ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that imagining of the kind occasioned by art can be held non-occurrently without delusion and can motivate. As such, certain features of imagination can be understood in a new light. Cognitive theories of art that are treated as the standard are grounded in contradictions and confusion. Given that they claim that art as art engages imagination and art as art increases understanding by providing insights, then the implication is that imagining can provide insight. An alternative to a cognitive account of art is an aesthetic account. The standard aesthetic account which is presented by cognitive theorists holds that to engage with art as art involves engaging with the expressive, figurative, and formal properties of the work for their own sake. If we learn from art as art then we learn from art in virtue if the imagining it engages.