Mental images require more discussion. In Chapters 9 and 11 we tried to show that perception is better described without the involvement of mental pictures that mediate between us and what we experience. Still, there clearly is something that can be called mental imagery; we do experience “images” of some sort when we dream or daydream, whether in memory or imagination. We have tried earlier, in Chapter 9, to clarify such phenomena by saying that they involve not the viewing of an internal image but the reliving of an earlier perception. If I remember a home run in a baseball game that I saw yesterday, what I bring back is not a picture of the event, but myself perceiving the event. I reenact myself seeing the batter hitting the ball. But even in that reenactment, there is something like an image at work, not only an image of the ball being hit but also an image of myself seeing it. Or rather, there is one complex internal image involving both myself and the event. What sort of imagery can this be? How can it be related to our physiology without being taken as the viewing of pictures? How is this imagery materialized?

The Problem of Mental Images

The problem of mental images is not just a local or temporary philosophical problem. It is chronic; it has persisted throughout the history of philosophy, in regard to perception as well as imagination.