Creative Imagining as Practical Knowing: an Akbariyya Account

Abstract

I argue that practical knowledge can be understood as constituted by a kind of imagining. In particular, it is the knowledge of what I am doing when that knowledge is represented via extramental imagination. Two results follow. First, on this account, we can do justice both to the cognitive character and the practical character of practical knowledge. And second, we can identify a condition under which imagination becomes factive, and thus a source of objective evidence. I develop this view by extracting an account of self-knowledge via extramental imagination from the writings of Ibn 'Arabi (1165-1240.In this paper, I consider two seemingly unrelated philosophical puzzles, one about the epistemic role of imagination, and the other about the concept of practical knowledge. I then argue that we can make headways on both fronts by recognizing the relationship between a species of imagination (which I will call creative imagination) and practical knowledge.In section 1, I lay out the two puzzles. In section 2, I make a brief historical detour, and extract an account of imagination's role in producing knowledge from Ibn 'Arabi (1165-1240 in Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam [e Ringstones of Wisdom] (1229). In section 3, I argue for my main thesis, namely that practical knowing is a kind of imagining. I then explain how my thesis helps us with the original puzzles of the paper.[...] But how can a single mental activity successfully be put to both uses?