3 On cognitive imagination

Brüggen is hesitant about our classification of cognitive imaginings as experiential imaginings. Her main reason for being hesitant is not that the notion of cognitive phenomenology is ill-conceived. On the contrary, she is attracted by the view that beliefs have a special phenomenal character. She thinks that cognitive imaginings do not involve an experiential perspective because she construes the notion of experiential perspective quite narrowly, as a spatial egocentric perspective. In our view, Brüggen’s construal of the notion of experiential perspective is too narrow. On this construal, many non-cognitive imaginings turn out to be non-experiential as well. Some cases of sensory imaginings, involving auditory, olfactory, or gustatory imagination, do not always clearly involve a spatial egocentric perspective. Many imaginings that re-create internal experiences (excluding perhaps proprioception) do not involve such a perspective either. For our part, we do not see why the notion of experiential perspective should be restricted to the spatial egocentric case.