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Single Idea 7721

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 2. Imagination ]

Full Idea

I construe Locke's thesis that our thoughts are 'composed of ideas' as the proposal that thinking (in its central form) crucially involves processes of imagination.

Gist of Idea

Locke's view that thoughts are made of ideas asserts the crucial role of imagination

Source

John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694]), quoted by E.J. Lowe - Locke on Human Understanding III

Book Ref

Lowe,E.J.: 'Locke on Human Understanding' [Routledge 2004], p.167

A Reaction

I like this, because I am struck with how incredibly wrong Descartes was about imagination, proposing that it was some trivial and peripheral aspect of the mind (Idea 1399). "Thinking just is imagination" is a plausible slogan.

Related Idea

Idea 1399 Imagination and sensation are non-essential to mind [Descartes]

The 13 ideas with the same theme [forming mental pictures, esp counterfactuals]:

24062 Self-moving animals must have desires, and that entails having imagination [Aristotle]
9098 Mental activity combines what we sense with imagination of what is not present [Aquinas]
1399 Imagination and sensation are non-essential to mind [Descartes]
17260 Imagination is just weakened sensation [Hobbes]
7721 Locke's view that thoughts are made of ideas asserts the crucial role of imagination [Locke]
21806 Memory, senses and understanding are all founded on the imagination [Hume]
7647 The imagination alone perceives all objects; it is the soul, playing all its roles [La Mettrie]
22443 We are seldom aware of imagination, but we would have no cognition at all without it [Kant]
8094 The imagination has made more discoveries than the eye [Joubert]
14769 Only imagination can connect phenomena together in a rational way [Peirce]
14628 Imagination is important, in evaluating possibility and necessity, via counterfactuals [Williamson]
6901 Understanding is needed for imagination, just as much as the other way around [Betteridge]
11081 Imagination grasps abstracta, generates images, and has its own correctness conditions [Hanna]