Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T03:44:29.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Imaginative resistance as imagistic resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Uku Tooming
Uku Tooming*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy and Semiotics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
*
E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When we are invited to imagine an unacceptable moral proposition to be true in fiction, we feel resistance when we try to imagine it. Despite this, it is nonetheless possible to suppose that the proposition is true. In this paper, I argue that existing accounts of imaginative resistance are unable to explain why only attempts to imagine (rather than to suppose) the truth of moral propositions cause resistance. My suggestion is that imagination, unlike supposition, involves mental imagery and imaginative resistance arises when imagery that one has formed does not match unacceptable propositions.

Keywords

Philosophy of mindimaginationimaginative resistanceaestheticsfictionmental imagery
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 48 , Issue 5 , 2018 , pp. 684 - 706
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. 2018

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

Arcangeli, M. 2014. “Against Cognitivism about Supposition.” Philosophia 42(3): 607–624. 10.1007/s11406-014-9535-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barsalou, L. 1999. “Perceptual Symbol Systems.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22(1435): 577–660.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carey, S. 2009. The Origin of Concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195367638.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Currie, G., and Ravenscroft, I.. 2002. Recreative Minds: Imagination in Philosophy and Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198238089.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doggett, T., and Egan, A.. 2007. “Wanting Things You Donʼt Want: The Case for an Imaginative Analogue of Desire.” Philosophersʼ Imprint 7(9): 1–17.Google Scholar
Gallagher, S. 2008. “Direct Perception in the Intersubjective Context.” Consciousness & Cognition 17(2): 535–543. 10.1016/j.concog.2008.03.003CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gauker, C. 2011. Words and Images: An Essay on the Origin of Ideas. New York: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199599462.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gendler, T. S. 2000. “The Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance.” The Journal of Philosophy 97(2): 55–81. 10.2307/2678446CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gendler, T. S. 2006. “Imaginative Resistance Revisited.” In Architecture of Imagination, edited by Nichols, S., 149–173. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. 2006. Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/0195138929.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume, D. 1965 (1757). “Of the Standard of Taste.” InLenz, J. W. On the Standard of Taste and Other Essays, 3–24. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Kanwisher, K., McDermott, J., and Chun, M. M.. 1997. “The Fusiform Face Area: A Module in Human Extrastriate Cortex Specialised for Face Perception.” The Journal of Neuroscience 17(11): 4302–4311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kind, A. 2001. “Putting the Image Back in Imagination.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62(1): 85–109. 10.1111/phpr.2001.62.issue-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, I., Dubois, J., Mangin, J.-F., Kherif, F., Flandin, G., Poline, J.-B., Denis, M., Kosslyn, S., and Le Bihan, D.. 2004. “Retinotopic Organization of Visual Mental Images as Revealed by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.” Cognitive Brain Research 22(1): 26–31. 10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2004.07.006CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kosslyn, S. M., Sukel, K. E., and Bly, B. M.. 1999. “Squinting with the Mind’s Eye: Effects of Stimulus Resolution on Imaginal and Perceptual Comparisons.” Memory and Cognition 27(2): 276–287. 10.3758/BF03211412CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kosslyn, S. M., Thompson, W. L., and Ganis, G.. 2006. The Case for Mental Imagery. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195179088.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kung, P. 2010. “Imagining as a Guide to Possibility.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81(3): 620–663. 10.1111/phpr.2010.81.issue-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langland-Hassan, P. 2015. “Imaginative Attitudes.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 90(3): 664–686. 10.1111/phpr.2015.90.issue-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LeDoux, J. 1996. The Emotional Brain. New York: Touchstone.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. K. 1978. “Truth in Fiction.” American Philosophical Quarterly 15(1): 37–46.Google Scholar
Matthen, M. 2014. “Image Content.” In Does Perception Have Content?, edited by Brogaard, B., 265–290. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nanay, B. 2015. “Perceptual Content and the Content of Mental Imagery.” Philosophical Studies 172(7): 1723–1736. 10.1007/s11098-014-0392-yCrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Craven, K. M., and Kanwisher, N.. 2000. “Mental Imagery of Faces and Places Activates Corresponding Stimulus-Specific Brain Regions.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 12(6): 1013–1023. 10.1162/08989290051137549CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peacocke, C. 1985. “Imagination, Experience, and Possibility: A Berkeleian View Defended.” In Essays on Berkeley: A Tercentenial Celebration, edited by Foster, J. and Robinson, H., 19–35. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Perky, C. W. 1910. “An Experimental Study of Imagination.” The American Journal of Psychology 21(3): 422–452. 10.2307/1413350CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prinz, J. J. 2002. Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and Their Perceptual Basis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scholl, B. J., and Tremoulet, P. D.. 2000. “Perceptual Causality and Animacy.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4(8): 299–309. 10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01506-0CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Segal, S. J. 1972. “Assimilation of a Stimulus in the Construction of an Image: The Perky Effect Revisited.” In The Function and Nature of Imagery, edited by Sheehan, W. P., 203–230. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Shea, N. 2014. “Distinguishing Top-down from Bottom-up Effects.” In Perception and Its Modalities, edited by Stokes, D., Matthen, M. and Biggs, S., 73–92. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199832798.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterelny, K. 2010. “Moral Nativism: A Skeptical Response.” Mind & Language 25(3): 279–297. 10.1111/(ISSN)1468-0017CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterelny, K. 2012. The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 10.7551/mitpress/9780262016797.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stock, K. 2005. “Resisting Imaginative Resistance.” The Philosophical Quarterly 55(221): 607–624. 10.1111/phiq.2005.55.issue-221CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stueber, K. 2011. “Imagination, Empathy, and Moral Deliberation.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 49(s1): 156–180. 10.1111/sjp.2011.49.issue-s1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Todd, C. S. 2009. “Imaginability, Morality, and Fictional Truth: Dissolving the Puzzle of ‘Imaginative Resistance’.” Philosophical Studies 143(2): 187–211. 10.1007/s11098-007-9198-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walton, K. L. 1994. “Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 68: 27–66. 10.1093/aristoteliansupp/68.1.27CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weatherson, B. 2004. “Morality, Fiction, and Possibility.” Philosophersʼ Imprint 4(3): 1–27.Google Scholar
Weinberg, J., and Meskin, A.. 2006. “Puzzling over the Imagination: Philosophical Problems, Architectural Solutions.” In The Architecture of Imagination: New Essays on Pretense, Possibility, and Fiction, edited by Nichols, S., 175–202. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, T. 2016. “Knowing by Imagining.” In Knowledge through Imagination, edited by Kind, A. and Kung, P., 113–123. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198716808.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yablo, S. 2002. “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda.” In Conceivability and Possibility, edited by Gendler, T. S. and Hawthorne, J., 441–492. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar