2011/01/01 by Neil Van Leeuwen · 162 citations
Arts and Humanities · Neuroscience · Psychology · #Action (physics) #Aesthetics #Analytic philosophy #Contemporary philosophy #Embodied and Extended Cognition #Epistemology #Philosophy #Philosophy and Theoretical Science #Psychology #Sociology #Wittgensteinian philosophy and applications
paper · open access · doi:10.5840/jphil201110823
published in The Journal of Philosophy 108(2), 55-77 (Philosophy Documentation Center)
openalex publication_date 2011/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Imaginative representations are crucial to the generation of action--both pretense and plain action. But well-known theories of imagination on offer in the literature [1] fail to describe how perceptually-formatted imaginings (mental images) and motor imaginings function in the generation of action and [2] fail to recognize the important fact that spatially rich imagining can be integrated into one's perceptual manifold. In this paper, I present a theory of imagining that shows how spatially rich imagining functions in the generation of action. I also describe the imaginative structures behind two under-explored forms of action: semi-pretense and pretense layering. In addition, I suggest that my theory of imagining meshes better than the competitors with current work in cognitive and affective neuroscience.