As we have seen, subjective imagination involves re-creating various ways of gaining information about ourselves, such as proprioceptive or agentive experience. Now we also have ways of gaining information about our own sensory experiences, as well as about our own beliefs. We seem to be able to form self-ascriptions of the form “I see x” or “I believe that p” without relying on independent background beliefs. The nature of this ability is controversial. Some philosophers claim that both sensory experiences and beliefs can be introspected (e.g., Goldman 2006). Thus, we should be open to the possibility of re-creating in imagination an introspective experience of a visual experience or an occurrent belief. Other philosophers reject the notion of introspection altogether and consider that self-ascription of sensory experience or belief can follow a purely theoretical procedure known as an “ascent routine” (see Evans 1982 and Gordon 1995 for the case of belief, and Byrne 2010 for suggestions about how to extend the ascent routine to sensory experience).
The question arises as to what types of internal experience can be re-created in imagination, i.e., what the scope of subjective imagination is. In a sense, this question is hostage to an independent theory of internal experience, appropriate to sensory experience or belief. Obviously, we cannot settle the matter in this exploratory essay. Still, before moving to the penultimate section, we would like to suggest that phenomenologically accessible distinctions within the realm of imagination might be conceived as (usually neglected) constraints on a correct theory of internal experience. We shall focus on belief, but similar observations can be made for the case of sensory experience.
There is some phenomenological evidence that subjective imagination can capture an internal perspective on at least some beliefs. Consider an atheist who tries to imagine what it is like to believe in God. One might argue that this involves re-creating some internal experience of an occurrent belief in God. At least the atheist’s imagining seems different from two other types of imagining, namely imagining believing in God and imagining believing that one believes in God.
First, it is different from re-creating in imagination an occurrent belief in God, which would be an example of cognitive imagination. The latter imagining does not have belief as a constituent of its content; one cognitively imagines God himself, rather than some belief in his existence. In general, an imagining that re-creates the non-imaginative state M need not have M as part of its content; the imagining itself is an imaginative re-creation of M, but it is not about M (Currie & Ravenscroft 2002, p. 27; see also Burge 2005, p. 63, for the corresponding point about sensory imagination). In contrast, the atheist’s imagining essentially has belief as one of the constituents of its content; one imagines a particular belief in God. A related difference is that re-creating an occurrent belief in God is re-creating an external experience of a God-involving world. However, the atheist might want to imagine what it is like to believe in God without taking a stance on the presence of God in the imaginary world. Her imagining is focused on the belief in God, independently of whether it is true or false (even though as an atheist she believes it to be false).
Second, the atheist’s imagining is different from re-creating an occurrent higher-order belief that one believes in God, i.e., imagining that one believes in God. Intuitively, the former imagining is more specific than the latter (which is another example of cognitive imagination). Imagining having the higher-order belief that one believes in God involves re-creating an external experience of one’s belief in God. However, the atheist is not merely imagining that she or someone else has a belief in God. She wants to get into the believer’s mind and re-create in imagination an internal perspective on some occurrent belief in God.
In the context of GH, the apparent existence of cases of subjective imagination where the re-created experience is an internal experience of belief can be seen as a constraint on a correct account of the way we gain information about our own beliefs. The introspective account can offer a straightforward explanation of the atheist’s imagining as involving the re-creation of an introspective experience, as opposed to a mere higher-order belief, about the belief in God. Prima facie, the ascent-routine account has fewer resources to give justice to the relevant phenomenology. It might not be impossible to do so, though, if experiential imagination can also re-create complex cognitive processes such as going through an ascent routine. Again, we have to leave the discussion for another occasion. It is enough for our purposes to gesture toward the possibility of extending the scope of subjective imagination to encompass more or less specific internal perspectives on beliefs, even if further argument is certainly needed.