Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T17:10:07.639Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The rational imagination and other possibilities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2008

Ruth M. J. Byrne
Ruth M. J. Byrne
Affiliation:
School of Psychology and Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland. [email protected]://www.tcd.ie/Psychology/Ruth_Byrne/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this response I discuss some of the key issues raised by the commentators on The Rational Imagination. I consider whether the imaginative creation of alternatives to reality is rational or irrational, and what happens in childhood cognition to enable a rational imagination to develop. I outline how thoughts about causality, counterfactuality, and controllability are intertwined and why some sorts of possibilities are more readily imagined than others. I conclude with a consideration of what the counterfactual imagination is for.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 30 , Issue 5-6 , December 2007 , pp. 470 - 476
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beckett, S. (1983) Worstward Ho! Grove/Atlantic.Google Scholar
Byrne, R. M. J. (2005) The rational imagination: How people create alternatives to reality. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byrne, R. M. J. & Tasso, A. (1999) Deductive reasoning with factual, possible, and counterfactual conditionals. Memory and Cognition 27:726–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Espino, O., Santamaria, C. & Byrne, R. M. J.(submitted) Conditionals and biconditionals prime true possibilities, not false possibilities.Google Scholar
Girotto, V., Ferrante, D., Pighin, S. & Gonzalez, M. (2007) Post-decisional counterfactual thinking by actors and readers. Psychological Science 18:510–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson-Laird, P. N. & Byrne, R. M. J. (1991) Deduction. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
McEleney, A. & Byrne, R. (2006) Spontaneous counterfactual thoughts and causal explanations. Thinking and Reasoning 12(2):235–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pereda, A., Garavan, H. & Byrne, R. M. J.(submitted) The costs of switching attention on conditional inferences.Google Scholar
Pighin, S., Byrne, R. M. J., Gonzalez, M., Ferrante, D. & Girotto, V.(submitted) Role effects in counterfactual thinking.Google Scholar
Simpson, J. (1997) Touching the void. Vintage.Google Scholar
Thompson, V. A. & Byrne, R. M. J. (2002) Reasoning about things that didn't happen. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 28:1154–70.Google ScholarPubMed
Walsh, C. R. & Byrne, R. M. J. (2007) The effects of reasons for acting on counterfactual thinking. Thinking and Reasoning, 13:461–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar