Voluntary imagination: a fine-grained analysis

Ilaria Canavotto; Franz Berto; Alessandro Giordani

doi:10.1017/S1755020320000039

Voluntary imagination: a fine-grained analysis

Ilaria Canavotto, Franz Berto, Alessandro Giordani

Philosophy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We study imagination as reality-oriented mental simulation (ROMS): the activity of simulating nonactual scenarios in one’s mind, to investigate what would happen if they were realized. Three connected questions concerning ROMS are: What is the logic, if there is one, of such an activity? How can we gain new knowledge via it? What is voluntary in it and what is not? We address them by building a list of core features of imagination as ROMS, drawing on research in cognitive psychology and the philosophy of mind. We then provide a logic of imagination as ROMS which models such features, combining techniques from epistemic logic, action logic, and subject matter semantics. Our logic comprises a modal propositional language with non-monotonic imagination operators, a formal semantics, and an axiomatization.

Original language	English
Number of pages	26
Journal	The Review of Symbolic Logic
Volume	First View
Early online date	29 Jun 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755020320000039
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 29 Jun 2020

Keywords

Logic of imagination
Epistemology of imagination
Reality-oriented mental simulation
Aboutness
Topic-sensitive operators
Completeness

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10.1017/S1755020320000039

Canavotto-2020-Voluntary-imagination-RSL-AAM
Copyright © 2020 Association for Symbolic Logic. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the author created accepted manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755020320000039
Accepted author manuscript, 306 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

The Logic of Conceivability: H2020 ERC The Logic of Conceivability
Berto, F. (PI)
1/09/18 → 31/12/21
Project: Fellowship

Cite this

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title = "Voluntary imagination: a fine-grained analysis",

abstract = "We study imagination as reality-oriented mental simulation (ROMS): the activity of simulating nonactual scenarios in one{\textquoteright}s mind, to investigate what would happen if they were realized. Three connected questions concerning ROMS are: What is the logic, if there is one, of such an activity? How can we gain new knowledge via it? What is voluntary in it and what is not? We address them by building a list of core features of imagination as ROMS, drawing on research in cognitive psychology and the philosophy of mind. We then provide a logic of imagination as ROMS which models such features, combining techniques from epistemic logic, action logic, and subject matter semantics. Our logic comprises a modal propositional language with non-monotonic imagination operators, a formal semantics, and an axiomatization.",

keywords = "Logic of imagination, Epistemology of imagination, Reality-oriented mental simulation, Aboutness, Topic-sensitive operators, Completeness",

author = "Ilaria Canavotto and Franz Berto and Alessandro Giordani",

note = "Funding: European Research Council (ERC CoG), Grant Number 681404, {\textquoteleft}The Logic of Conceivability{\textquoteright}.",

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doi = "10.1017/S1755020320000039",

language = "English",

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TY - JOUR

T1 - Voluntary imagination

T2 - a fine-grained analysis

AU - Canavotto, Ilaria

AU - Berto, Franz

AU - Giordani, Alessandro

N1 - Funding: European Research Council (ERC CoG), Grant Number 681404, ‘The Logic of Conceivability’.

PY - 2020/6/29

Y1 - 2020/6/29

N2 - We study imagination as reality-oriented mental simulation (ROMS): the activity of simulating nonactual scenarios in one’s mind, to investigate what would happen if they were realized. Three connected questions concerning ROMS are: What is the logic, if there is one, of such an activity? How can we gain new knowledge via it? What is voluntary in it and what is not? We address them by building a list of core features of imagination as ROMS, drawing on research in cognitive psychology and the philosophy of mind. We then provide a logic of imagination as ROMS which models such features, combining techniques from epistemic logic, action logic, and subject matter semantics. Our logic comprises a modal propositional language with non-monotonic imagination operators, a formal semantics, and an axiomatization.

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KW - Logic of imagination

KW - Epistemology of imagination

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KW - Aboutness

KW - Topic-sensitive operators

KW - Completeness

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Voluntary imagination: a fine-grained analysis

Abstract

Keywords

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Projects

The Logic of Conceivability: H2020 ERC The Logic of Conceivability

Cite this