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The Initial Claim:
The word ‘home’ does not refer to where the heart is because the referent it takes on is not any location but a direction. It’s not where, but which way.
Some Evidence:
Consider words that refer to some location, even indeterminate ones, such as ‘the bar’. Aino and Cade is talking to Maite. Aino says, “We’re going to the bar.” The natural way for Maite to understand this assertion is that Aino and Cade together are going to some bar, whose location may or may not be determined already. However, it would be very weird for Maite to understand Aino to be saying that Aino is going to the bar and Cade is going to the bar, but they might be going to different bars, i.e. different locations.
In contrast, consider words that refer directionally, like ‘left’. Aino* and Cade* is talking to Maite*. Aino* says, “We’re going left.” The natural way for Maite* to understand this assertion is still that Aino* and Cade* are going in some direction together. But it would be less weird for Maite* to understand Aino* and Cade* are going toward different locations if, say, Aino* is facing west and Cade* is facing east. In that case, it is plausible that what Aino* means is that Aino* will go toward south and Cade* will go toward north.
Finally, consider ‘home’.
Desire-like imagination, or I-Desire, is said to be analogous to desire in the same way that belief-like imagination, or imagination, is analogous to belief. There are a few different arguments for positing desire-like imagination in print. Greg Currie has given a few on the grounds of inference to the best explanation: he argues that desire-like imagination can best help us explain phenomena including affective response toward fiction and seemingly conflicting desires toward fiction (Currie and Ravenscroft 2002), and imaginative resistance (Currie 2002, in Gendler & Hawthorne). Tyler Doggett and Andy Egan similarly argue that desire-like imagination can best help us explain behaviors of pretenders who are immersed in the fiction of the pretense (Doggett and Egan 2007). I am unconvinced by these arguments and remain skeptical of desire-like imagination. But in a reading group today, I tried to provide a new motivation for positing desire-like imagination.
Take as the starting point the analogy at the beginning of this post: desire-like imagination is to desire as (belief-like) imagination is to belief. There is a tradition of differentiating belief and desire by their “directions of fit”. Belief is said to have a mind-to-world fit: the aim of belief is to represent a fact about the actual world. Desire is said to have a world-to-mind fit: the aim of desire is to make the world as the non-actual state of affairs represented. Arguably, we can also say that imagination has a direction of fit, at least when we are exercising the faculty in pretense or engagement with fiction. Imagination, I want to claim, has a mind-to-fictionality fit: the aim of imagination is to represent a fact about the (relevant) fictional world. The relationships between belief, desire, and imagination are summarized by the following table:
| belief-like mental states | desire-like mental states | |
| real world | belief (mind to world) | desire (world to mind) |
| fictional world | imagination (mind to fictionality) | ??? |
Now it seems natural to fill out ??? with a mental state that is both desire-like and about the fictional world. Desire-like imagination fits. Following through with the analogies, desire-like imagination has a fictionality-to-mind direction of fit: the aim of desire-like imagination is to make the fictional world as the non-fictional state of affairs represented.
Over the break, I saw Juno. I didn’t think it was movie of the year, as Roger Ebert acclaimed, but I liked it. It was decently funny. Being a child of the Dawson’s Creek generation, I liked the overly witty and sarcastic words of the 16-year-old protagonist, played by Ellen Page, who I have a pretty big cinematic crush on. I thought the movie was like Little Miss Sunshine, an overpraised indie darling that is cute nonetheless.
Until I talked to Sara afterwards, that is.
She pointed out that the plot in Juno ignores important issues surrounding unwanted pregnancy. The way this movie deals with abortion and child adoption seems to make it clear that child adoption is, mostly, a happier alternative. Whereas abortion is typically depicted as a traumatic event in movies (though not particularly in Juno) and thus not suited for comedy, carrying a fetus to term and give up that infant apparently is. (See Sara’s post on abortion, which gives some reasons why we should avoid overdramatizing abortion, and comments there.) Juno reinforces this all-too-common attitude that could be bad for women’s reproductive rights. Reflecting on this, I began to see the movie differently, and liked it even less. I suspect my reaction has some connection to the moralism debate in aesthetics. So, this post will try to draw out some points from this cluster of unarticulated thoughts.
Update 01/13/2008: After posting this, I found many other blog posts and newspaper articles that expressed the same sentiment, minus the philosophy mumbo jumbo. The point made in a New York Times op-ed on Juno is particularly apt.
In most cases, our pretense episodes are quarantined from reality. This is usually taken to mean that the imaginings have no effect outside of the pretense, particularly with regards to behaviors. But imaginative quarantine also fails systematically. Broadly speaking, imaginative contagion are cases where imaginings do have effects outside of the pretense, noticeably with behaviors. Tamar Gendler (2006) points to three sets of cases: visual and motor imagery, affective response, and social priming.
I think imaginative contagion is a really interesting phenomenon. There is a rich body of empirical evidence, and it seems like accounting for the phenomenon should impact our functional analysis of the mind. I am puzzled, though, about how exactly to interpret the phenomenon. What part of the mind is affected in contagion cases? Or, to put it metaphorically, what is contagious about imaginative contagion?
Recently I have been reading Ruth Byrne’s book The Rational Imagination (2005). The book turned out less relevant to the things I am interested in. To make sure it wasn’t a total waste though, I would like to raise a worry I have with the general argumentative strategy of the book.
The Rational Imagination is really two books in one. The descriptive book summarizes many interesting results of the psychology experiments Byrne and her associates have done on how people’s counterfactual reasoning tends to be influenced. When thinking about how things might be different, people tend to focus on short-term consequences of actions, long-term consequences of inactions, controllable events, and enabling (as opposed to causal) relations. Ch. 3-7 presents interesting empirical results that should be of interest to philosophers interested in modal epistemology. The normative book promises to argue that counterfactual reasoning is rational, but I am not sure she delivers on this promise. I will raise a worry for her argument, and from that, suggest some things she would need to explain in order to spell out a more complete theory of rationality for counterfactual reasoning.
The stated overarching argument of the book is as follows (208):
1. Humans are capable of rational thought.
2. The principles that underlie rational thought guide the sorts of possibilities that people think about.
3. These principles underlie counterfactual imagination.
C. Counterfactual imagination is rational.
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