ABSTRACT
I have mentioned the terminological fact that ‘mental’ is occasionally used as a synonym of ‘imaginary’. A hypochondriac’s symptoms are sometimes discounted as ‘purely mental’. But much more important than this linguistic oddity is the fact that there exists a quite general tendency among theorists and laymen alike to ascribe some sort of an other-wordly reality to the imaginary and then to treat minds as the clandestine habitats of such fleshless beings. Operations of imagining are, of course, exercises of mental powers. But I attempt in this chapter to show that to try to answer the question, ‘Where do the things and happenings exist which people imagine existing?’ is to try to answer a spurious question. They do not exist anywhere, though they are imagined as existing, say, in this room, or in Juan Fernandez.
