(A selection of early philosophical papers on the topic of visual imagery can be found in Block 1981; an overview of the debate is presented in Tye [1991/2000]; discussion of related issues in the phenomenological tradition can be found in Casey 2000; these themes are also examined in McGinn [2004] and Williams [1973].) Discussions of other sensory modalities have been explored less thoroughly, though some philosophical attention has been paid to the question of how motor imagery ought to be understood—whether as imagined action or imagined perception of action (Jeannerod 1997, Currie and Ravenscroft 2002); and there is a small literature on auditory imagery (primarily in the phenomenological tradition; cf. also Reisberg 1992).
A related discussion concerns the intentional status of mental images: do they derive their content through resemblance alone (an image of a maple leaf resembles and thus represents a maple leaf), or through some other mode of representation (an image of a maple leaf represents a maple leaf only as a result of being "labeled" as such)? Many analytic philosophers, following Jerry Fodor (1975) and Hilary Putnam (1981) have endorsed the latter view, though there has been some dissent.
This is a free page. This page contains 164 words. This
article contains 1,508 words (approx. 5 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our Imagination [addendum] Access Pass.
