La imaginación: ¿Ornamento o creación de mundos?

Abstract

The word “imagination” alludes to different practices. This paper tries to answer two questions. In the first place, it tries to offer, descriptively, a general characterization listing various candidates for common properties of the different types of imagination: imaginating intervention, development of an imaginary scenario that is built from partial blockings of the truth dimension. In second place, a normative difference is drawn between fantasy and imagination using the metaphor of “walls versus bridges”: fantasy lifts “walls” against reality and, thus, mental movements become centripetal, while imagination builds “bridges” with centrifugal movements.