Imagination

Amy Kind is Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, USA. Her many books relating to imagination or consciousness include the following Routledge volumes: Philosophy of Mind: The Basics (2020), What is Consciousness? A Debate (with Daniel Stoljar, 2023), Philosophy of Mind: Fifty Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments (with Torin Alter and Robert Howell, 2024), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination (editor, 2016), Epistemic Uses of Imagination (edited with Christopher Badura, 2021), and Philosophy of Mind in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries (editor, 2019).

'Amy Kind is the world-leading philosopher on imagination, and this is her most comprehensive work on the subject to date. Written clearly and with care, it functions equally well as an introduction and as groundbreaking research. It rewards readers with an expansive and exciting vision of all the things philosophy of imagination might be.' Mike Stuart, University of York, UK'This is an impressively clear and wide-ranging book that brings together central debates about the nature of imagination with discussions of its epistemic, creative, and ethical roles. It is philosophically substantial while remaining highly accessible, and will be of enormous value both to specialists and to readers new to the philosophy of imagination.'Julia Langkau University of Geneva, Switzerland'Kind offers an exceptional introduction to the philosophy of imagination, its history, and its interdisciplinary significance. The book expertly weaves together and organizes the different strands of a rapidly-expanding subfield, and shows how philosophical examination of imagination can illuminate debates in ethics, art, epistemology, cognitive science, and elsewhere.' Luke Roelofs, University of Texas at Arlington, USA'A timely contribution to philosophy of imagination that will be of interest to newcomers and specialists alike. It combines an authoritative account of the field’s current state with a compelling defense of the “imagery theory” of imagination, which has not received the sustained scholarly attention it deserves since its original development. The book thus provides both an illuminating overview of relevant literature and fills a central gap within it.'Daniel Munro, Boston University, USA

• Acknowledgements Introduction 1. What is Imagination? 2. The Imagery Theory 3. The Recreative Theory 4. The Reductionist Theory 5. Imagination in an Epistemic Context 6. Imagination in a Creative Context 7. Imagination in an Ethical Context Conclusion. Glossary Bibliography Index