Objections

Abstract

One of the chief objections to the image theory has always sprung from the fact that the world seems to transcend what we can imagine in various ways. Descartes pointed out that there are some things in the world such as chiliagons which cannot be imagined in a way that distinguishes them from similar objects.¹ Others have pointed out that our imaginations are less active in some directions than in others; it is easier to have visual, auditory, and tactual images than olfactory and gustatory ones. Thus it would seem to follow on an image theory that statements about smells and tastes cannot be understood as well as statements about objects which are encountered in other ways. Lastly, the real world seems to some to be much more complex than anything we could imagine. The objection then is that if we could only talk about the things we can imagine, there would be many objects in the world about which we would not be able to talk meaningfully, but that we in fact do talk meaningfully about these objects.