Abstract
Imagination is one of the most important human abilities. It is deployed in the most mundane parts of human life, such as deciding what to have for breakfast. But it is also at the core of all creative acts, of the kind performed by scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, novelists, musicians, political reformers, visionaries. And it does not take long to see that it is puzzling. I can clearly imagine things that do not exist, and never will exist, such as Anna Karenina, and the Taj Mahal in London. But if I kick something, it has to be there to be kicked. How can I imagine something if it is not there to be imagined? Even worse, the things I imagine may even be impossible. A mathematician imagines that a certain equation has a solution, and then proves that there can be no such thing: it is a mathematical impossibility. How can I imagine something when it is impossible for it to exist?
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Notes
- 1.
For a general account of the matter, including a discussion of the various technical notions employed, see Read (2015).
- 2.
In modern terms, we would say that the domain of quantification is expanded to a wider set of objects; but of course, the medievals were not operating with the modern notion of a quantifier.
- 3.
Buridan (2001), p. 299.
- 4.
De Rijk (1982), p. 172.
- 5.
Paul of Venice (1978), p. 13.
- 6.
An. Post. 92 b29–30. Translation, Aristotle (1984).
- 7.
The authenticity of this text is sometimes disputed. For a defence, see Fine (1993), from which the quotation comes (p. 15).
- 8.
I note that what I am discussing here is the semantics/metaphysics of imagination. The psychology of imagination (what is going on between the ears) is another matter—though, in the big picture, both of these things must fit together.
- 9.
Marsilius of Inghen (1972), p. 182.
- 10.
Buridan (2001), p. 299.
- 11.
‘Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.’ 1 John 2: 22.
- 12.
Though some scholars have suggested that they can be found in Scotus, and even Avicenna. See, e.g., Wyatt (2000).
- 13.
On these matters, see Priest (2008), chs. 2 and 3.
- 14.
It is explained and defended at length in Priest (2005).
- 15.
For a full defence of this history see ch. 18 of the second edition of Priest (2005).
- 16.
The passage if from Buridan’s Questions on the Sophistical Refutations. It is cited by Ebbesen (1986), p. 137. Ebbesen says ‘Buridan holds that the ampliative force of ‘opinabilis’ [believable] does not extend to impossible entities’. I note that, for him, though ‘a chimera’ does not supposit for (denote) an impossible object, it does signify (mean) something, viz., ‘animal with the parts of a goat, lion, and serpent’.
- 17.
Paul of Venice (1978), p. 13.
- 18.
Imaginatio est idem cum phantasia solum addit virtutem componendi sensibilia et fingendi impossibilia. (Suárez 1978, p. 6.)
- 19.
For more on Suárez, see Silva (2020).
- 20.
See Priest (2005), esp. ch. 9 of the second edition.
- 21.
See Berto (2013).
- 22.
Technically, the power set of the collection of worlds is a subset of the domain of quantification, and an object in the domain is a situation if it is one of these.
- 23.
See Priest (2005), 6.6.
- 24.
As is probably clear, this was written before November 2016. I now no longer have to imagine this: I have to live with it; and it is not just the dictum that is horribilis.
- 25.
It isn’t: 289 = 172.
- 26.
So if we let Ψ be the operator imagines that, then \(w\Vdash a\Psi A\) iff for all w′ such that \(wR_{\Psi }w',w'\Vdash A\); where, here, \(\Vdash \) is the relation that holds between a world and a sentence which is true at it, and R Ψ is the accessibility relation for the operator Ψ and agent denoted by ‘a’. For full details see Priest (2005), ch. 1.
- 27.
A version of this paper was given at the conference The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition, University of Gothenburg, June 2016. I am grateful to those present for their helpful comments and suggestions.
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Priest, G. (2020). Imagination, Non-existence, Impossibility. In: Mousavian, S., Fink, J. (eds) The Internal Senses in the Aristotelian Tradition. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33408-6_9
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