Free Download of Open Access PDF
Available in hardcopy at OUP and Amazon.
Book Synopsis: Imagination will remain a mystery—we will not be able to explain imagination—until we can break it into parts we already understand. Explaining Imagination is a guidebook for doing just that, where the parts are other ordinary mental states like beliefs, desires, judgments, and decisions. In different combinations and contexts, these states constitute cases of imagining. This reductive approach to imagination is at direct odds with the current orthodoxy, according to which imagination is a sui generis mental state or process—one with its own inscrutable principles of operation. Explaining Imagination upends that view, showing how, on closer inspection, the imaginings at work in hypothetical reasoning, pretense, the enjoyment of fiction, and creativity are reducible to other familiar mental states—judgments, beliefs, desires, and decisions among them. Crisscrossing contemporary philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and aesthetics, Explaining Imagination argues that a clearer understanding of imagination is already well within reach.
Praise for Explaining Imagination:
“The centerpiece of Explaining Imagination is a brilliantly articulated theory of the imagination, a theory that challenges many preconceptions and provides what will no doubt be an orienting landmark for future work in the area…The book contains a number of additional treasures, including especially innovative accounts of pretense, fiction, and creativity. These other accounts…will no doubt have an influence that extends well beyond readers who are principally interested in questions about the metaphysical nature of the imagination ."
-Christopher Hill, Analysis Reviews (forthcoming)
“With arguments that are innovative, sophisticated, and provocative, Explaining Imagination provides a comprehensive defense of Langland-Hassan’s reductionist approach to imagination. I myself have profited greatly from this challenge to the philosophical orthodoxy, and the discussion of the book has already begun shaping directions of future research. A must-read not just for philosophers interested in imagination, but also for those interested in more general questions about our taxonomy of mind.”
-Amy Kind, Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College
“Explaining Imagination is a pleasure to read. Both lucid and sophisticated, it seems to anticipate every potential challenge [his] account might face. It also adduces arguments that are relevant not only to defending his account, but also to specific debates about the nature of imagining. Explaining Imagination is thus a significant philosophical achievement, and in my opinion, will soon be a mainstay of research into the metaphysics and psychology of imagination.”
-Alon Chasid, The Brains Blog
‘This is a groundbreaking work, and a phenomenal resource for those interested in this field. Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.’
-Choice
Reading guide:
Preface and Chapter 1 provide an overview of the project and its motivation, and numerous examples of how imagination can be reduced to other kinds of mental states.
Chapter 2 addresses metatheoretical questions about the nature of folk psychology, explanation, and reduction.
Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the place of mental imagery in imagination, and distinguish different kinds of imagination.
Chapters 5 and 6 discuss the relationship of imagining to conditional and hypothetical reasoning.
Chapters 7 and 8 concern pretense and its relation to imagination.
Chapters 9, 10, and 11 concern the role of imaginaiton in defining fiction and in explaining our emotional engagement with it.
Chapter 12 is about creativity and its relation to imagination
|
Check out the symposium in the journal Analysis on Explaining Imagination, with commentaries by Christopher Hill, Hannah Kim, Hande Tuna, and Neil Van Leeuwnen, with a Precis and Replies to Commentaries by me. |
|
Discussion of Explaining Imagination Online: Junkyard of the Mind Blog Symposium on Explaining Imagination: Brains Blog Symposium on Explaining Imagination: |
|
New Books in Philosophy Podcast:
I chat with Carrie Figdor about Explaining Imagination
I chat with Carrie Figdor about Explaining Imagination