The uses and applications of the terms image imagine imagination imaginative etc make up a very diverse and scattered family. Even this image of a family seems insufficiently loose. For it be a matter of difficulty exactly to identify and list the family's members, let alone establish their relations of parenthood or cousinhood. But we can at least point to different areas of association, in each of which some members of this group of terms ordinarily find employment. I indicate vaguely three such areas claiming nothing like comprehensiveness as follows:
first there's the area in which imagination is linked with image, and image is understood as mental image: a picture in the mind's eye; or perhaps a tune running through one's head.
second there is the area in which imagination is associated with invention; and also sometimes with originality, or insight, or felicitous, or revealing or striking departures from routine.
and third there is the area in which imagination is linked with false belief delusion, mistaken memory or misperception.
My primary concern in this lecture is not with any of these three areas of association; though i shall refer to at least the first two of them. my primary topic is emmanuel kant's use of the term imagination in the critique of pure reason in connection with perceptual recognition: a use which may appear something of an outsider, but nevertheless has claims to affinity which are worth considering. i shall refer also to Hume and to wittgenstein; and the lecture in general i should say belongs to the species loosely ruminative or comparative historical; rather than to the species strictly argumentative or systematic analytical.
Well sometimes kant uses the term imagination and its cognates in what is apparently a very ordinary and familiar way; as when for example he seems to contrast or imagining something without having knowledge or experience of what is actually the case. Sometimes however, indeed more frequently, his use of the term seems to differ strikingly from any ordinary and familiar use of it. So that we're inclined to say he must be using it in a technical or specialized way of his own.
Suppose for example that i notice a strange dog in the garden, and observe its movements for a while, and perhaps also notice a few minutes later that it's still there. We should not ordinarily say that this account of a small and uninteresting part in my history, included the report of any exercise of the imagination on my part. Yet in Kant's apparently technical use of the term, any adequate analysis of such a situation would accord a central role to imagination, or to some faculty entitled imagination.
Now in both these respects there is a resemblance between and hume
Hume: like kant sometimes makes an apparently ordinary use of the term, as when he's discussing the difference between imagination and memory. Sometimes he makes an apparently technical use of it and this latent use is such that he too like Kant would say that imagination enters essentially into the analysis of the very ordinary situation i described a moment ago.
It may be instructive to see how far this resemblance between them goes.
Let's return to our simple situation both human current would say
A. but my recognizing the strange dog i see as a dog at all owes something to the imagination and
B. that my taking what i continuously or interruptedly observe to be the same object the same dog throughout also owes something to the imagination.
By both philosophers imagination is conceived as a connecting or uniting power which operates in two dimensions:
A. it connects perceptions of different objects of the same kind
B. it connects different perceptions of the same object of a given kind
It is the instrument of our perceptual appreciation both of kind identity and of individual identity; both of concept identity and of object identity. These two dimensions or varieties of connecting power are doubtless not independent of each othe, but they can, to some extent be handled separately.
I begin by referring briefly to the a dimension then i shall treat more fully of the b dimension and then come back to a.
A dimension
Kant: declares the schema to be a product of and also a rule for the imagination; in accordance with which and by means of which alone the imagination can connect the particular image or the particular object with the general concept under which it falls.
Hume: speaks in his usual way of the resemblance of particular ideas, being the foundation of a customary association, both among the resemblance particular ideas themselves and between them and their next general term. So that the imagination is or maybe ready, with an appropriate response whenever it gets a cue as it were from anywhere in this associative network.
Now how the mechanism is supposed exactly to work is not very clear either in the case of hume or in that of Kant. But the obscurity of this very point is something which both authors emphasize themselves in sentences which show a quite striking parallelism.
Thus Kant says of schematism i quote that “it is an art concealed in the depths of the human soul, whose real modes of activity nature is hardly likely ever to allow us to discover; and have open to our gaze.
Hume speaking of the imagination's readiness with appropriate particular ideas describes as “a kind of magical faculty in the soul which though it be always most perfect in the greatest geniuses and is properly what we call a genius is, however, inexplicable by the utmost efforts of human understanding”
Imagination then insofar as its operations are relevant to the application of the same general concept in a variety of different cases, is a concealed art of the soul; a magical faculty; something we shall never fully understand.
B dimension
the matter of different phases of experience being related to the same particular object of some general type this question is absorbed into a larger one though the larger question is somewhat differently conceived in each of them.
Hume: makes a threefold distinction between sense, reason, and imagination. His famous question about the causes which induce us to believe in the existence of body, resolves itself into the question to which of these three faculties or to what combination of them we should ascribe this belief that is the belief in the continued and distinct existence of bodies? Certainly he says, not to the senses alone and unassisted for i quote “when the mind looks further than what immediately appears to it, its conclusions can never be put to the account of the senses. and the mind certainly looks further than this both in respect of the belief in the continued existence of objects, when we're no longer as we say perceiving them; and in respect of the obviously connected belief in the distinctness of their existence from that of our perceptions of them.” not then to the senses.
equally certainly he says we cannot attribute these beliefs to reason; that is to reasoning based on perceptions. For the only kind of reasoning that can be in question here is reasoning based on experience of constant conjunction, or causal reasoning; but whether we conceive of objects as the same in kind as perceptions, or as different in kind from perceptions; it remains true that no beings are ever present to the mind but perceptions. All perceptions which are present to the mind are present to the mind. Hence it's equally certain that we can never observe a constant conjunction, either between perceptions present to the mind and perceptions not present to the mind; or between perceptions present to the mind on the one hand, and objects different in kind from perceptions on the other. So then not to reason either.
The belief in question then he concludes must be ascribed to the imagination, or more exactly, to the concurrence of some of the qualities of our impressions, with some of the qualities of the imagination. And here Hume launches into that famous account of the operations of imagination, which on account of its perverse ingenuity can scarcely fail to command admiration, both in the original and in the modern senses of the word.
The account you'll remember runs roughly as follows: imagination engenders so strong a propensity to confound the similarity of temporally separated and hence non-identical perceptions, with strict identity through time; that in defiance of sense and reason combined, we feign and believe in a continued existence of perceptions, where there is patently no such thing. And so strong is the hold of this belief, that when the discrepancy is pointed out, the imagination can still find an ally in certain philosophers. (locke) Who try though vainly to satisfy reason and imagination at the same time by conceiving as of objects as different in kind from perceptions, and ascribing continued existence to the former and interrupted existence only to the letter. Thus Hume’s account…
When we turn from hume to Kant it's probably the divergences rather than the parallels which we find most straight striking in this case at least at first.
and perhaps we can come at these by considering a simplistic criticism of hume for hume's account of course is full of holes. one of the most obvious, relates to his bland assertion, that the unreflective as opposed to the philosophers, take the objects of perception to be of the same species as perceptions of those objects. So the problem of accounting for the belief in its vulgar form in the continued of existence of objects is the problem of accounting for a belief which reason shows to be ungrounded and ungroundable; namely a belief in the existence of perceptions which nobody has.
now of course it's quite false that the vulgar that's you and i make any such identification, and hence quite false that they hold any such belief as Hume presumes to account for. The vulgar distinguish naturally and unreflectively, between their seeings and hearings their perceivings of objects, and the objects they see and hear; and hence they have no difficulty in reconciling the interruptedness of the former, the perceivings, with the continuance in existence of the latter, the objects. Indeed these distinctions and beliefs are built into the very vocabulary of their perception reports; into the concepts they employ; the meanings of the things they say; when they give unsophisticated accounts of their hearings and seeings of things. So Hume's problem doesn't really exist, and his solution to it is otos.
I think Kant would regard these criticisms as just, but would deny that there was therefore no problem at all for the philosopher. That's to say he would agree that the problem was not as hume conceived it that of accounting on the basis of the character of our perceptual experience for certain beliefs, that his beliefs in the continued and distinct existence of bodies, for he would agree that it'd be impossible to give accurate plain reports of our perceptual experience which didn't already incorporate those beliefs. The beliefs form an essential part of the conceptual framework which has to be employed, to give a candid and verifiable description of our perceptual experience.
But this doesn't mean that there's no question to be asked. Hume starts his investigation as it were too late: with perceptual experience already established in the character it has, he leaves himself no room to ask any such question as he wishes to ask. But we ought to ask not how it can be that on the basis of perceptual experience as it is, we come to have the beliefs in question; but how it is, that perceptual experience is already such as to embody the beliefs in question? or perhaps better, what it is for perceptual experience to be such as to embody the beliefs in question?
Now i don't want to invoke more of the complex apparatus of the critical philosophy, than is necessary to bring out the parallels with Hume that lie below or behind or beside the divergences. We know that Kant thought that perceptual experience didn't just happen to have the general character it has, but had to have something at least like this character, if experience was to be possible at all. just now we're not so much concerned with the soundness of this view as with the question of what he thought was involved in perceptual experience having this character.
One of the things he certainly thought was involved is this: “a combination of perceptions or representations, such as they cannot have in sense itself is demanded” And this phrase arouses at least a faint echo of hume's view, that sense itself could never give rise to what he calls the opinion of the continued and distinct existence of body. The reason Hume gives for this view it will be recalled, is that in embracing such an opinion, the mind looks further than what immediately appears to it. Now could Kant have a similar reason for holding that for the use of concepts of relatively permanent bodies, that is for perceptual experience to have the character it does have; a combination, such as perceptions cannot have in sense itself is demanded. I think he could have. For even when hume is submitted to the sort of correction i sketched above, there is something right about the phrase of his i've just quoted. When i naively report what i see at a moment say as a tree or a dog, my mind or my report certainly looks further than something. Not usually then what immediately appears to me, tree or dog; but certainly further than the merely subjective side of the event, of its immediately appearing to me. Of a fleeting perception, a subjective event, i give a description, involving the mention of something not fleeting at all but lasting; not a subjective event at all, but a distinct object. It's clear as against Hume not only that i do do this, but that i must do it; in order to give a natural and unforced account of my perceptions. still there arises the question, what is necessarily involved in this being the case?
The uninformative beginnings of an answer consist in saying that one thing necessarily involved, is our possession and application of concepts of a certain kind; namely concepts of distinct and enduring objects. But now as both kant and hume emphasize, the whole course of our experience of the world consists of relatively transient and changing perceptions. It seems clear that there will be no possibility of applying concepts of the kind in question, unless those concepts served in a certain way to link or combine different perceptions. Unless specifically they could and sometimes did, serve to link different perceptions, as perceptions of the same object.
Here then is one aspect of combination as Kant uses the word and just the aspect we're now concerned with. Combination in this sense is demanded. We couldn't count any transient perception as a perception of an enduring object of some kind, unless we were prepared to count and did count some transient perceptions as though different perceptions, perceptions of the same object of such a kind. The concepts in question could get no grip at all, unless different perceptions were sometimes in this way combined by them. And when kant says that this sort of combination of perceptions, is such as they cannot have in sense itself; we may perhaps take him to be making at least the two following unexceptionable because tautological points:
but this sort of combination is dependent on the possession and application of this sort of concept. That is, if we didn't conceptualize our sensory intake in this sort of way, then our sensory impressions would not be combined in this sort of way.
Second, that distinguishable perceptions combined in this way, whether they're temporarily continuous, as when we see an object move or change color; or temporally separated, as when we see an object again after an interval; but such perceptions really are different that is distinguishable perceptions.
Now of course in saying that we can find these two unexceptionable points, in kant's hume echoing dictum about combination; i'm not for a moment suggesting that this account covers all that Kant means by combination: only that it may reasonably be taken to be included in what Kant means. But now how does imagination come into the picture? that is into Kant’s picture? Kant's problem as we've seen is not the same as humes, so he has no call to invoke imagination to do the job for which hume invokes it: that is the job of supplementing actual perceptions, with strictly imaginary perceptions, which nobody has; which there's no reason to believe in the existence of, but which we nevertheless he maintains do believe in the existence of, as a condition of believing in the existence of body at all.
this evidently is not how imagination comes into Kant's picture. Still imagination does come into his picture, and the question is whether we can give an intelligible account of its place there?
I think we can give some sort of account; though doubtless one that leaves out much that's mysterious and characteristic in Kant.
To do this we must strengthen our pressure at a point already touched on. We've seen that there will be no question of counting any transient perception, as a perception of an enduring and distinct object; unless we've prepared to count different perceptions as perceptions of one and the same enduring and distinct object. the thought of other actual and possible perceptions, as related in this way to the present perception, has thus a peculiarly intimate relation to our counting or taking this present perception as the perception of such an object.
This is not of course to say, that even when for example we perceive and recognize a familiar particular object, it isn't to say that their need occur anything which we could count, as the experience of actually recalling in a particular past perception of that object; it's not in this way either that imagination comes into the picture. Indeed the more familiar the objecti the less likely any such experience is. Still in a way we can say in such a case that the past perceptions are alive in the present perception: for it would not be just the perception it is, but for them. Nor is this just a matter of an external causal relation. Compare seeing a face you think you know, but can't associate with any previous encounter, with seeing a face you know you know and can very well so associate; even though there doesn't as you see it occur in a particular episode of recalling any such particular previous encounter. This comparison will show why i say that the past perceptions are in this latter case, not merely causally operative but alive in the present perception. Of course when you first see a new and unfamiliar thing of a familiar kind, there's no question then of past perceptions of that thing being alive in the present perception. Still one might say, to take it to see it, as a thing of that kind, is implicitly to have the thought of other possible perceptions, related to your actual perception as perceptions of the same object. To see it as a dog silent and stationary, is to see it as a possible mover and barker; even though you give yourself no actual images of it as moving and barking. though again you might do so if say you were particularly timid, if as we say your imagination was particularly active; or particularly stimulated by the sight.
Again as you continue to observe, it it's not just a dog with such and such characteristics; but the dog the object of your recent observation, that you see and see it as. It seems then not too much to say that the actual a current perception of an enduring object, as an object of a certain kind; or as a particular object of that kind is as it were soaked with, or animated by, or infused with the metaphors are ashwa, the thought of other past or possible perceptions of the same object.
Let's speak of past and merely possible perceptions alike, as non-actual perceptions.
Now the imagination, in one of its aspects the first i mentioned in this lecture, is the image producing faculty: the faculty we may say, of producing representatives in the shape of images, of non-actual perceptions. I've been arguing that an actual perception of the kind we're concerned with, owes its character essentially, to that internal link of which we find it so difficult to give any but a metaphorical description, with other past or possible, but in any case non-actual perceptions. Non-actual perceptions are in a sense represented in alive in the present perception; just as they are represented by images, in the image producing activity of the imagination. May we not then find a kinship between the capacity of this latter kind of exercise of the imagination, and the capacity which is exercised in actual perception of the kind we're concerned with? Kant at least is prepared to register his sense of such a kinship, by extending the title of imagination to cover both capacities: by speaking of imagination as a necessary ingredient of perception itself
Now, in so far as we've supplied anything like an explanation or justification, of Kant's apparently technical use of imagination, we've done so by suggesting that the recognition of an enduring object of a certain kind, as an object of that kind; or as a certain particular object of that kind, involves a certain sort of connection with other non-actual perceptions. It involves other past and hence non-actual perceptions, or the thought of other possible and hence non-actual perceptions of the same object, being somehow alive in the present perception. And the question arises: whether we can stretch things a bit further still, to explain or justify the apparently technical use of imagination in connection, with our power to recognize different and sometimes very different particular objects, as falling under the same general concept?
This is reverting to the a dimension that i mentioned at the beginning.
well we can begin by making the platitudinous point, the possession of at least a fair measure of this ability, the ability to recognize different items as falling under the same concept; in the case of say the concept of a tree, is at least a test of our knowing what a tree is; of our possessing this concept of a tree. We can progress from this point to another, both less platitudinous and more secure. Namely that it would be unintelligible to say of someone but whereas he could recognize this particular object as a tree, he couldn't recognize any other trees as trees. It wouldn't make sense to say it was wrong. but if we say it is wrong if we say that the character of the momentary perception itself depends on this connection with this general power, then haven't we in this case too, the same sort of link between actual and non-actual perceptions ;now of other things as we had in the previously discussed case between actual and non-actual perceptions, then of the same thing?
but if so then we have another reason, similar to the first though not the same as it for saying that imagination in an extended sense of the word, is involved in the recognition of such a thing as the sort of thing it is. Once more, this isn't a matter of supposing that we give ourselves actual images, either of other trees perceived in the past or of holy imaginary trees not perceived at all; whenever in an actual momentary perception, we recognize something as a tree. It's not in this way, that is by being represented by actual images, that non-actual perceptions enter into actual perception. They enter rather in that elusive way of which i tried to give an account. But may we not hear again for this very reason find a kinship between perceptual recognition and the more narrowly conceived exercise of the imagination? enough of a kinship perhaps to give some basis for kant's extended use of the term, in this connection too? Perhaps in this connection for humes as well.
now it doesn't of course matter very much: whether we come down in favor of, or against, this extended or technical application of the term imagination. What matters is whether, in looking into possible reasons or justifications for it, whether we find that any light is shed on the notion of perceptual recognition? and
here i want to summon a third witness from a different century our own. the third witness is Wittgenstein. I consider his evidence first without any reference to any explicit use by him of the term imagination, and then i refer to some of his own uses of the terms of this family. In the philosophical investigations Wittgenstein says: “we find certain things about seeing puzzling because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough.” This comes nearly at the end of 20 pages which he diverts the discussion of seeing as the discussion of aspects, and changes of aspect. Nearly all the examples he considers, as far as visual experience is concerned, are of pictures, diagrams, or signs, which can present different aspects; can be seen now as one thing now is another. He's particularly impressed by the case where they undergo a change of aspects under one's very eyes as it were. The case where one suddenly struck by a new aspect. What i think he finds particularly impressive about this case, is the very obviously momentary or instantaneous character of this being struck by a new aspect. Why does this impress him so much? Well to see an aspect in this sense of a thing, is in part to think of it in a certain way; to be disposed to treat it in a certain way; to give certain sorts of explanations, or accounts of what you see. In general to behave in certain ways. But then how he asks, in the case of seeing an aspect, is this thinking of the thing in a certain way related to the instantaneous experience: the suddenly seeing it as such and such a thing?
We could perhaps imagine someone able to treat a picture in a certain way, painstakingly to interpret it in that way; without seeing the relevant aspect, without seeing it as what he was treating it as at all. But this doesn't help us with the case of the instantaneous experience. It would be quite wrong to speak of this case, as if there were merely an external relation inductively established between the thought the interpretation of it as a so-and-so; and the visual experience. It would be quite wrong to say for example that “i see the x as a y” means “i have a particular visual experience which i found that i always have when i interpret the x as a y”. So wittgenstein casts around for ways of expressing himself, which will hit off the relation. Thus we have this from him: the flashing of an aspect on us seems half visual experience, half thought. Or again he says of a different case “is it a case of both seeing and thinking, or an amalgam of the two, as i should almost like to say?” O again of yet another case he says “it's almost as if seeing the sign in this context, under this aspect were an echo of a thought: the echo of a thought in sight, one would like to say.” besides these metaphors of wittgenstein, the echo of a thought in sight we might put others: we might say the visual experience is irradiated by or infused with the concept, or it becomes soaked with the concept.
now wittgenstein talks mainly of pictures or diagrams; but we must all have had experiences like the following: I'm looking towards a yellow flowering bush against a stone wall, but i see it as yellow chalk marks scrawled on the wall. and then the aspect changes, and i see it normally, that is i see it as a yellow flowering bush against the wall. On the next day, however i see it normally that is i see it as a yellow flowering bush against the wall all the time. Some persons, perhaps with better eyesight, might never have seen it as anything else, might always see it as this. Now no doubt it's only against the background of some such experience of change of aspects, or the thought of the possibility of such a experience, that it's quite natural and non-misleading to speak in connection with ordinary perception of seeing objects as the objects they are. But this doesn't make it incorrect or false to do so generally.
Wittgenstein was perhaps over impressed by the cases where we're suddenly struck by something: be it a classical change of figure aspects, or the sudden recognition of a face, or the sudden appearance of an object, as when another example, of his an ordinary rabbit say bursts into view in the landscape. But there are clearly distinctions between cases, but there are also clearly continuities. There's no reason at all for making a sharp conceptual cleavage, between the cases of sudden eruption and other cases. We can allow that there are cases where visual experience is suddenly irradiated by a concept, and cases where it's more or less steadily soaked with the concept. I quote once more “we find certain things about seeing puzzling because we don't find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough. And perhaps we should fail less in this respect if we see, that the striking case of the change of aspects merely dramatizes for us a feature, namely seeing as, which is present in perception in general.”
Now how do we bring this to bear on Kant?
well there's a point of analogy and a point of difference: the thought is echoed in the sight; the concept is alive in the perception.
But when wittgenstein speaks of seeing as as involving thinking of heirs as involving the thought or the concept, he has in mind primarily a disposition to behave in certain ways: to treat or describe what you see in certain ways. such a disposition itself presupposing in a favorite phrase of his “the mastery of a technique”. This is the criterion of the visual experience, the means by which someone other than the subject of it must tell what it is. This taking us on to familiar Wittgenstenianian ground gives us indeed a peculiarly intimate link between the momentary perception and something else. But the something else for him is behavior, and so the upshot seems remote, from the peculiarly intimate link we labored to establish in connection with kant's use of the term imagination.
the link, that is between the actual present perception of the object, and other past or possible perceptions of the same object, or of other objects of the same kind.
but is it really so remote? Wittgenstein's special preoccupations pull him as always to the behavioral side of things, to which Kant pays little or no attention . But we can no more think of behavioral dispositions as merely externally related to other perceptions, then we can think of them as merely externally related to the present perception; thus the relevant behavior in reporting an aspect may be to point to other objects of perception; or in the case of seeing a real as opposed to a picture object, as a such and such; the behavioral disposition includes, or entails a readiness for or expectancy of other perceptions of a certain character of the same object. and sometimes this aspect of the matter, the internal link between the present and other past or possible perceptions, sometimes this comes to the fore in Wittgenstein’'s own account. thus of the case of sudden recognition of a particular object an old acquaintance he writes i quote “I meet someone whom i've not seen for years. I see him clearly but fail to know him. suddenly i know him. I see the old face in the altered one.” again he says of “the dawning of an aspect what i perceive in the dawning of an aspect is an internal relation between the object and other objects.”
I mentioned the fact that there are points in these pages at which wittgenstein himself invokes the notion of imagination and an image, and i shall discuss these points now.
he first invokes these notions explicitly in connection with one of his diagrammatic examples: the drawing of a triangle, a right angled triangle with the hypotenuse down most and the right angle upwards. this triangle he says “can be seen as a triangular hoe, as a solid as a geometrical drawing, as standing on its base, as hanging from its apex, as a mountain, as a wedge, as an arrow or a pointer, as an overturned object which is meant to stand on the shorter side of the writing, as a half parallelogram, and as various other things..” and later he reverts to this example and says “the aspect of the triangle, it is as it is as if an image came into contact, and for a time remained in contact with the visual impression.” And he contrasts some of the triangle aspects in this respect with aspects of some other of his examples, thus referring to the duck rabbit: the famous case of the picture, which can be taken can be seen either as a picture of a duck one way up, or a picture of a rabbit another way. or the double cross which can be seen either as a black cross on a white ground, or a white cross on a black ground he says of these “it's possible to take the duck rabbit simply for the picture of a rabbit; the double cross simply for the picture of a black cross. But it's not possible to take the bare triangular figure for the picture of an object that has fallen over: to see this aspect of the triangle demands imagination.” so here he uses the word imagination in connection with a contrast between seeing some aspects, and seeing others. But later still he says something more general about seeing aspects he says “the concept of an aspect is akin to the concept of an image. the concept i am now seeing it as is akin to i am now having this image. Doesn't it take imagination to hear something as a variation on a particular theme? and yet one is perceiving something and so hearing it?” and again on the same page he says that “seeing an aspect and imagining are to the will” now it's clear that in these references to imagination to images wittenstein, is doing at least two things not wholly conciliant things:
on the one hand he's contrasting the seeing of certain aspects, with the seeing of others; and saying of some only that they require imagination. and further some of these are cases in which an image is as it were in contact with the visual impression.
on the other hand, he's saying that there is a quite general kinship between the seeing of aspects and the having of images. Though the only respect of kinship he mentions, is that both are subject to the will.
now perhaps we can make something of both of these as regards.
the first thing he's doing the contrast he's making: it seems obvious that there's a continuity here with a whole host of situations, in which there is some sort of departure, from the immediately obvious or familiar or mundane or established or superficial or literal way of taking things; in which there's some sort of innovation or extravagance or figure or trope or stretch of the mind or new illumination or invention; though of course what is obvious and familiar and what isn't may be a matter of experience and training. thus beginning from such simplicity is as seeing a cloud as a camel or formation of stalagmites as a dragon, or a small child at a picnic seeing a tree stump as a table; beginning from these, we may move on to such diverse things as: the first application of the word “astringent to a remark” or to someone's personality, or to wellington at salamanca saying “now we have them” and seeing the future course of the battle in an injudicious movement of the french.. or to the sensitive observer of a personal situation seeing that situation as one of humiliation for one party and triumph or another; or to a natural or even a social scientist, seeing a pattern in phenomena which has never been seen before, and introducing as we say new concepts to express his insight; or to anyone seeing keeble college oxford or bailly or chapel as their architects met them to be seen… porter blake seeing eternity in a grain of sand and heaven in the wild plant and so on…
now in connection with any item in this rather wild list, the words imaginative and imagination are appropriate the only to some of them is the idea of an image coming into contact with an impression appropriate. But we have to remember that what is obvious and familiar and what isn't, is at least to a large extent a matter of training, and experience, and cultural background; so it may be in this sense imaginative of elliot to see the river as a strong brown god, but less so of the members of a tribe who believe in river gods. It may in this sense call for imagination on my part, to see or hear something as a variation on a particular theme; but not on the part of a historian of architecture, or a trained musician. what is fairly called exercise of imagination for one person or age group or generation or society, may be the merest routine or another.
to say this is not of course in any way to question the propriety of using the term imagination, to mark a contrast in any particular case with routine perception in the application of a concept. it's simply to draw attention to the kind or kinds of contrast that are in question, and in doing so to stress resemblances and continuities, between contrasted cases. It shouldn't take much effort, to see the resemblances and continuities, as at least as striking as the differences; and so to sympathize with that imaginative employment of the term imagination, which leads both hume and Kant to cast the faculty, for the role of chief agent in the exercise of the power of concept application in general, over a variety of cases.
To see why hume described it as “a magical faculty”, which is most perfect in the greatest geniuses, and is probably what we call a genius.
So we find a continuity between one aspect of wittgenstein's use of the term, and one aspect of hume”s and Kant’s. what of the other side of wittgenstein's use, where he finds a kinship in all cases between seeing an aspect and having an image? but let's consider the character of wittgenstein's examples:
some of them are what might be called of essentially ambiguous figures like the duck rabbit or the double cross; others on the other hand are very thin and schematic, like the case of the triangle. If we attend to the essentially ambiguous figures, it's clear that imagination in the sense just discussed wouldn't normally be said to be required, in order to see either aspect of either; for both aspects of each, are entirely natural and routine; only they compete with each other in a way which isn't usual in the case of ordinary objects. We can switch more or less easily from one aspect to another, as we can't normally do with ordinary objects of perception. But we might sometimes switch with similar ease in what on the face of it are ordinary cases: thus standing at the right distance from my yellow flowering bush, i can switch from seeing it as such to seeing it as yellow chalk marks, crawled on the wall. So if the affinity between seeing aspects and having images, is simply a matter of subjection to the will, and if subjection to the will is thought of in this way as ease of switching; then the affinity is present, in this case as in the case of visually ambiguous figures.
But now if we think about this matter of ease of switching, we may think that the difference between cases where there is ease of switching, and cases where there's not, is a relatively trivial difference; and we should reflect too, the subjection of seeing as to the will, may be a matter of degree; and that also the having of images, may not be always and altogether subject to the will. One may be haunted or tortured by images, whether a recall or foreboding, for which one vainly seeks distraction; but cannot dismiss or escape the return of, if dismissed. Or alternatively one may fail to picture something in one's mind, when one tries. So is there perhaps a deeper affinity, between seeing as, and having an image? One which goes beyond this matter of subjection to the will, and can be found in general between perception and imaging? surely there is.
it's already been expressed in saying that the thought or as Kant might prefer the concept is alive in the perception, just as it is in the image: the thought of something as an x or as a particular x, is alive in the perception of it as an x or as a particular x; just as the thought of an x or a particular x, is alive in the having of an image of an x or a particular x. this is what is fashionably expressed in speaking of the intentionality of perception, as of imaging; but the idea is older than the terminology, for the idea is in Kant. Of course it's essential to this affinity, that the having of an image like perceiving, is more than just having a thought; and that the more that it is, is what justifies us in speaking of an image, as an actual representative of a non-actual perception, and justifies hume for all the danger of it in speaking of images as faint copies of impression. as for the differences between them, both in intrinsic character and in external causal relations, there's perhaps no need to stress those here.
Now finally. i've remarked once already, and will remark again that it doesn't really much matter whether or not we choose to endorse kant's method of expressing his insight: that is by means of that extended or technical use of the term imagination, which we've been discussing. what matters is that we should have a just sense of the very various and subtle connections, continuities and affinities; as well as differences which exist in this area. the affinities between the image having power, and the power of ordinary perceptual recognition the continuities between inventive or extended or playful concept application and ordinary concept application in perception – these are things of which we may have a just a sense as a result of reflection on kant's use of the term imagination. even in this second case as a result of reflection upon hume's use of the term. a perspicuous and a thorough survey of the area is as far as i know something that does not exist, though wittgenstein's pages and this is why i refer to them so much contain an intentionally unsystematic assemblage of some materials for such a survey [Applause]