In this study, I attempt to identify a distinct role for the imagination in manipulating and organising information states. To this end, I begin with an exegesis of Aristotle's account of phantasia in De Anima. I argue against two established views of the nature of Aristotle's phantasia-the view that phantasia is merely a faculty for apprehending appearances, and the view that it is a special catch all faculty for having "non-paradigmatic sensory experiences". I then continue to argue that for Aristotle, phantasia was a distinct faculty that discriminates between experiences by virtue of recognition. Once I have established the plausibility of such a position, I move from consideration of Aristotle's idea of phantasia to an account of recent evidence provided by cognitive science for distinguishing a capacity for manipulating information which is recognition based, and conceptually distinct from reason, or "theory-driven" thought. To this end, I appeal to evidence concerning the nature of spatial reasoning, and provide an exhaustive account of the "Imagery Debate" as paradigmatic of non-theory driven cognitive capacities. Finally, I provide an account of the mechanisms that underlie the efficacy and domain of non-theory driven thought by appeal to two explanatory resources: Simulation theory, and idea of a "cognitive map".
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:324495 |
| Date | January 2000 |
| Creators | Williams, Bryn Rhys |
| Publisher | King's College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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