Ruadhán J. Flynn is prae-doc on the research project The Limits of Imagination: Animals, Empathy, Anthropomorphism, at the Messerli Research Institute (Vienna, Austria) and a member of the Vienna Doctoral School of Philosophy. Their doctoral project combines research on dehumanization, (philosophy of) cognitive disability, and feminist social epistemology.
A post by Ruadhán J. Flynn
Imagination is typically taken to play some role in our efforts to understand the perspectives or experiences of another, in both empathic engagement and social-epistemic practice. Of particular concern – for me, as for many others – is whether the role it plays is in any way epistemically reliable, given that our situated biases and assumptions seem to shape and potentially corrupt our ability to imagine another perspective. This is frequently apparent in the imaginative efforts of non-disabled people when imagining the world from a disabled perspective. It is, for example, apparent in the widespread ableist assumptions reflected in many thought experiments deployed in philosophy: Merleau-Ponty’s portrayal of blindness in his famous example of the ‘blind man’s cane’, Jonathan Haidt’s portrayal of autism as a cold, closed, robotic personal world, or Singer and McMahan’s portrayal of severe cognitive disability as a kind of relationless non-being. Socially dominant and cross-culturally pervasive assumptions about disability frequently see it portrayed as an inherently negative, defective embodiment which can and should be eradicated. These ableist imaginaries are dramatically at odds with – and often directly contradict – the testimony and expressions of disabled people. This seems to indicate that where our situated biases and assumptions are deeply rooted, we may carry them through our imaginative efforts.
This imaginative limitation is also evident in real-world attempts at imagining disabled embodiment and perspectives. Simulation exercises are touted as empathy-building initiatives, allowing non-disabled people to understand the experience of being disabled (Shew, 2020). Common simulations include being blindfolded and asked to find your way around using a cane (to experience blindness); carrying out complex manual tasks wearing large gloves (to experience arthritis); reading a text with the letters and syntax rearranged (to experience dyslexia); and perhaps most commonly, using a wheelchair to get around a campus or other area (to experience life as a wheelchair user). Research into the outcomes of these simulations seems to indicate an increase in ‘empathic concern’ towards disabled people – however, this is with an understanding of empathic concern as merely ‘warmth’. Outcomes also include an increase in negative attitudes towards disability, increased discomfort being around disabled people, and increased fear of acquiring a similar disability. These simulations, and their outcomes, seem to again demonstrate the limitations ableist biases place on the imaginations of non-disabled people, even in well-intentioned attempts to better understand disabled experience and perspectives. The design of the simulations misrepresents forms of disability by reducing them to various kinds of lack or deficiency, ignoring the adaptive and long-term quality of disabled experience, and omitting the profoundly social aspects of disability. Unsurprisingly then, the outcomes of the simulations – that is, the participants’ interpretations of the experience – are rooted in and reinforce prior ableist assumptions about disability.
In response to social scientific research which seems to show that the motivation to imagine another’s perspective is weaker among those in positions of social privilege, some authors have proposed greater imaginative effort and attention among the dominantly socially situated. Yet, these disability simulation exercises are (arguably) well-intentioned, engaged attempts at imaginative perspective taking, by people who are dominantly situated in relation to the target marginalized social group. Yet the social and embodied biases shaping the imaginative exercise are still based on and perpetuate misunderstandings and misrepresentations of disabled embodiment, sociality, and knowledge. That even such well-meant, earnest attempts at imaginative perspective taking can not only be grievously wrong about the perspectives they imagine, but can serve to actually reinforce bias and discrimination rather than reduce it, presents a serious problem for the reliability of imagination as part of social-epistemic practice; not to mention a pessimistic picture of the road that’s paved with good intentions. And because it seems unlikely that we could avoid engaging our imagination when striving to understand another’s experience or perspective (even if we decided such a disengagement were desirable), how can we grapple with, and potentially modify, the role our imaginations play?
In her 2018 paper, “The Minded Other and the Work of the Imagination”, Anita Avramides proposes a role for the imagination which differs from that deployed elsewhere. Avramides’ account runs roughly as follows: rather than allowing me to pitch myself into your shoes and see the world from your perspective, imagination works to “weave together” my prior knowledge of myself with my prior knowledge of you (and of other people with whom I have interacted). Avramides builds her case from a Strawsonian account of perceptual knowledge which I won’t detail here, but I find this “weaving together” proposal to be helpful in (at least) three respects.
First, this idea seems sensibly modest: it seems to me a given that imagination plays some role when we try to understand or gain knowledge of another’s perspective, and the picture drawn by Avramides seems far more reasonable than the kind of extravagant imaginative exercise that would allow me to see the world through your eyes. Second, it helps explain how we fail to correctly understand each other: the epistemic, cultural, imaginative resources which I weave together are limited by the experiences I have had and the people and contexts I have encountered. When trying to understand someone whose experiences, mode of expression, assumptions, or beliefs are significantly different to those I am familiar with, my epistemic and imaginative success will necessarily be limited. Understanding will therefore be difficult to reach. Third, Avramides’ ‘weaving together’ picture leaves room for improvement – for imagination to be part of social-epistemic practice. We can acquire more knowledge and experience, both of ourselves and others; we can (actively or accidentally) increase the range of threads we might weave together, and thereby improve our capacity to understand those with very different social and embodied positions to our own.
Avramides’ account also seems to overlap usefully with discussions of understanding (qua insight) as part of scientific practice. The breakthrough moment of scientific insight is said to involve something beyond the assessment of individual propositions or rational consideration of facts; it has been argued to have a distinctly imaginative component which creates or allows for novel understanding. Perhaps the most popular quote in these analyses, from Louis Pasteur, is indicative: “fortune favours the prepared mind”. Understanding (qua insight) will not be reached without first applying oneself to learning about the topic at hand. Pasteur’s quote indicates that insight comes from something similar to Avramides’ ‘weaving together’: imagination works to get us something more than the previously held knowledge without involving some kind of rootless leap into the unknown. The imaginative aspect of understanding (qua insight) is therefore not a frivolous extra element in an otherwise neutral, objective epistemic exercise. The imaginative aspect is crucial to epistemic success.
In social-epistemic practice, it seems possible that the role or function of imagination might be in facilitating a similar kind of understanding. The practice will rely on our existing stock of knowledge, experience, beliefs etc. (both of ourselves and of others) – as such, this might clarify what is going wrong when understanding fails, and allow optimism that we might improve our ability to reach that understanding over time. The work of the imagination is to weave together these knowledges and experiences into a fuller understanding of others; allowing us to reach and incorporate knowledges from different social and embodied positions.
It seems likely that an over-reliance on imagination, and an obliviousness to the formative effects of bias, lead to the imaginative failures found in the disability simulations and philosophical representations of disability which I discussed earlier. Ableism structures social, professional, and cultural environments, leading to a forced absence of disabled people in philosophy, in professional life, in cultural institutions, and in the informal social contexts where our assumptions and biases are shaped. This means there is a dearth of relevant perspectives which might counteract ableist bias in the collective pool of imaginative resources. Indeed, ableist assumptions are so resilient that even where these perspectives are available, they are often over-ruled or disregarded. Imagination is not a substitute for listening to, reading about, learning from, and acknowledging the epistemic authority of those with more experience of certain perspectives. For imagination to be a useful – and potentially reliable – part of social-epistemic practice, it too will favour the prepared mind.
Although unknowability and unimaginability are sometimes conflated in discussions on the epistemic potential of imagination, there is a useable distance between the two. To say that one cannot know what it’s like to have an experience one hasn’t had is one position. It is not the same as acknowledging that one’s imagination is fundamentally limited by one’s range of experience. Scepticism around the social-epistemic potential of imagination often seems focused on our ability to imagine ourselves all the way into another’s perspective – and the idea that we could get there using only the imagination. I share that scepticism, but it is not an all-or-nothing game. Successfully putting the imagination to work in social-epistemic practice, especially when interacting with very different positions or experiences to our own, should mean aiming for proximity, not occupation. Acknowledging that our imaginative success is limited by our own biases and experiences does not leave the imagination with no work to do or no role to play. Avramides’ account of the work of imagination points toward this modest but cautiously optimistic position: our limits are real, but they are not static.
References
Avramides, A., 2018. The Minded Other and the Work of Imagination. In: M. Summa, T. Fuchs & L. Vanzago, eds. Imagination and Social Perspectives: Approaches from Phenomenology and Psychopathology. New York: Routledge, pp. 181-198.
Shew, A., 2020. From A Figment of Your Imagination: Disabled Marginal Cases and Underthought Experients. Human Affairs, Volume 30, pp. 608-616.