A world without imagination? Consequences of aphantasia for an existential account of self

Bibliographic Data

ID11345600
AuthorsMélissa Fox-Muraton (ESC Clermont/PHIER, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume47
Issue3
Pages414-428
Publication date2021-04-03
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of European Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0191-6599 • E-ISSN: 1873-541X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01916599.2020.1799553
OpenAlexW2993786755
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited21

Aphantasia is a spectrum disorder, affecting the ability of otherwise healthy individuals to form voluntary or conscious mental images, and in some cases also any form of sensory representation. Although only discovered in 2010, it is now estimated that 2–3% of the population may have aphantasia – otherwise termed, the absence of a ‘mind’s eye,’ that aspect of conscious experience which so many people take for granted as part of their general way of experiencing the world. Aphantasia, although it does not imply the absence of all forms of imagination, such as perspective taking and narrative construction, is quite literally a disorder affecting the individual’s capacity to form and work with images, and thus the absence of a certain way in which consciousness engages with the image-object, distinct both from perception and thought. This paper examines how phenomenological accounts of imagination can help us to better understand aphantasia, and also the ways in which aphantasia calls into question some aspects of an existential account of self

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Existentialism · Computer Science · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Face Recognition and Perception · Mental Health and Psychiatry · Philosophy · Psychology

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