“…Peacocke, 1985; White, 1990; Kind, 2001; Wiltsher, 2016). Consider someone who imagines Donald Trump speaking at a Republican convention but whose mental image has pictorial phenomenology that would have been the phenomenology of a veridical experience or veridical memory of a middle-to old-aged Biff Howard Tannen from the Back to the Future trilogy.…”
Traditionally, philosophers have appealed to the phenomenological similarity between visual experience and visual imagery to support the hypothesis that there is significant overlap between the perceptual and imaginative domains. The current evidence, however, is inconclusive: while evidence from transcranial brain stimulation seems to support this conclusion, neurophysiological evidence from brain lesion studies (e.g., from patients with brain lesions resulting in a loss of mental imagery but not a corresponding loss of perception and vice versa) indicates that there are functional and anatomical dissociations between mental imagery and perception. Assuming that the mental imagery and perception do not overlap, at least, to the extent traditionally assumed, then the question arises as to what exactly mental imagery is and whether it parallels perception by proceeding via several functionally distinct mechanisms. In this review, we argue that even though there may not be a shared mechanism underlying vision for perception and conscious imagery, there is an overlap between the mechanisms underlying vision for action and unconscious visual imagery. On the basis of these findings, we propose a modification of Kosslyn’s model of imagery that accommodates unconscious imagination and explore possible explanations of the quasi-pictorial phenomenology of conscious visual imagery in light of the fact that its underlying neural substrates and mechanisms typically are distinct from those of visual experience.
“…Peacocke, 1985; White, 1990; Kind, 2001; Wiltsher, 2016). Consider someone who imagines Donald Trump speaking at a Republican convention but whose mental image has pictorial phenomenology that would have been the phenomenology of a veridical experience or veridical memory of a middle-to old-aged Biff Howard Tannen from the Back to the Future trilogy.…”
Traditionally, philosophers have appealed to the phenomenological similarity between visual experience and visual imagery to support the hypothesis that there is significant overlap between the perceptual and imaginative domains. The current evidence, however, is inconclusive: while evidence from transcranial brain stimulation seems to support this conclusion, neurophysiological evidence from brain lesion studies (e.g., from patients with brain lesions resulting in a loss of mental imagery but not a corresponding loss of perception and vice versa) indicates that there are functional and anatomical dissociations between mental imagery and perception. Assuming that the mental imagery and perception do not overlap, at least, to the extent traditionally assumed, then the question arises as to what exactly mental imagery is and whether it parallels perception by proceeding via several functionally distinct mechanisms. In this review, we argue that even though there may not be a shared mechanism underlying vision for perception and conscious imagery, there is an overlap between the mechanisms underlying vision for action and unconscious visual imagery. On the basis of these findings, we propose a modification of Kosslyn’s model of imagery that accommodates unconscious imagination and explore possible explanations of the quasi-pictorial phenomenology of conscious visual imagery in light of the fact that its underlying neural substrates and mechanisms typically are distinct from those of visual experience.
“…A popular view called “the multiple use thesis” (more often implicitly than explicitly endorsed) has it that the same mental image can serve different imaginative purposes (e.g., White ; Peacocke ; Kind ; Chalmers ; Martin ; Burge ; Kung ; Van Leeuwen —see Wiltsher and Stock for a critical take). The idea is that mental imagery cannot discriminate between indiscernible perceptual scenarios.…”
Mental imagery has often been taken to be equivalent to "sensory imagination", the perception-like type of imagination at play when, for example, one visually imagines a flower when none is there, or auditorily imagines a music passage while wearing earplugs. I contend that the equation of mental imagery with sensory imagination stems from a confusion between two senses of mental imagery. In the first sense, mental imagery is used to refer to a psychological attitude, which is perception-like in nature. In the second sense, mental imagery refers to a mental content, which can be grasped via different attitudes. I will show that failure to acknowledge the distinction between these senses of mental imagery has muddled philosophical discussion. This distinction brings much needed clarity to debates where sensory imagination and mental imagery are invoked, shedding light on issues such as the nature of imagistic mental states, and the representational powers and limits of mental imagery. I will conclude by sketching a general attitudinal account of imagination that does justice to both senses of mental imagery, outlining a promising framework for understanding imagination.
“…An image itself determines which particular is represented and which properties are imagined. Wiltsher takes the content of images to be conceptual by itself and the concept involved in an image to specify what is represented (Wiltsher , 273). Using an example of imagining Desert Orchid, he says: What makes my image of Desert Orchid, rather than of some other horse, is that the image is generated by deployment of that concept.…”
Section: Criticism Of the Tcvmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…When it comes to imagining seemingly imperceptible properties, his explanation of how we are able to imagine them is more intricate and betrays his theoretical commitments. Explicitly relying on the phenomenological notion of horizon , Wiltsher argues that, depending on a concept that governs the formation of a mental image, a mental image implies a particular horizon, or a set of perceptual anticipations, as to what will appear when one changes one's viewpoint (Wiltsher , 274). When one imagines that someone is behind a door, one's mental image involves an anticipation that if one were to imagine oneself opening the door, there would appear to be a person behind it.…”
Section: Criticism Of the Tcvmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Wiltsher has responded that if we assume that qualitative content is impoverished, then it is difficult to argue that it is necessary for imagination to be probative. If, on the other hand, images have rich content, then it is not clear what epistemic role assigned content plays (Wiltsher , 280). Here I tend to agree with Wiltsher that the TCV probably does not illuminate modal epistemology.…”
Section: Three Reasons To Embrace the Tcvmentioning
According to the two‐component view of sensory imagination, imaginative states combine qualitative and assigned content. Qualitative content is the imagistic component of the imaginative state and is provided by a quasi‐perceptual image; assigned content has a language‐like structure. Recently, such a two‐component view has been criticized by Daniel Hutto and Nicholas Wiltsher, both of whom have argued that postulating two contents is unnecessary for explaining how imagination represents. In this paper, I will defend the two‐component theory by arguing that it has three explanatory advantages over its competitors. First, it makes explicit a widely acknowledged distinction between engaged imagination and mere supposition. Second, it explains how imagination is constrained by objects’ perceptual appearances. Third, it explains how imaginings can be exploratory.
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