Steve Humbert-Droz was granted a Postdoc.Mobility from the SNSF and he is currently based at Umeå University (Sweden). His project aims to (i) understand the notion of intelligence as it is used in psychology and (ii) explore the interactions between imagination and intelligence. His other interests include imagination, aesthetics, and emotions. Outside academia, he enjoys pen-and-paper RPG, German expressionist films, Oscar Wilde, and tasty whiskies.
A post by Steve Humbert-Droz
In this blog, the game consists of making as many connections between any topics and imagination as possible. Sometimes, like today, these connections seem almost scandalous: what could be further from imagination than intelligence? They even appear antithetical: meticulous scientists can lack mental images (Galton, 1880); conversely, Art Brut artists create highly imaginative works despite cognitive impairments. This prejudice dates back at least to Hume (1738: 118), who defines (one sense of) imagination as the opposite of reason.
Of course, some precise senses of imagination are more compatible with intelligence — think of Kant’s synthesizing faculty. But in a broader sense, imagination and intelligence share striking similarities: both apply across various tasks (domain-general), come in degrees, are unequally distributed across the population, and are partially normative (it is better to have a lot of them).
Perhaps due to these similarities, some types of imagination seem to play a central role in intelligence. Moreover, debates over their definition and scope mirror each other. This post explores these two connections between imagination and intelligence, with the aim that philosophical investigation into both fields may benefit from each other.
1. Similar Debates ─ Definitions and Scope
There is no consensus around a robust definition of either intelligence or imagination. Readers of The Junkyard know by heart that there are up to twelve senses of imagination (Stevenson, 2003), whereas human intelligence has been defined in 53 ways (Legg & Hutter, 2007). The most provocative one is certainly Boring’s definition (1933: 34) that “Intelligence is what the tests test” — a way of admitting there are no good definitions, only…boring statistical approaches to intelligence. This might stem from (a) a lack of consensus on key features of these concepts, leading to (b) inflationism.
a. Lack of consensus features
All mind-related concepts are debated, but what sets intelligence and imagination apart is the lack of agreement on the relevant criteria a phenomenon must meet to be considered part of the concept. In imagination research, some suggest that experience is a necessary feature of imagination (Balcerak Jackson, 2016), yet it has been criticized for arbitrarily excluding supposition (Arcangeli, 2018). Conversely, Ryle’s (1949) claim that imagination involves “pretending to V” is overly broad — encompassing behaviors such as lying in court or practicing boxing with a sparring partner (idem: 135 & 241).
As for intelligence, three quasi-consensus features emerge: intelligence must be domain-general, flexible (adapting to circumstances), and goal-oriented adaptive (allowing agents to achieve self-set goals in order to comply with or change the world) (Coelho Mollo, 2022). Yet, while rarely contested, these criteria are vague enough to apply to any skill, ability, or virtue. For example, Sternberg (2003) recently incorporated moral wisdom in his list of intelligent processes — causing a collapse of the theoretical/practical distinction.
b. Inflationism
As the previous example states, lack of definition and clear features potentially lead to a preoccupying expansion of these concepts. When asked, “How many types of intelligence are there?” a traditional psychometrician would likely respond, “Only one.” Intelligence is a genus concept with multiple species. In the three-stratum model, specific skills (e.g., math skills) at the first level are underpinned by broader abilities — up to 16, including fluid intelligence (Gf), crystallized intelligence (Gc), visual intelligence (Gv), and mental quickness (Gs),…. Since these abilities correlate positively, a unique factor, general intelligence (g), is postulated at the third level to rule them all (Flanagan & Dixon, 2014). I.Q. assesses multiple tasks to approximate broad abilities and g.
However, just as the imagination’s scope nowadays extends far beyond sensory imagination, some argue that intelligence includes abilities beyond the three-stratum model, such as emotional (Goleman, 1995), practical (Sternberg, 1999), musical, ecological intelligence (Gardner, 1999), and so one. And, just as Meinong (1902) (un)famously argued that there are as many imaginative states as genuine states, the prize for inflationism goes to Guilford (1988), with no less than 180 distinct intelligence abilities.
Here, research on imagination can offer insights for intelligence scholars. Many imagination researchers resist inflationism by proposing to break imagination down into fundamental building blocks (Langland-Hassan, 2020), distinguishing primary from secondary senses (Kind, 2013), or listing uncontroversial symptoms that qualify a state as an imaginative candidate (Humbert-Droz, 2023). Applying these deflationary strategies to multiple intelligences could certainly help debunk some claims.
2. Interactions ─ Types of imagination and intelligence
In psychometrics, some imaginative states are directly connected to intelligence. This time, psychology can offer a fresh perspective. Let us explore two cases in sensory imagination and creativity.
a. Sensory imagination
In the three-stratum model, visual intelligence (Gv) underlies the use of sensory imagination — given that Gv (and Gf, often associated with non-verbal tasks) are tested using mental rotation tasks of objects. Imagination scholars are familiar with this task, as aphantasics are able to perform it (albeit more slowly) despite their inability to generate quasi-sensorial experiences (Zeman et al., 2010; 2020). This successful performance leads several scholars to hypothesize unconscious mental images to explain such results (Phillips, 2014; Nanay, 2021; Michel et al, 2024).
However, aphantasics report using alternative strategies. Anecdotally, when I interviewed aphantasics, they reported using their hands or squares on paper to solve the tasks (Humbert-Droz, 2023). From a psychometric standpoint, such strategies aren’t surprising. Since intelligence is flexible and adaptive, individuals with an average to superior IQ are expected to find ways (direct or indirect) to solve cognitive tasks.
Moreover, the object rotation tasks in IQ tests are designed to be solvable by anyone, as the aim is to measure performance deviation from the average. Again, it isn’t particularly surpising that a normally intelligent person is able to solve an easy task.
In a nutshell, what seems baffling from an imagination perspective is banal from an intelligence standpoint. This comforts Scholz’s view (2024) that (some) philosophers fall into the visualizer’s fallacy — the false belief that mental imagery is necessary to perform a mental imagery task.
b. Creativity
Imagination is often conceived as a necessary ingredient of creativity (Picciuto & Carruthers, 2014; Hills & Bird, 2019; Stokes, 2014). That being said, philosophers often refer to a minimal sense of imagination, which can be summarized as the ability to (i) entertain content without committing to its truth and (ii) explore what would happen if that content were the case. I agree with Langland-Hassan (2020: Chap. 12) that such a minimal sense of imagination can be reduced to ordinary cognitive mechanisms. Here is an argument drawn from research on intelligence.
Philosophers assume that minimal-imagination is domain-general: it underlies problem-solving (Hills & Bird 2019), concept acquisition, skill learning (Stokes, 2014), pretending (Picciuto & Carruthers, 2014), and, unsurprisingly, being creative. Thus, being more imaginative will impact all these domains, especially creativity (since imagination is a key element of it):
More creative artists and scientists are more imaginative: they are able to scan more possibilities; they use more remote analogies and bring together more disparate ideas than less imaginative individuals… (Hill & Bird, 2019: 699)
From this, we can formulate an empirical prediction:
…if creativity is domain-general, then on average, people who are more creative than most people in one domain should be more creative in other domains as well. (Baer, 2010: 324)
To test mundane creativity (see Boden, 1990) psychometricians assign simple creative tasks (requiring no particular expertise) to measure interindividual differences — ideally reflecting an ability, just as IQ tests do.
Yet, no correlation is found between individuals' creative achievements across domains (visual, verbal, etc.); moreover, improving at mundane creative tasks in one domain doesn’t impact other domains either (Baer, 2010; Stevenson et al., 2021). Scholars also favor creativity as domain-specific since kids’ creativity doesn’t increase linearly (like g), but rather in a stepwise way, akin to learned skills (Barbot & Tinio, 2015). The case of famous polymath artists or scientists might seem to contradict this data, but as Baer points out, the very fact that these cases are exceptional is at odds with the idea that creativity is domain-general. Minimal-imagination’s advocates struggle to explain why mundane creative achievement is not domain-general if minimal-imagination is.
One possible solution would be to weaken the imagination-creativity relationship: Minimal-imagination might be necessary but not a key factor in creativity — meaning, it is just one factor among others. If this is the case, one can barely see why we need such a view on imagination. Besides, we might ask whether Minimal-imagination is more closely connected to another phenomenon that is domain-general and depends on the ability to entertain possibilities… intelligence!
3. Take-home message
I have shown that investigating the relationship between imagination and intelligence allows both fields to gain valuable insights.
This post was inspired by (another) anecdotal similarity between imagination and intelligence. Both have been largely neglected in philosophical literature until very recently — with the notable exception of Gilbert Ryle (1949)!
However, imagination has clearly caught up in philosophy. This is why I am convinced that debates on imagination can benefit the challenges of definition and scope in intelligence. Perhaps this even justifies the creation of a junkyard of the cognitive mind.
As for the interactions between types of imagination and intelligence, the least we can say is that the Humean paradigm presented in the introduction doesn’t hold: there is a direct flight between the realms of imagination and intelligence.
References
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