Char Brecevic

In this paper, I argue that health behavior among chronically ill patients as theorized by the Common Sense Model of Illness Representations (CSM-IR) can be meaningfully supplemented with the incorporation of imagination as an important contributor to the construction and utilization of illness representations. I argue that imagination’s make-perceiving role, emotional/affective character, and action-generativity are advantageous features for explaining the generation of illness representations—with special emphasis on cases lacking readily discernible symptoms (up to and including asymptomatic examples). The incorporation of imagination into this theoretical framework delivers more than mere redescription of the original theory. I demonstrate that imagination can play a substantive role in guiding and improving the methodologies of future empirical study within the CSM-IR while concomitantly establishing new insights and potential loci for health behavioral intervention.

Some popular views of Ernst Mach cast him as a philosopher-scientist averse to imaginative practices in science. The aim of this analysis is to address the question of whether or not imagination is compatible with Machian philosophy of science. I conclude that imagination is not only compatible, but essential to realizing the aim of science in Mach’s biologico-economical view. I raise the possible objection that my conclusion is undermined by Mach’s criticism of Isaac Newton’s famous “bucket experiment.” I conclude that Mach’s issue lies not with thought experimentation, tout court, but with the improper use of thought experimentation as it relates to the aim of the biologico-economical development of science.

There is an “underrepresentation problem” in philosophy departments and journals. Empirical data suggest that while we have seen some improvements since the 1990s, the rate of change has slowed down. Some posit that philosophy has disciplinary norms making it uniquely resistant to change. We present results from an empirical case study of a philosophy department that achieved and maintained male-female gender parity among its faculty as early as 2014. Our analysis extends beyond matters of gender parity because that is only one, albeit important, dimension of inclusion. We build from the study to reflect on strategies that may catalyze change.