Key concepts
Imagination is defined in a sense as the capacity to form a mental representation of something without the stimulus of sense experience.
Imagination as means of metaphysical apprehension - Plato attributed to imagination the metaphysical role of allowing human beings to bring to mind eternal forms beyond the world of the senses.
Treatments of imagination are grounded in culture and traditions of thought, and prompt rich and complex questions on how imagination actually works.
In daily life, imagination has a particularly prominent role in entertainment for example, fictional films or television programmes.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge called imagination "essentially vital" and claimed that it "dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create"
The free range of imagination in the arts also has its confines of various kinds - sometimes in content, sometimes in medium, sometimes in form.
Imagination can take us into grim dystopias of the future or apocalyptic finales but also give us visions of hope to inspire us.
Scientist Peter Medawar points out that "Scientific theories begin as imaginative constructions"
Imagination has the power, to give us hope, create alternatives, find solutions, and bring into reality the world that in the present is only in our dreams.
Imagination contributes to our discovery and invention, our images of the world dissolved and recreated, and our potent visions of possible futures.
References:
Dombrowski, E., Rotenberg, L. & Bick, M., 2013. Imagination In Theory of Knowledge . Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp.184-192
This title provides an exploration of the differences between the brain's right and left hemispheres and their effects on society, history, and culture.
Presents a collection of games and puzzles that are designed to stimulate and improve brain power, and provides exercises that focus on five key areas of cognitive ability, including memory, attention, language skills, spatial recognition, and reasoning.
Uses a graphic novel format to trace the history of philosophy, focusing on the lives and thoughts of a number of major philosophers.
Inner workings of the brain
This sequel to 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat' contains portraits of 7 of Sack's neurological case studies. These people show us a new perspective on the way our brains construct our individual worlds.
What is the role of imagination in producing knowledge about a real world? Can imagination reveal truths that reality hides? What is the role of the imagination in understanding others?
Imagination is often identified in a narrow sense as the capacity to form a mental representation of something without the stimulus of sense experience. Traditionally, imagination has been associated with imagery and making a mental image of something. However, more recently interest in the imagination has also focused on exploring propositional imagining, or “imagining that”. The importance and power of the imagination is highlighted by a number of medical conditions which impact upon it, for example, conditions which can impair imagination such as severe autism, or conditions which can cause delusions such as severe schizophrenia.
Imagination is sometimes viewed in a broader way as being associated with creativity, problem-solving and originality. Here it might be the making of connections between otherwise disparate ideas in order to solve problems. This might be useful in model making or theory creation in the sciences and solving structural problems in the arts. Imagination is, however, also sometimes distrusted, in part because it is regarded as something that is derived in the mind of the individual and therefore subjective. Imagining is also sometimes associated with counterfactual reasoning; imagining “what would happen if …”, or “what would have happened if …”.
Imagination is also sometimes associated with possibility, in that it can be argued that only things which are possible can be imagined. In this way, the imagination is seen by some to provide evidence of what is and is not possible. In daily life, imagination has a particularly prominent role in entertainment, for example, fictional films or television programmes. However, it can be argued that imagination also plays a deeper role, for example, in moral education, developing empathy, or providing opportunity for self-expression and an increased understanding of the self.
from the IB 2015 ToK Study Guide
'You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus' Mark Twain
'The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination' Albert Einstein
To imagine is everything, to know is nothing at all. Anatole France
No amount of skilful invention can replace the essential element of imagination. Edward Hopper
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young. W. Somerset Maugham
The imagination is man’s power over nature. Wallace Stevens
Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning. C.S. Lewis
Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life. Simone Weil