Antonello Caravelli is a PhD student at the University of Genoa whose interests span philosophy of mind, aesthetics, and philosophy of literature. His current research explores the role of perspective in theories and taxonomies of imagination.
A post by Antonello Caravelli
One of the central concepts in my PhD research is perspective. The term is ubiquitous in contemporary discussions of imagination. We are often told that imagination allows us to adopt the perspective of others or represent points of view different from our own. Yet the more I have worked on imagination, the more I have come to suspect that such discussions capture only one dimension of this term.
Perspective is typically treated as something represented within imagination. Philosophers and cognitive scientists ask whose perspective is imagined, which point of view is adopted, or how successfully we can imagine being someone else. Important as these questions are, they may overlook another role that perspective can play: rather than merely figuring in imaginative content, it can organise imaginative activity itself.
My claim is that perspective should be understood not only as something represented or adopted within imagination, but also as an organisational dimension of imaginative activity. In participative imagination, the imaginer's perspective helps structure which cognitive and affective resources are mobilised, which features become salient, and which possibilities are explored and developed.
Perspective operates at several levels within imagination. It may be represented in imaginative content (Vendler, 1984) and shape the phenomenology of imagining (Dokic and Arcangeli, 2015). In this post, however, I focus on the standpoint from which imaginative engagement unfolds. Shaped by a subject's history, social environment, and cognitive repertoire, it structures patterns of salience, emotional significance, and exploration.
Narrative engagement provides a particularly illuminating context for investigating this idea. Stories make visible aspects of imaginative activity that often remain unnoticed elsewhere. They allow us to observe not only what is imagined, but also how imaginative episodes unfold over time, acquire significance, and develop along different trajectories. Literature therefore offers a useful window onto the perspectival organisation of imagination itself.
From Propositional to Participative Imagination
Before examining how perspective operates in narrative engagement, it is useful to introduce a distinction that will structure the discussion that follows. Engagement with fiction can involve different forms of imagination, but for present purposes I group them under two broad labels.
On the one hand, there is propositional imagination: the capacity to entertain possibilities. We can imagine that dragons exist, that Napoleon won at Waterloo, or that Sherlock Holmes survived the Reichenbach Falls. Following broadly deflationary accounts (García-Carpintero, 2026), such episodes need not involve imagery, simulation, or immersive experience. For present purposes, I set aside the familiar question of whether or not propositional imagination differs from mere supposition.
On the other hand, engagement with fiction often involves a richer form of imaginative activity. Narrative experience may recruit sensory, experiential, constructive (Van Leeuwen, 2013), dramatic (Moran, 1994), and moral imagination (John, 2020), among others. Although these capacities differ in important respects, they share a common feature: they require the reader to actively engage with, explore, and develop an imagined scenario rather than merely entertain it. I will refer to this broader family of phenomena as participative imagination[1].
This distinction becomes particularly significant in the context of constructive imagination. Van Leeuwen characterises constructive imagination as the capacity to generate novel representations by drawing upon resources already available within the subject's cognitive economy, including memories, beliefs, perceptions, misperceptions, and cognitive biases. Imaginative activity is therefore not a matter of creating representations ex nihilo; rather, it involves the voluntary selection, recombination, and transformation of materials already available to the imaginer.
Yet this immediately raises a further question. If participative imagination depends on cognitive resources that are already available to the subject, what determines how those resources are selected, prioritised, and developed within a particular imaginative episode? Why do certain elements become salient while others remain peripheral? Why do some possibilities invite sustained exploration while others fade almost immediately?
My proposal is that the answer lies in the perspective of the imaginer. The resources available to us do not enter imaginative activity in a neutral or undifferentiated way. Our histories, dispositions, cognitive repertoires, and socio-cultural backgrounds influence how those resources are mobilised: what captures our attention, what acquires emotional significance, and which possibilities we are inclined to pursue.
This is why I think participative imagination is particularly closely connected to perspective. To participate imaginatively in a scenario is not merely to entertain a set of possibilities. It is to engage with and develop those possibilities through the particular cognitive and affective orientation that the imaginer brings to them. The relevant perspective is therefore not simply a point of view represented within the imagined scenario, nor merely a perspective temporarily adopted from another person. It is the standpoint from which the imaginer's own imaginative activity is organised.
What Happens When We Read?
Consider the following case. A novel presents a morally difficult situation. A woman fleeing a violent regime encounters an injured child hiding in the woods. Helping the child may expose her location and endanger her family. Leaving the child behind may save those she loves but will almost certainly condemn the child.
Every reader encounters roughly the same narrative situation. The same words appear on the page, and the same basic events are described. Yet readers often engage with the scenario in strikingly different ways. Some immediately focus on the child's vulnerability. Others focus on the woman’s obligations toward her family. Still others become absorbed by the uncertainty of the decision itself, exploring alternative outcomes and possible courses of action.
The fictional situation remains broadly constant. What differs is not just what is imagined, but how imagination develops around it. Different features become salient, different emotional responses are mobilised, and different possibilities attract further exploration.
This illustrates the role that the imaginer's perspective can play in organising imaginative activity. It does not merely determine a point of view within the imagined scenario; it helps shape attention, significance, and the paths along which imaginative exploration unfolds.
The example reflects a more general feature of literary engagement. Readers are not passive recipients of fictional content. Literary texts leave gaps, ambiguities, and indeterminacies that must be navigated through imaginative activity. Readers infer motives, construct environments, anticipate developments, evaluate actions, and respond emotionally to situations that exist only in imagination.
Narrative engagement is therefore a particularly clear instance of participative imagination. Readers draw upon memories, values, emotional dispositions, cultural expectations, and prior experiences in order to interpret and enrich fictional worlds. At the same time, engagement with fiction can reshape moral understanding, emotional sensitivities, and broader interpretive frameworks.
Imaginative engagement thus involves a continuous interaction between fictional content and the resources readers bring to it. The perspective of the reader helps organise this interaction, influencing which aspects of a fictional scenario become salient, how they acquire significance, and which possibilities are pursued as engagement unfolds. The difference therefore lies not primarily in the fictional world represented by the text, but in how that world is navigated and developed through imaginative activity.
At this point, a natural concern arises. If imagination is always perspectivally organised, does this imply that each reader inhabits a private fictional world? I do not think so. Perspectives do not emerge in isolation. They are formed within shared social, linguistic, and cultural environments. To borrow a Wittgensteinian (1953/1974) phrase, they develop within shared forms of life. Readers may differ in their experiences and commitments, but they also participate in common linguistic practices, narrative conventions, emotional repertoires, and cultural traditions. These shared resources make mutual understanding, disagreement, and collective interpretation possible. The perspectival character of imagination therefore introduces variation without collapsing into radical relativism.
Conclusion
Perspective should not be understood solely as an object represented within imagination. While perspectives can certainly become part of imaginative content, they also contribute to the organisation of imaginative activity itself. Narrative engagement makes this role particularly visible. Readers do not merely entertain fictional possibilities; they participate in the construction and development of imagined scenarios.
Perspective functions as part of the framework through which cognitive and affective resources are selected, prioritised, and deployed. It structures attention, significance, and the exploration of possibilities throughout imaginative engagement. On this view, perspective is not simply something imagination contains. It is the standpoint from which imaginative possibilities emerge as meaningful and worth pursuing.
Notes
[1]The underlying idea is not new. Philosophers have long suggested that imagination involves a form of participation that goes beyond mere hypothetical thinking. Walton's account of make-believe (1990) is perhaps the best-known example, and Tamar Gendler similarly argues that “imagination requires a sort of participation that mere hypothetical reasoning does not” (2000: 80). The label participative imagination, however, is borrowed from Voltolini and Barbero (2024)
References:
Dokic, J., & Arcangeli, M. (2015). “The Heterogeneity of Experiential Imagination.” In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds.), Open MIND: Philosophy and the Mind Sciences in the 21st Century, 431-450. MIT Press.
García-Carpintero, M. (2026). Truth and Reference in the Making of Fiction. Cambridge University Press.
Gendler, T. S. (2000). “The Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance.” The Journal of Philosophy, 97(2), 55-81.
John, E. (2020). “Moral Imagination, Fiction, and Meaning-Making.” Junkyard of the Mind. 09/30/2020 https://junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2020/9/27/moral-imagination-fiction-and-meaning-making
Moran, R. (1994). “The Expression of Feeling in Imagination.” The Philosophical Review, 103(1), 75-106.
Van Leeuwen, N. (2013). “The Meanings of ‘Imagine’ Part I: Constructive Imagination.” Philosophy Compass, 8(3), 220-230.
Vendler, Z. (1984). The matter of minds. Clarendon Press.
Voltolini, A., & Barbero, C. (2024). “How One Cannot Participatively Imagine What One Could Cognitively Imagine.” Philosophia, 52(3), 643-660.
Walton, K. L. (1990). Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts. Harvard University Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953/1974). Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell.