Reference in Imagination: Towards a Causal Explanation

Margot Strohminger (Australian Catholic University)

[Joint work with Daniel Munro]

We seem to have a great deal of freedom to imagine what we like. Philosophers of imagination sometimes take this to suggest that imaginers have sole authority over what their imaginings are about. If I intend to imagine my cat, and act on that intention, then I necessarily succeed in imagining her. More generally, when we imagine intentionally, our imaginings are about whatever we intend for them to be about. In earlier work, we presented counterexamples to this generalization. In this talk I'll be presenting two new arguments against the claim that intentions fix reference for intentional imaginings. They consider two other kinds of imagistic mental states that are importantly related to intentional imaginings: unintentional imaginings (like mind-wandering and intrusive thoughts) and memories. In closing we start to motivate a "causal" explanation of our cases. On such an explanation my imagining is of my cat because it features an image that was (indirectly) caused by a perceptual experience or memory of my cat.