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What we imagine versus how we imagine, and a problem for explaining counterfactual thoughts with causal ones

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2008

Winston Chang and Patricia Herrmann
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208. [email protected]@northwestern.eduhttp://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/psych/

Abstract

Causal and counterfactual thoughts are bound together in Byrne's theory of human imagination. We think there are two issues in her theory that deserve clarification. First, Byrne describes which counterfactual possibilities we think of, but she leaves unexplained the mechanisms by which we generate these possibilities. Second, her exploration of “strong causes” and enablers gives two different predictions of which counterfactuals we think of in causal scenarios. On one account, we think of the counterfactuals which we have control over. On the other, which counterfactuals we think of depends on whether something is a strong cause or an enabler. Although these two accounts sometimes give the same predictions, we present cases in which they differ, and we would like to see Byrne's theory provide a way of reconciling these differences.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

Byrne, R. M. J. (2005) The rational imagination: How people create alternatives to reality. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearl, J. (2000) Causality: Models, reasoning, and inference. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar