Two Kinds of Imaginative Vividness

This paper argues that we should distinguish two different kinds of imaginative vividness: vividness of mental images and vividness of imaginative experiences. Philosophy has focussed on mental images, but distinguishing more complex vivid imaginative experiences from vivid mental images can help us understand our intuitions concerning the notion as well as the explanatory power of vividness. In particular, it can help us understand the epistemic role imagination can play on the one hand and our emotional engagement with literary fiction on the other hand.

Automated summary

This paper argues for distinguishing between two types of imaginative vividness: vividness of mental images and vividness of imaginative experiences. Understanding these two types of vividness can help us grasp the intuitions about the concept of vividness and its explanatory power.