Imagination and Creativity: A Necessary Connection?
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Imagine inhabiting a world where the act of imagination is something simply impossible; individuals lack the inherent ability to conjure mental images, concepts or alternative scenarios beyond the immediately perceivable reality. I think you will agree with me that living in such a world would be quite tedious, besides being quite hard to imagine (forgive the jest!) how it would work in practice. Amy Kind invites us to reflect on the pervasive nature of imagination from page 2 of her book Imagination and Creative Thinking: we ‘use imagination to engage with fiction, to problem solve, and to try to figure out where we left our car keys!’ (Kind 2022: 2). Considering just one aspect of human life, one that the readers of this journal hold dear – philosophy – the significance of imaginary thinking is apparent. How could we follow Descartes in his doubts regarding whether to believe our senses or not if we were unable to imagine an evil demon intending to deceive us? Likewise, understanding the phenomenon of superposition would be much harder if we could not engage our imagination – and sympathy – in pondering the health status of Schrödinger’s cat.
Source: Analysis
Author: Caterina Moruzzi
Institution: University of Edinburgh
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4412417913