Imagination

Imagination Ilham Dilman Analysis, Vol. 28, No. 3. (Jan., 1968), pp. 90-97. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-2638%28196801%2928%3A3%3C90%3AI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X Analysis is currently published by The Analysis Committee.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/anacom.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.

The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

http://www.jstor.org Tue Jul 17 21:43:41 2007

IMAGINATlON

T

HE idea of imagining something, familiar as it is, can easily come to puzzle us on reflection. I may, for instance, imagine what a character in a novel I have read looks like, and I may be able to describe or paint how I have imagined him. The question may then arise as to what the description or painting depicts. Obviously it does not depict a real person, but neither does it depict a fictitious character as the author of the novel thought of him. For there may not have been any description of, or even allusion to, the character's physical appearance in the novel. Besides even if the author were to tell me that he had thought of the character very differently, I would still say 'That is how I saw him'-though perhaps I shall no longer see him that way. Obviously I did not actually see anyone with my eyes. So we are tempted to think that I saw something like a picture, though in a private space, and saw it not with my eyes but by an inward gaze. This sounds at once natural and mysterious. I say 'natural' in that it seems to describe, and describe well, the case of mental imagery. But the trouble is that the idea of a mental image now begins to puzzle us: What is a mental image? What makes a mental image I have of my absent friend's face an image of my friend's face? These are the questions I want briefly to examine, although of course mental imagery is not essential to imagination and can occur in memory or anticipation. I shall return to this point at the end of my discussion. When I see something in my mind's eye, a star, a face-that is, when I have a mental image-I am not seeing anything in the sense that I see something, a star, if I look at the sky on a clear night and I am not blind. Yet we are inclined to think that I do-namely a faint replica of what I see when I look at the sky on a clear night, one however which others cannot see: almost an after-image. The idea of something like an after-image is tempting, for an afterimage is something that may be said to be 'in the mind' and it is something that people are said to 'see'. Further, as its very name suggests, an after-image is related to something that one previously saw, and it seems to be related to it in the way that an image is related to what it is an image of. The fact that in both cases we may speak of a likeness to what we may on other occasions see with our eyes seems to confirm our idea that we have the same relation in the two cases. But the sense in which the spot I see on the wall is 'only in my mind' is different from the sense in which my absent friend's face may be 'in my mind or 90

IMAGINATION

91

thoughts' or 'before my mind's eye', and so is the sense in which I 'see' them. Similarly for the notion of 'a likeness'. The trouble is not so much that we a;e tricked by an ambiguity in these expressions as that we find it difficult to grasp their grammar in the connections which interest us. I should like to argue (as Wittgenstein has already done) that the sense in which one sees one's friend's face in one's mind's eye is akin to the sense in which one sees it in the photograph on the mantelpiece, and that the relation, in which what one sees when one looks at the photograph stands to the face in question, is very different from the one in which one's after-image stands to the figure on which one had previously concentrated one's gaze. This latter relation, like the relation between a shadow and the object that casts it, is an external, contingent one. As a matter of fact, when the figure is, say, star-shaped the afterimage is also star-shaped and not circular or triangular, but it could have been. There is evidence that this is the kind of similarity which Hume was thinking of when he spoke of the 'great resemblance betwixt our impressions and ideas'. Whereas the relation between what I see in the photograph and my friend's face is internal, in the sense that the identity of what I see is logically dependent on my thought of my friend's face. What I see in the photograph cannot be my friend's face if I do not recognize it as such, though of course the photograph may still well be a photograph of my friend. One can compare it with the relation between a proposition and what it says, an intention and what is intended, a plan and its execution, a rule and its application, a mathematical problem and its solution. Here it is important not to confuse the photograph or print and what I see in it. I can see the photograph and also my friend in it. But, as Wittgenstein rightly insisted, the verb 'to see' is used differently in these two connections, and there is a categorial, grammatical difference between the objects seen in these two uses of the verb (see Philoso)hical Investigations, p. 193). For one thing questions about the identity of the photograph and of what I see in it are answered differently. Further, as I have suggested, it is of the essence of what I see in the photograph that it should be the picture or "aspect" of something or other. These are of course closely connected, but there are other differences as well, as I shall point out further down. If I am denying that the relation between an aspect or picture and what it is an aspect or picture of is one of likeness or similarity, I do not wish to suggest that the portrait or photograph of a man may not look like the man whose portrait or photograph it is. My point is that the likeness in question is what is suggested by the portrait or photograph and is a feature of the aspect. It is a feature of what we see in the photograph, not a feature of the photograph as the shades and colours

92

ANALYSIS

on it are. It holds between the object and the aspect seen and cannot constitute the aspect2.e. it cannot constitute the aspect's relation to the object without which it cannot be an aspect at all. In The Blue Book Wittgenstein writes: 'It is quite clear that similarity does not constitute our idea of a portrait; for it is in the essence of this idea that it should make sense to talk of a good or a bad portrait. In other words, it is essential that the shadow should be capable of representing things as in fact they are not' (p. 32). The shadow of a tree may have roughly the same shape as the tree that casts it. But this in itself would not make it into a picture or portrait of the tree. T o be a picture it should be possible for the shadow to portray the tree as other than it is. In other words, it should be able to be a portrait of the tree when the similarity in question no longer holds. The argument is that if similarity did constitute the relationship we are considering then misrepresentation of an object would be impossible. But if this were impossible then neither would it be possible for paints on a canvas or lines on a piece of paper to picture or portray anything. A drawing can picture something only if it can picture it as other than it is, just as a proposition says something if it can be false. It follows that similarity cannot constitute the relation under consideration. This, in essence, is for the the same as the argument in the Tractatus Logico-Philoso$hic~.~s view that the relation of a proposition to reality is internal, that the picturing relation Wittgenstein speaks of there is based on an inner similarity between the proposition as picture and its sense or what it pictures. When we ask what underlies this possibility of accord or conflict without which nothing can picture or represent anything, we are well away in a different direction. In his 'Lectures on Religious Belief', writing about how one's mental picture of one's brother in America is connected with one's brother in America, Wittgenstein said: 'Most of all, this connection refers to a technique' (p. 68). When in The Bltle Book he wrote that it is essential to the idea of a portrait 'that it should make sense to talk of a good or a bad portrait' he was thinking of the idea of a norm. He argued in PhiZosobhical Investigations that we cannot make sense of the idea of a norm or rule in separation from a practice or technique which is part of a complicated form of life: 'A person goes by a sign-post only insofar as there exists a regular use of sign-posts, a custom' (I, 198). This is the sense in which, I argued elsewhere, the forming of a mental image is a special pattern in the weave of our lives. (See 'Imagination', Aristotelian Socieg S@)lementar_y V o l m e XLI, 1 967 .) So much for the affinity between what we see in our mind's eye and what we see in physical pictures. One important difference is that whereas in the case of a physical picture there is a distinction between what I see in it, i.e. the aspect that cannot be identified in separation

IMAGINATION

93

from my thoughts about what I see, and the shades, colours and contours that I see under that aspect, no such distinction is possible in the case of a mental image. Put it another way: Whereas in the case of a physical picture there is something over and above what I see in it, namely the painted canvas, the print, the illuminated sheet of linen, in the case of a mental image there is nothing over and above what I see in my mind's eye. This is what I take Professor Ryle to have meant when he said that the use of the concept of seeing something in one's mind's eye does not entail the existence of pictures (The Concejt of Mind, London 1950, p. 247). We fail to recognize that the concept of seeing we have here differs from the concept of seeing we employ in ordinary perceptual situations-as when we are asked to look at a tree, observe an insect, or consider the colour of a bird's wings-and so we assume that its object must be of the same grammatical kind as the various things we may be said to look at. Since it is clear that when we see something in our mind's eye what we see is not actually before our eyes we tend to think that something of the same category must be present somewhere-a private replica of it. This is a 'grammatical illusion'. Wittgenstein warns us against this tendency in our thought in connection with the aspect I see when I look at an ordinary drawing. He writes: 'Above all do not say "After all my visual impression isn't the drawing; it is this-which I can't shew to anyone".-Of course it is not the drawing, but neither is it anything of the same category, which I carry within myself' (Phihobhical Inuestigations, p. 196). This is the conception of a mental image combatted. Yet it is the misconception we are labouring under when we think that we cannot imagine something without having a mental image of it. To repeat, then, my having a mental image is my seeing something in my mind's eye, it is not anything over and above that. And this seeing is like seeing one's friend in a photograph and unlike seeing the piece of paper before one's eyes. Unlike, however, the case where I see my friend in the photograph before me, here there is nothing to correspond to my seeing something, e.g. the shaded piece of paper, which suggests the aspect or image. It follows that the features of what I see in my mind's eye-say a friend's face-are necessarily the features of his face as I see it. That is, they are features of the aspect and not of something that suggests it. It also follows that while I may come to see something in a painting or photograph that 1 had not seen at first, no such discovery is possible in the case of mental images. In the case of a painting, the relatively stable public object hanging on the wall may suggest new aspects which it had not suggested to me at first sight. There may be various reasons for this which vary from one case to another. But since the mental image I have is no more than a selfinduced aspect (as opposed to one suggested by the paints on the canvas)

94

ANALYSIS

each new feature that I see in my mind's eye necessarily constitutes a change in that image. That is why my seeing of such features could not amount to a discovery, that is, to a seeing of what was there to be seen before the seeing. I spoke of an important difference in grammar between two senses of 'see', a difference which shows itself in the way the identity of what is seen is decided. Another difference is that seeing something in a drawing or in one's mind's eye, unlike seeing the drawing itself, but like depicting, is 'subject to the will' (Philoso)hical Investigations, p. 213). I can try to bring an image before my mind or banish one that I have, and I may succeed or fail-as I cannot at will see or stop seeing the painting on the wall, only bring it abotlt that I shall see it when I do not or that I shall not see it when I do. In the latter case, for instance, I can look away from it or shut my eyes. My point is that it makes sense to try. This is not invalidated by the existence of cases where images are, as it were, thrust upon one, any more than the fact that people sometimes walk in their sleep would show that walking is not subject to the will. This point, however, is in need of further discussion, especially with reference to dreams. One important connection between forming a mental image of a face and, for instance, tracing it with one's finger in the air, drawing it with ink on paper, or describing it, is that in all these cases one may be said to be thinking of the face, to be using one's knowledge of it. Insofar as I see my friend in my mind's eye or describe to you his appearance or character he may be said to be in my thoughts. The image, the drawing and the description are different expressions of the relevant thoughts I have; they are different forms which the expression of these thoughts take. Thus I cannot have a mental image of a childhood friend's face and not think of him. This does not mean, however, that when I have the image I will necessarily be able to say whose face is before my mind. I may not be able to. But even then you may have reason for saying that I am thinking of my friend, when you see me draw or hear me describe the face I see in my mind's eye-even, that is, when I fail to give you any corroboration in what I am able to say. The image I have here may still be an expression of my memory which may later become more complete. If it does, so that I am a little later able to say that the face in question is my friend's face, this is not a piece of knowledge I derive from the image. For, as I said, the memory knowledge in question and the mental image are not external to each other. This is not contradicted by the fact that my attempt to remember something may take the form of calling up an image of it. I may, for instance, be asked whether two streets in a town I know cut each other or not, and being unable to answer the question straight off I may try to call to mind a picture of the area. This is a fairly common

IMAGINATION

95

experience with some people. A little reflection on the logic of mental images, however, will show one that it is an illusion to think that here one has derived the knowledge which the question called for from the image as one may derive it from a map of the city. As Sartre puts it: 'La comprkhension se rkalise en image mais non pas par l'image'. The knowledge in question comes to one in the form of a mental image, it is not derived from the image: it is realized in the image and not by means of it. Wittgenstein said: 'I did not infer the name from the picture; just for that reason I can say that the idea of him was already there once the picture was there' (Zettel, sec. 32). To return to the example of the face I see in my mind's eye. Supposing that a little later, while I still see it before my mind, I exclaim, 'Now I know, it's my friend's face'. This would not, of course, affectthe identity of the image, although it remains true that this identity is logically dependent on my thoughts. It would not affect it because the identity of my mental image of X is not determined by all my thoughts about X, since not all my thoughts about X are relevant to how I depict it -only those that have to do with X's appearance are relevant to it. (See Hidk Ishiguro, 'Imagination', Aristotelian Society Sufilementar_y Volme XLI, 1967, pp. 51-2.) Put it this way. I certainly cannot visualize or draw a face I have never set my eyes on. If I visualize or draw one which looks exactly like the face of a man I have never met, seen photographs or read descriptions of, I cannot be said to have visualized or drawn his face -the face of this man, say Sir Winston Churchill. There is, however, a perfectly good sense in which this image may be said to be the same as the one I may later have after I see a portrait of Sir Winston and am told it is a portrait of him. The images I have on these two occasions are the same if, for instance, my drawings of them suggest the same aspect. I spoke of the relation between a person's thoughts and the identity of his mental images and I said that my having a mental image of X is an expression of what I think X looks like. The case where I deliberately picture X as other than it is is no exception to this. For in order deliberately to picture X as other than it is I must know what in fact it looks like. That is, when I picture X (whether as it is or deliberately otherwise) my doing so is an exercise of my knowledge of its appearance in the way that my description of it is. (See Ryle, The Concept of Mind, pp. 266-9.) I mean, if I can visualize, draw or describe X then I necessarily know what it looks like. And when my description is false, my image or drawing mistaken, though I do not intend it to be, then I necessarily think of X as I have pictured or described it. Wittgenstein said: 'Images tell us nothing, either right or wrong, about the external world' (Zettel, sec. 621)-and Sartre: 'L'image

96

ANALYSIS

n'apprend rien'. While from seeing the photograph of a man I have not met I can learn what he looks like, I cannot learn anything in this way from my mental images. This is because my ability to draw or form a mental image of X, however acquired, is my knowing what X looks like--though, of course, I may know this and not be able to draw, visualize, or even in some cases describe it, if I lack the skill or aptitude for doing so. Since, however, I cannot form a mental image of X if I do not know what X looks like, I cannot find out what X looks like from the mental image I have. From a mental image I cannot acquire a piece of knowledge that I must possess in order to be able to have that image. I said that when I see something, say a star, in my mind's eye I am not seeing anything in the sense that I may see a star if I look at the sky on a clear night and I am not blind. Let me now add that if I do actually see a star I cannot have an image of it. I cannot visualize what I am actually looking at-just as I cannot make-believe that I am rich when I am and am not unaware of the fact, just as I cannot pretend there is a horse on the stage when there actually is one. If when Barrault pretends he is riding a horse I thought there was a horse there which I failed to see, say an invisible horse, I would miss the point of his performance. If there is a horse on the stage, visible or invisible, then what Barrault is doing cannot be what it is-a pretence, a miming act. Its being this logically presupposes that there is n o horse here really. Similarly my seeing X in my mind's eye, when my eyes are open and I am staring into space, logically presupposes that X is not before my eyes-or if it is, that I do not see it. Here is another reason why, when I see X in my mind's eye, I cannot be seeing an X visible to me but invisible to everyone else. As I said at the beginning of this discussion, we need not have a mental image when we are imagining something. We are, no doubt, familiar with instances where we may have imagined things without having formed any mental images. But the point in question is a logical one and the misunderstandings we have examined may well keep us blind to the facts. The need to postulate mental images arises partly from our failure to understand the kind of connection there is between knowledge and its manifestations or exercise. But, further, in what we postulate we distort the logic of mental images. Our discussion should have made this plain (see pp. 92-94). It should also have removed the need behind the idea that in every case where a man imagines something he has, and must have, a mental image. For we have seen that having a mental image of X is an exercise of one's knowledge of what X looks like, that it is not the only exercise of this knowledge, and that it has no privileged status among the other forms which the exercise of this knowledge can take-such as describing it, drawing it or merely thinking of it.

IMAGINATION

97

It has no privileged status though, of course, it has a different logic. Perhaps our most serious error here is to imagine that the peculiarities of the logic in question can lie in the mere presence of a mental image. For, as I said earlier, mental images can and do occur in other contexts. I should argue, though I cannot now develop this point, that if there were not an imaginative use of language, the form of life in which such a use of language is embedded-and I am thinking of story-telling, pretending, entertaining hypotheses, and such behaviour of which Barrault's is a sophisticated form-then my having a mental image of X coz~ldnot amount to my simply imagining it, as opposed to, say, my remembering, expecting or wishing to see X. I say 'simply' since in wishing X, for instance, one is necessarily imagining, though not imaging, X, in the sense of having X in one's thoughts. Imaginative play, story-telling, etc., are, I believe, logically more sophisticated forms of activity than relating past and present facts, and even predicting. In fact, while the latter are conceivable in the absence of the former, I do not believe the reverse is true. These points, however, need further discussion. I have concentrated on elementary but important philosophical questions regarding imagination-elementary though not necessarily easy to resolve. There are, I believe, other questions, more interesting and difficult, which do not come under the scope of the present discussion. (See my 'Imagination', loc. cit. pp. 31-6.) 1 believe that these questions have come to be neglected in contemporary discussions on imagination which have been narrow, and perhaps not sufficiently imaginative, in their interest. One of these questions concerns the nature of this very claim, and others like it: What is it for a work to be imaginative, for a person to have an imaginative mind? I cannot now discuss these questions, but I should like to say that I do not believe that we can begin to understand what is in question if we insist on concentrating on the questions that have been central to the present discussion. Universit_yof California at Santa Barbara