***CANCELLED*** Imagining what it's like

Margot Strohminger (Australian Catholic University)

***EVENT CANCELLED***

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https://monash.zoom.us/j/88062345198?pwd=R1lUUGtSOXUwdTJydVlPODB3czdSUT09 

Meeting ID: 880 6234 5198

Passcode: 484858

Abstract:

Imagining What It’s Like

 Several debates in the philosophy of mind rely on the notion of ‘imagining what it’s like’. Consider how we may be asked to imagine what it is like to be a bat or what it is like to become a parent in discussions of physicalism and transformative experience, for example. However it is not especially clear what it takes to successfully carry out imaginative projects such as these or how this category of imagination connects to existing taxonomies of imagination. This talk will sketch an account of imagining what it’s like, which relates it to more familiar categories and distinctions drawn among varieties of imagination (e.g. propositional/objectual, subjective/objective). Our approach builds on recent work on other kinds of ‘what it’s like’ mental states—particularly, knowledge of what it’s like—as well as work on the semantics of ‘what it’s like’ expressions. In closing we start to consider possible limits on our abilities to imagine what it’s like. (This talk is based on joint work with Yuri Cath.)