Seeing More

Abstract

The book defends a systematic interpretation of the philosopher Immanuel Kant’s theory of imagination. To this end, it offers an account of what kind of mental capacity Kant takes imagination to be in general, as well as an account of the way in which we use this capacity in theoretical, aesthetic, and practical contexts. In contrast with more traditional theories of imagination, as a kind of fantasy that we exercise only in relation to objects that are not real or not present, it proposes that Kant theorizes imagination as something that we exercise just as much in relation to objects that are real and present. It thus attributes to Kant a view of imagining as something that pervades our lives. In order to bring out this pervasiveness, it explores Kant’s account of how we exercise our imagination in perception, ordinary experience, the appreciation of beauty and sublimity, the production of art, the pursuit of happiness, and the pursuit of morality. However, it also makes the case that Kant’s analysis of this wide range of phenomena is underwritten by a unified theory of what imagination is as a remarkably flexible cognitive capacity that we can exercise in constrained and creative, playful and serious ways.