Amy Kind argues imagination is the skill we draw on to make our hardest decisions. https://bit.ly/4vuIw1q Like all skills, it weakens without use, and we're using it less. If we don't exercise it, we'll lose the capacity to conceive of things being different, and risk being trapped in the present.
Mark your calendar for JAM, a philosophy of imagination conference celebrating 10 years of The Junkyard. April 2027 in Claremont, CA. See this week's Junkyard post for further info and details about the CFP.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: An announcement of JAM - a conference in honor of the 10th anniversary of The Junkyard, to be held in April 2027. See the post for details, the great lineup of invited speakers, and info about the CFP for contributed papers/symposia. junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/6/...
Imagination and mind-blanking sit at opposite ends of the consciousness spectrum; imagination is associated with richness but mind-blankness with absence of richness. At The Junkyard, Angelica Kaufmann suggests how and why an exploration of mind-blanking proves useful for understanding imagination.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Angelica Kaufmann junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/6/...
Exploring Iris Murdoch's view of imagination, fantasy, and morality, Idil Çakmur argues that Murdoch takes it be a moral imperative that we become more imaginative.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis week at The JunkyardL A post by Idil Çakmur junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/5/...
Lloyd Strickland on how Leibniz develops a logic of imagination or, more precisely, a logic of what is imaginable. As he suggests, the key to developing the account "lies in distinguishing imagination as a faculty from the objects that fall under it."
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Lloyd Strickland junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/5/...
Drawing on her paper on “The Role of Value in Creative Imagining”, Julia Langkau argues for a distinction among imaginings over and above the one between constrained/unconstrained uses of the imagination: "Whether (epistemically) constrained or not, imagination may or may not be guided by values."
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 3mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Julia Langkau junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/5/...
This week @lukeroelofs.bsky.social blogs about their forthcoming book, *Empathic Reason* over at The Junkyard. The book argues for a view they call "empathic rationalism" and makes the case for a tight connection between empathy and altruism and also for the epistemic indispensability of empathy.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 3mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Luke Roelofs junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/5/...
In this week's post at The Junkyard, Miranda Anderson argues that there is a "fission-fusion dynamic" between imagination and art, and she then suggests that this means that our imaginative engagement with art enables us to become more critical, creative and compassionate thinkers.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 3mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Miranda Anderson junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/5/...
In an exploration of imagination-oriented design, Monika Dunin-Kozicka asks: “how can we design things so that they trigger or afford imaginative actions to those who perceive them?”
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 3mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Monika Dunin-Kozicka junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/4/...
Georgie Brighouse argues that consideration of aphantasia suggests that we should adopt a pluralistic account of imagination.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 4mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Georgina Brighouse junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/4/...
Though sensory imagining is often used to provide pleasure in place of a real experience, Vincenzo Grasso argues in his post at The Junkyard that there is a second pleasure involved in sensory imagining, namely, the pleasure of imaginative agency.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 4mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Vincenzo Grasso junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/4/...
Great new project from Sheila Pontis! Every day for 365 days, she is posting a new evidence-based practice designed to strengthen imagination, deepen inner development, and cultivate optimism. Check it out! www.instagram.com/everyoneimag...
Ana Elisa Ulloa Labariega draws our attention to an important aspect of scientific modeling that she thinks is often obscured, namely, "its narrative character, sustained and structured through imagination." (Via @the-junkyard.bsky.social)
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 4mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Ana Elisa Ulloa Labariega junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/3/...
Zachary Srivastava on whether there is a paradox of scientific fiction (re epistemic attitudes towards fictional scientific entities) akin to the paradox of fiction (re emotions towards fictional characters), and he also explores what this reveals abt the nature of scientific vs artistic imagination
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 4mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: a post by Zachary Srivastava junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/3/...
Scholz, Liu, & Blomkvist discuss some important connections between mental imagery research and aphantasia research; they then suggest that both would benefit from interdisciplinary research/collaboration. Bonus: a plug for an upcoming interdisciplinary aphantasia conference at the Univ of Glasgow.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 5mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: a post by Christian O. Scholz, Jianghao Liu, and Andrea Blomkvist junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/3/...
Claiming that imagining the minds of non-human animals involves an "informed imaginative leap," Luca Marchetti explores what kind of imagination is involved in our attempts to understand the minds of animals and what kinds of values are at stake when we make these attempts.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 5mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Luca Marchetti junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/3/...
The interplay between the processes of learning and creativity is a complex matter but, as Kerry Clark argues in this post at The Junkyard, developing the skill of imagination proves beneficial for both of these processes.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 5mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Kerry Clark junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/2/...
Avshalom Schwartz explores the philosophical insights that can be gained by taking a philological route to the study of the origins of imagination.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 6mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Avshalom Schwartz junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/2/...
In a post written while watching the Superbowl, Neil Van Leeuwen explores why we are considerably more inclined to rewatch movies and other fictions than we are to rewatch sports.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 6mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Neil Van Leeuwen junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/2/...
Hannah Fasnacht builds on others’ work on anticipatory grief to show that we can also grieve the impossible, i.e., we can have grief directed not at an actual person or object or something in the past, but rather at an imagined (im-)possible future that will never come to be.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 6mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Hannah Fasnacht junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/2/...
Irene Lonigro, at The Junkyard, on whether we can imagine emotions that we haven't experienced before.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 7mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Irene Lonigro junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/1/...
In the first post of 2026 at The Junkyard, Reza Hadisi explores Suhrawardī's views concerning the constitutive norm of imagination.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 7mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Reza Hadisi junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2026/1/...
How big is a trillion? Grasping really big numbers is hard, but this week at The Junkyard Ansley Avis discusses how we can use imagination "to make these numbers more meaningful and clear for ourselves and others."
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 8mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Ansley Avis junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2025/12...
Dorothy Wade discusses her research into facets of the imagination that emerge in altered states of consciousness, research that she hopes will lead to new therapies for patients with delirium and thereby help them to cope "with the disturbing experience of the imagination going wild."
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 8mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Dorothy Wade junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2025/12...
In this week's post at The Junkyard, Joshua Myers and Johannes Mahr argue that episodic construction is fundamentally compositional in nature, and they offer reasons that their Episodic Compositionality view is more plausible than an associationist alternative.
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 8mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Joshua Myers and Johannes Mahr junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2025/11...
In this week's Junkyard post, Eric Peterson explores the connection between imagination and interpersonal knowledge; in doing so, he offers reasons to think that imagination might indeed have a unique epistemic end (contra some claims by Nick Wiltsher in a previous post on the blog).
@the-junkyard.bsky.social · 8mo agoThis week at The Junkyard: A post by Eric Peterson junkyardofthemind.com/blog/2025/11...
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