The Puzzle of Imaginative Desire.

The puzzle of imaginative desire arises from the difficulty of accounting for the surprising behaviour of desire in imaginative activities such as our engagement with fiction and our games of pretend. Several philosophers have recently attempted to solve this puzzle by introducing a class of novel m...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 89; no. 3; pp. 421 - 440
Autor principal: Kind, Amy
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Sep2011
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:The puzzle of imaginative desire arises from the difficulty of accounting for the surprising behaviour of desire in imaginative activities such as our engagement with fiction and our games of pretend. Several philosophers have recently attempted to solve this puzzle by introducing a class of novel mental states—what they call desire-like imaginings or i-desires. In this paper, I argue that we should reject the i-desire solution to the puzzle of imaginative desire. The introduction of i-desires is both ontologically profligate and unnecessary, and, most importantly, fails to make sense of what we are doing in the imaginative contexts in question.