Published 2013-11-28
Keywords
- Imagination,
- fantasy,
- truth,
- reality,
- St. Augustine.
How to Cite
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.
References
- Moran, R. (1994). The expression of Feeling in the Imagination. En Philosophical Review, 103.
- Nichols, S., Stich, S. (2000). A cognitive theory of pretense. En Cognition, 74: 115-147.
- Walton, K. L. (1999). Mimesis as Make-Believe. On the Foundations of the Representational Arts. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press.