Chantal Yoshino 

Philosophy of Mind Exposition: perception of the real world translated through imagination

spring 2023

John Locke, a philosopher who tackles knowledge and its relationship with perception argues that experience is the derivative of knowledge. As we grow older, the experiences we perceive begins to shape our understanding of the world and knowledge. This argument is a concept that other philosophers like Immanuel Kant incorporate within his analysis of the imagination and the relationship to perception. In Locke’s essay Concerning Human Understanding, he states that “perceptions are produced in us by exterior causes, affecting our senses”. This means that throughout the experiences we are faced with, we learn our thoughts and emotions. As humans go through more emotional and physical experiences, we are able to develop thoughts, ideas, and beliefs through our experiences. We can look at babies as a prime example of how perception affects understanding. As a baby, there is no understanding of how to communicate ideas, emotions, or beliefs due to a lack of exposure to language. And because this is the case, a baby learns that through basic emotions such as crying, laughing, and smiling, they can express how they feel. Furthermore, when a baby cries, it learns that their parents will cater to their crying. Through these repetitive perceptual experiences, they slowly develop thoughts and ideas.

P.F Strawson, another philosopher who talks about Perception and Identity, says “perception provides us with direct access to reality, and a faithful perception of the world”. This ‘faithful’ perception is the type of perception that is needed for us to accept the world as how we perceive it in order to make reasonable judgements. “Our perceptual judgements embody or reflect a certain view of the world, as containing objects, variously propertied, located in a common space and continuing in their existence independently of our interrupted and relatively fleeting perceptions of them. Our making of such judgements implies our possession and application of concepts of such objects”. These judgements can be very simple and it is how we recognize concepts, like the use of a chair or a cup. The perceptual judgements could also have a greater effect on our life, like choosing a career path or developing a music taste. As we begin to experience more life, we begin to form more judgements about the world and the objects of our perception. There are many factors to think about within the perceptual experience, and judgment allows us to process the perception in simpler terms, which is necessary to understand future perceptual experiences. Referring back to Locke’s argument that perception affects our senses, Strawson’s argument adds to this, as we learn to make judgements through understanding perceptual experiences as they become patternized. “The pain of heat or cold, when the idea of it is revived in our minds, gives us no disturbance; which, when felt, was very troublesome, and is again, when actually repeated: which is occasioned by the disorder the external Object causes in our Bodies, when applied to it”. Consider the example with a baby; a baby's first encounter with a dog - if the dog were to bite them, the baby may form the belief that all dogs are aggressive due to lack of experience with dogs. However, repeated experiences with friendly dogs could alter this perception, leading to a more nuanced and accurate judgment. Therefore, we can come to the understanding that our perceptual experiences play a crucial role in shaping our judgments and ultimately our understanding of the world

Strawson further delves into how perception affects other mental states, like imagination. First, when referring to imagination, I am referring to what certain philosophers consider to be the voluntary mental activity of the ability to create mental images, scenarios, and concepts that are not directly experienced through the senses. Many philosophers have debated over how much the imagination impacts other mental states like beliefs and thoughts, as well as the sensory perception. In P.f Stawson’s essay Perception and Imagination, Strawson argues that Perception does not have ‘unity’, it only has parts. The imagination plays the role of ‘connecting’ these other perceptual experiences with one another. “It is not in this way, that is, by being represented by actual images, that non-actual (past or possible) perceptions enter into actual perception.”. One example of this is when we look at a painting. Our perception of the painting is not unified, but rather a combination of different parts, such as color, shape, and texture. The imagination then works to connect these different parts to form a coherent perception of the painting as a whole. From P.F Strawson’s argument, the conclusion can be made that there is a clear relationship between the imagination and perception, but the extent that the two affect each other still needs to be defined. Considering how the perceptual experience affects the imagination and vice versa, the question can be asked how a lack of perceptual experience can affect the imagination. “It seems reasonable to suppose that there would be no question 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” . This quote from Strawson specifically highlights how perceptual experiences shape our imagination and conceptual understanding. If we lack certain perceptual experiences, our imagination may not be able to create the same concepts or link different perceptions as perceptions of the same object. When a person sees a zebra, they can easily imagine a zebra. However, someone who has never seen a zebra may try to imagine it by combining the idea of a horse, the colors black and white, and stripes. Arguably, their mental image of a zebra is likely to be less accurate than someone who has actually seen a zebra. This highlights the significance of perceptual experiences in shaping our imagination and the accuracy of our mental representations. That being said, the imagination may work harder when a person lacks perceptual experience. A lack of perceptual experiences forces the imagination to connect a variety of perceptual experiences in order to create a mental image. Studies show that the imagination in adolescence is much more creative than that of an adult, so the question can be asked if a lack of perceptual experiences is why the imagination becomes more active in adolescence. Before answering this question, it is important to clarify how imagination and knowledge are connected. Children lack patterns of perception that develop overtime into adulthood, so although the imagination works harder, the mind still lacks the necessary information to develop ideas that can be applicable into the real world. To further understand this, Amy Kind’s essay “Imagination and Knowledge” touches on how the imagination can be used to develop new ideas that do not exist in the real world. Additionally, she argues that “we often use imagination to help us represent various options when we are reasoning about what to believe'' (230). Kind contributes to Strawson’s argument, adding that the imagination can be used as a justificatory process when addressing the perceptual experience. “The fact that imagining is subject to the will does not mean that the imaginer’s mind acts “in direct opposition” with reality.” (241). The imagination can be used to develop new ideas using parts of past perceptual experience, but the imagination can also justify the imagination’s existence in the physical world.