Imagination and the Self

Consider two ways that you could imagine yourself skiing down a steep mountain. First, you could imagine the scenario from the point of view of you-qua-skier: in that case, you would see the tips of your skis and the white snow in front of you.  Alternatively, you could instead imagine things from an outside observer’s point of view, and “see” yourself skiing from the outside, as if you were watching a film of yourself skiing. Philosophers call the first type of imagining “imagining from the inside.” This sort of imagining plays an important role in several domains: in the experience of empathy; in our ability to simulate the mental lives of others in the course of predicting what they are going to do; and in the process of making decisions, as when we try to imagine how things will be for us if we undertake a certain course of action. My research project focuses on a particular form of “imagining from the inside”: imagining being someone else, as when I imagine (e.g.) being Napoleon. What is it that I imagine when I imagine being Napoleon? This research project is divided in  three parts: the first argues against extant answers to this question; the second argues for a novel answer to it (what I call the “two-dimensional” theory); and the third explores what such imaginings tell us about the nature of possibility. The relationship between imagination and belief, and the way we talk about imagination underlie the project.