Mental Imagery

Abstract

Mental imagery is typically defined as a perception-like representation that is brought about in the absence of an appropriate external stimulus. Historically, mental imagery was sometimes understood to be synonymous with visual imagery, but as philosophers now use the term, it is understood that mental imagery can occur in all sensory modalities. Although the 21st century has seen an increasing amount of philosophical work exploring mental imagery in nonvisual sensory modalities, such work comes as a fairly recent development. Prior to this century, the philosophical treatment of mental imagery was dominated by reflection on the visual domain. Historically, many philosophers attributed mental imagery a central place in human cognition. Aristotle famously claimed that it is impossible for thinking to occur without a phantasma, his word for mental image. Worries about mental imagery gave rise in the 1970s and decades following to what has become known as the imagery debate.