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Situated imagination
Ludger van Dijk1, Erik Rietveld2,3,4
1Centre for Philosophical Psychology, Department of Philosophy, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
|March 18, 2025
Summary
Imagination is not just individual thought but emerges from coordinating multiple action possibilities (affordances) across time. This situated perspective reveals how simultaneous affordances create an open, imaginative experience.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Phenomenology
- Architectural Design
Background:
- Traditional views position imagination as a de-contextualized, representational cognitive process.
- Emerging research challenges this by emphasizing situated and embodied perspectives on cognition.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose a relational and radically situated alternative to the representational view of imagination.
- To explore the role of affordances in the imaginative process within a real-world context.
Main Methods:
- Observational study of architects during the creation of an architectural art installation.
- Analysis of how architects coordinate actions and possibilities across different timescales.
Main Results:
- Imagination is understood not as an individual achievement but as an opening to larger-scale affordances (action possibilities).
- Architects coordinate multiple affordances, from immediate (e.g., using a phone) to long-term (e.g., installation completion).
- These affordances are co-determined through joint enactment, with imagination arising from their simultaneous, indeterminate unfolding.
Conclusions:
- Imagination is fundamentally relational and situated, emerging from the dynamic interplay of affordances.
- The indeterminacy inherent in coordinating multiple affordances allows for novel possibilities and creative expansion of activities.
- This situated, affordance-based view offers a new framework for understanding imagination in practice.
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