It is a commonplace that imagination is heterogeneous: we need to draw a series of cross-cutting distinctions even to begin any serious general discussion of the range of activities we take to be typical instances. The nature of the heterogeneity being exhibited is usually left unclear, however, and thus so are its consequences both for our understanding of imagination and for assessing certain challenges such as reductionism. Here it is argued that we can accept heterogeneity while recognizing important forms of (...) unity among the various kinds of imaginative activity. Four distinct but compatible strategies are considered, three of which have historical precedents in Aristotle’s and Hegel’s work. These proposals yield an interesting and plausible answer to the problem raised by heterogeneity, and have consequences for how we should respond to it. They share a plausible framework for thinking about the relationships among the various activities contemporary thinkers take to involve imagination. However, there are some ways in which deploying them is not straightforward, given some differences between modern approaches and older ones, and they conflict with a common thought about the epistemic status of imagination. (shrink)

Aristotle presents four causes in Posterior Analytics 2.11, but where we expect matter we find instead the confusing formula, ‘what things being the case, necessarily this is the case’, and an equally confusing example. Some commentators infer that Aristotle is not referring to matter, others that he is but in a non-standard way. I argue that APo. 94a20-34 presents not matter, but determination by general features or facts, including facts about something’s genus. The closest connection to matter is Aristotle’s view (...) that the relation between genus and species is analogous to that between matter and a hylomorphic compound. (shrink)

George Eliot strikingly describes one of her characters as making a mistake because he has gotten his thoughts “entangled in metaphors,” saying that we all do the same. I argue that Eliot is here giving us more than an illuminating description, but drawing our attention to a distinctive kind of mistake—a form of irrationality, in fact—of which metaphor can be an ineliminable part of the correct explanation. Her fictional case helps illuminate both a neglected function of the imagination, and a (...) pervasive way in which metaphor can affect it. The function is the creation and maintenance of what I call imaginative expectations, which are relatively stable imaginative representations of future events or experiences, analogous to latent memories. These imaginative expectations have a distinctive causal profile and distinct ways of interacting with other mental activities. I argue that their formation is subject to at least two norms—a “source” norm and an “experience” norm—and show how metaphorical framing can give rise to violations of either. (shrink)