cognitive Architecture’, British Journal of Aesthetics, 43: 18–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nichols, S. 2004. ‘Imagining and Believing: The Promise of a Single Code’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Special Issue on Art, Mind, and Cognitive Science, 62: 129–139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nichols, S. 2004. ‘Review of G. Currie and I. Ravenscroft, Recreative Minds’, Mind, 113: 329–334.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nichols, S. and Stich, S. 2000. ‘A cognitive theory of pretense’, Cognition, 74: 115–147

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stich, S. 1992. ‘What is a Theory of Mental Representation?’ Mind, 101: 243–261.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perkins, V.F. 1972. Film as Film, New York: Da Capo Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Premack, D. 1990. ‘The Infant’s Theory of Self-Propelled Objects’, Cognition, 36: 1–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scribner, S. 1977. ‘Modes of Thinking and Ways of Speaking: Culture and Logic Reconsidered’ in P.N. Johnson-Laird and P.C. Wason (eds), Thinking: Readings in Cognitive Science, New York: Cambridge University Press, 483–500.

    Google Scholar 

  • Singh, C. 2002. ‘When Physical Intuition Fails’, American Journal of Physics, 70.11: 1103–1109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. forthcoming. ‘A Defense of Intuitions’ in M., Bishop and D. Murphy, (eds) Stich and His Critics, Oxford and Boston: Blackwell Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sripada, C. and Stich, S. 2007. ‘A Framework for the Psychology of Norms’ in P. Carruthers, S. Laurence and S. Stich (eds), Innateness and the Structure of the Mind, Volume 2, New York: Oxford University Press, 280–302.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stock, K. 2006. ‘Fiction and Psychological Insight’ in M. Kieran and D. McIver Lopes (eds), Knowing Art: Essays in Aesthetics and Epistemology, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 51–66.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Thelen, E. and Smith, L.B. 1994. A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walton, K. 1978. ‘Fearing Fictions’, Journal of Philosophy, 75.1: 5–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walton, K. 1990. Mimesis as Make-Believe, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Warshow, R. 1964. The Immediate Experience, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weinberg, J.M. and Meskin, A. 2005. ‘Imagine That’ in M. Kieran (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 222–235.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weinberg, J.M. and Meskin, A. 2006. ‘Puzzling over the Imagination: Philosophical Problems and Architectural Solutions’ in S. Nichols (ed.), The Architecture of the Imagination, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 175–202.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Weinberg, J., Nichols, S., and Stich, S. 2001. ‘Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions’, Philosophical Topics, 29: 429–460.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2008 Jonathan M. Weinberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Weinberg, J.M. (2008). Configuring the Cognitive Imagination. In: Stock, K., Thomson-Jones, K. (eds) New Waves in Aesthetics. New Waves in Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230227453_11

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics