Peter Langland-Hassan, "Explaining Imagination" (Oxford UP, 2020)
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What is the central question about imagination that the episode introduces?
Welcome to the New Books Network.
Hello, and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figdor, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa, and I'm co-host of the channel, along with Robert Talese, Sarah Tyson, and Malcolm Keating. Together, we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books in a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Peter Langland Hassan, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati. His new book, Explaining Imagination, is just out from Oxford University Press. How do we think about situations and things that do not exist but might? engage in pretense and fiction, and create new works of art.
These are central cases in which we're using our imaginations, but what is imagination and how should it be explained? In his new book, Langan Hassan distinguishes using mental imagery to think about things and thinking about imaginary things. And he proceeds to give a reductive account of both. On his view, imagining isn't a sui generis mental state as the received view holds. Instead, it can be reduced to more basic states, in particular, belief, desire, and intention. Langland Hassan then uses his account to explain the central cases of imagination. He defends his view against objections, and he considers how recent advances in deep learning might help explain the creative process. Let's turn to the interview.
Hello, Peter Langland Hassan. Welcome to New Books and Philosophy.
Hi, Carrie. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, so looking forward to talking about your new book, Explaining Imagination. And before we get into the book, it's always nice to hear a bit about you and how you came to study philosophy, become a philosophy professor, and then the genesis of the book.
Sure. Well, I first got into philosophy as an undergraduate at Columbia College in New York. I thought I might be an English major. I started off in that direction, but was sort of disappointed. I discovered as soon as I was forced to take a philosophy class that I'd been really chafing against ideas being proposed without some sort of argument or substantiation or rigorous chain of reasons behind them. And I felt really refreshed in the first philosophy class I took to see how much people cared about the minutiae of how arguments are put together and why you should really should think one thing and not another thing and the amazing places you can get just by trying to support yourself with reasons.
So I had a couple of great philosophy professors there, but I didn't seriously consider becoming a philosophy professor at all as an undergraduate. I was... really focused on being a rock musician, uh, which I did for a while throughout college. And then for about six years after college, I was, um, I was in a band called elk city, which had a reasonable amount of, you know, small time music success. We had a few releases on independent record labels and tours in the U S and Europe and things, but it was never, uh, financially feasible type of operation. But, you know, we were all in and having a lot of fun doing that. But gradually, you know, I started to think about other things. And I was working part-time as a legal assistant in New York.
It was a job I only had to do three days a week. to support myself with a bunch of roommates living way out in Brooklyn somewhere. And wandered into Barnes & Noble on a lunch break and happened to see David Chalmers' book, The Conscious Mind, in search of a fundamental theory. I'm not the only one. And I just picked it up and started leafing through it. And I actually hadn't done any philosophy of mine as an undergraduate at Columbia yet. And I got really sort of fascinated by the first chapter of it. And thereafter, for a couple of years, in my downtime, I started clicking around and reading other papers online. And before you know it, I was sort of having thoughts about, well, this is pretty interesting stuff.
And hey, maybe instead of working part-time...
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central question about imagination that the episode introduces?
0:00–7:14
2
How does Peter Langland‑Hassan’s personal journey lead to his work on imagination?
7:14–16:59
3
What are the two main kinds of imagining – imagistic and attitudinal – that the book distinguishes?
16:59–27:42
4
How does the author argue that imagination can be reduced to belief, desire, and intention?
27:42–37:06
5
Why does the book question the need for a separate “imagination” state in conditional reasoning?
37:06–45:26
6
How does the discussion connect imagination to creativity in everyday problem‑solving and art?
45:26–53:36
7
What insights does the conversation offer about AI, deep learning, and the future of creative imagination?
53:36–1:04:40
8
What are Peter Langland‑Hassan’s upcoming research directions beyond imagination?
1:04:40–1:10:35
Speakers
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