180222 SE Knowledge and Imagination (2023W)

Goals: This seminar aims to explore the role of imagining in contemporary epistemology. In particular, it addresses the question of whether and how we can gain knowledge via imagination. It is often thought that imagination can somehow serve as an epistemological guide to possibility and impossibility. Indeed, it seems crucial for philosophical and scientific thought experiments, as well as for our abilities to plan and make predictions about the future. But does the instructive use of imagination extend beyond the domain of modal epistemology? Our imaginative projections seem to play a key role in mindreading: at providing us with knowledge of other people’s minds, explaining their actions, and making predictions about their future behaviour. Moreover, even our ability to acquire moral and aesthetic knowledge seems to depend to some extent on our capacity for learning via imagination. But to what extent can imagination provide new knowledge about contingent matters of fact and enable us to learn about the world as it is? Throughout the seminar, we will attempt to address these thorny issues by discussing some relevant contributions across various contemporary philosophical contexts and perspectives, paying special attention to the limitations (or lack thereof) that each of them imposes on the epistemic significance of our imaginings.

Content: Imagination’s nature is surprisingly mysterious. In addition to those in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of psychology, imagination also invites certain central questions in epistemology. In this seminar, we will mainly focus on one of them: Can imaginings be sources of justification? Or rather, should imagination be dismissed as insufficient to generate knowledge and hence epistemologically insignificant?However, the seminar’s content will cover various aspects related to the relationship between imagination and knowledge within different domains, including the role of the former in thought experiments, mindreading, acquiring moral and aesthetic knowledge, as well as contingent matters of fact. Throughout the seminar, we will critically examine different perspectives on this topic and explore the constraints and possibilities of learning about the world via imagination.

Method: In each seminar session, we shall analyse a seminal text in contemporary epistemology devoted to the relationship between imagination and knowledge within a specific domain. These domains include but are not limited to modal, moral, psychological, aesthetic, or scientific inquiry. Students will work on the assigned papers in small groups and present them in the seminar. We will collectively discuss each view and argument in the light of traditional epistemological theories, such as foundationalism, coherentism, and reliabilism (of which students are expected to have some background). Students will then select one of the discussed issues or research questions and, incorporating the literature presented, address it in their final seminar essay. Alternatively, they may opt for a final oral exam, if required.