Abstract
Suppose you’re imagining that it’s raining hard. You then proceed to imagine, as part of the same imaginative project, that you believe that it isn’t raining. Such an imaginative project is possible if the two imaginings arise in succession. But what about simultaneously imagining that it’s raining and that you believe that it isn’t raining? I will argue that, under certain conditions, such an imagining is impossible. After discussing these conditions, I will suggest an explanation of this impossibility. Elaborating on the view outlined in Walton (1990), I will argue that the impossibility follows from the fact that imaginings ‘mimic’ beliefs in aiming at the fictionally true, just as beliefs aim at the true.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 529-547 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Review of Philosophy and Psychology |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.
Funding
I am grateful to those who commented on this paper and helped sharpen the argument. In particular, I’d like to thank Anna Ichino, Peter Langland-Hassan, Julia Langkau, Nessa Olshansky-Ashtar, Alik Pelman, Eric Peterson, and Assaf Weksler for their input. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2019 SSPP annual meeting, where I received valuable feedback. I also want to thank two anonymous referees, and the ROPP Editor, for their insightful comments. This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 939/16).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Israel Science Foundation | 939/16 |