Just an Illusion? Imagination as Higher Mental Function

Luca Tateo

doi:10.4172/2161-0487.1000216

Abstract

Imagination is a fundamental psychological higher function that elaborates meaning by linguistic and iconic sings, related to memory, fantasy and intelligence, playing a crucial role in scientific thinking, art, and societal change as well as in education and promotion of wellbeing. Contrary to the traditional understanding in psychology and philosophy, imagination is not in opposition with rational thinking and reality, it is rather a specific form of adaptation and pre-adaptation to environment through a self-regulatory process by production and elaboration of meaning. Imagination is also fundamental to guide the future oriented behavior both at individual and collective levels. Human action is based on an imaginative reconstruction of the past in function of an imagined future. Rethinking imagination in psychological sciences requires a different look at the relationship between mind and the environment. In this article such a perspective is elaborated after a short outline of the history of the notion of imagination.

Highlights

As technology enables us more and more, we become increasingly only limited by our imagination and by the memory of our past glories and mistakes
What if our psychological knowledge about imagining and its relation with other processes, like memory, was constrained by some misleading assumption? what is the role of imaginative processes in learning, economic and social activities, therapy, scientific and artistic work, social change? Does imagination mean just detachment from reality or is it a more basic psychological function? How can we appreciate imaginative processes to improve the quality of life? Psychology has in the past tended to view imagination as an intellectual process of representing and operating on unreal objects in front of the mind’s eye
I have tried to argue that imaginative processes are a fundamental part of the psyche

Summary

Introduction

As technology enables us more and more, we become increasingly only limited by our imagination and by the memory of our past glories and mistakes. In one of my previous theoretical works, I defined imagination as “a fundamental higher psychological function that is devoted to the manipulation of complex wholes of iconic and linguistic signs” [1]. The first these states that imagination is a fundamental psychological higher function that elaborates meaning by linguistic and iconic sings. In this sense, it is distinct from fantasy, imagery and simulation, being the basic function underlying them. As attenuated form of sensation, the phantasma is not able to trigger the same full sensation of the real object, but rather becomes a diminished sensory experience [8] Another form of imagination works when going from the inner mental work to the external reality; it becomes a form of action. I start presenting my initial elaboration of such a theory

The Directionality of The Psyche

Conclusion