Imagination: Process and Possibility

Abstract

Introduction:  Henry David Thoreau once said: The question is not what you look at, but what do you see?  The question is not so much what the various objects, people, and events are that exist in our environment, or how their existence impinges on our sensory surfaces, but rather it is how they are perceived by the individual.  A central thesis of this paper is that imagination has a crucial role in all aspects of our cognitive life including how we perceive and interact with our environment.  Mark Johnson has put the point aptly as follows: "imagination is central to human meaning an rationality for the simple reason that what we can experience and cognize as meaningful, and how we can reason about it, are both dependent upon structures of imagination that make our experience what it is."  This raises many specific questions, such as the following: Exactly what role does imagination have in our perception and perceptual knowledge?  Just how are we to understand the concept of imagination?  It is just a matter of having an image, or some discursive thought, or does it involve something more, like constructing new possibilities?  It would seem reasonable to assume that imagination is not just a capacity to form images: rather, it should be seen as a much broader cognitive capacity involving many functions and skills.  Further what influences and constraints, positive or negative, are placed on imagination by society and education?