Imagination and the Will

The principal aim of my thesis is to provide a unified theory of imagining, that is, a theory
which aspires to capture the common nature of all central forms of imagining and to distinguish
them from all paradigm instances of non-imaginative phenomena. The theory which I intend to
put forward is a version of what I call the Agency Account of imagining and, accordingly, treats
imaginings as mental actions of a certain kind. More precisely, it maintains that imaginings are
mental actions that aim at the formation of episodic representations, the content of which is
directly determined by what we want them to represent.

My defence of this version of the Agency Account happens in two stages. On the one hand, I try
to show that it is both extensionally adequate and explanatorily illuminating with respect to
those mental states or projects which are clear instances of either imaginative or nonimaginative
phenomena. And on the other hand, I seek to demonstrate that the most plausible
alternative to the Agency Account - namely the Cognitive Account according to which it is
distinctive of imaginings that they are non-cognitive phenomena and thus to be contrasted with
perceptions, judgements, and so on - is bound to fail as a unified theory of imagining.

The dissertation contains five main parts. In the first, I specify in more detail what a unified
account of imagining has to achieve and, in particular, which phenomena it is supposed to
capture. The second part presents the Cognitive Account, thereby focussing on Brian
O'Shaughnessy's sophisticated version of it; while the third part is reserved for the evaluation
and rejection of the Cognitive Account. In the fourth part, I develop my version of the Agency
Account of imagining. And the fifth and last part is concerned with the accommodation of
potential counterexamples to it.