Imagination: Uses & Constraints w/ Dr. Amy Kind

As we continue our exploration, we spend some time this week thinking about how we use our imaginations and what limits we might place upon them. We also delve into whether we should think of our imagination as a skill. Our guest scholar in this episode is Dr. Amy Kind, Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy & Director of the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at Claremont McKenna College.

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Dr. Amy Kind, the Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy, joined the Claremont McKenna College faculty in 1997. Currently the Director of the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, she has previously served as Chair of the Department of Philosophy (2009 - 2012) and Associate Dean of the Faculty (2005 - 2008). At CMC, she teaches classes in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and logic. Her research interests lie broadly in the philosophy of mind, though most of her published work has concerned issues relating either to imagination or to phenomenal consciousness.  Her most recent publications include What is Consciousness? A Debate (co-authored with Daniel Stoljar) and Imagination and Creative Thinking.  She has edited or co-edited four volumes: Epistemic Uses of Imagination (co-edited with Christopher Badura), Knowledge Through Imagination (co-edited with Peter Kung), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination, and Philosophy of Mind in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. In 2023-4, she will serve as Vice President of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, to be followed by a term as President in 2024-5.

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While her full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to her scholarship addressing the topic of imagination:

Kind, A. (2016). The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination (1st ed.). Routledge.

Kind, A. (2016). Imagining under constraints. Knowledge through imagination, 145-59.

Kind, A. (2018). How imagination gives rise to knowledge. Perceptual imagination and perceptual memory, 227-46.

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The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.

Music: Purple-planet.com