The Scientific Imagination: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives ed. by Arnon Levy and Peter Godfrey-Smith (review)

The Scientific Imagination: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives sets itself the difficult task of surveying the role of the imagination in science. To do this, Arnon Levy and Peter Godfrey-Smith (who both edit and contribute to the collection) have selected a diverse arrangement of essays by philosophers and historians of science. The most important work done throughout the collection is to acknowledge that the imagination does play an epistemic and ontological role in scientific inquiry, and to recognize that, however we assess that role, its function is pervasive and complex, though under-examined. Levy and Godfrey-Smith acknowledge this critical deficit at the beginning: "Despite its centrality, the imagination has rarely received systematic attention in the philosophy of science" (p. 1). As a whole, the collection resists overly reductive arguments that banish imagination to the humanities and especially to fiction. Instead, all the authors in this collection embrace the imagination as a central tool for scientific thinking. Deena Skolnick Weisberg's claim at the beginning of her chapter codifies this underlying argument: "Science essentially involves imagination. This statement will probably come as a surprise to most people, who are used to thinking of science and imagination as being in tension" (p. 250). Weisberg diagnoses this tension later: "science is about discovering the workings of the real world, and the imagination is concerned with issues that are, by definition, outside of the real world" (p. 251). Weisberg and others erode this superficial understanding of the imagination.

Although most readers will come to this book looking for a particular chapter, those interested in a general understanding of the topic and an introduction to some key terms would do well to read the introduction, by editors Levy and Godfrey-Smith; the first chapter, by Fiora Salis and Roman Frigg; and the final chapter, by Elisabeth Camp. Salis and Frigg "taxonomize" (p. 9) a number of scientific conventions that involve the imagination. In particular, they draw the reader's attention to two processes that are addressed throughout the book: scientific models and thought experiments. Rather than distinguish these processes, Salis and Frigg group them together, arguing that both are "naturally explained in terms of make-believe" (p. 41). Camp's concluding essay, on the other hand, disentangles a number of related concepts like metaphor, analogy, frame, abstraction, ideation, and others. Concepts like fiction, "counterfactualism," real-world, and make-believe also play a significant role throughout the book. Despite this superabundance of terminology, scientific models and thought experiments are the most rigorously and consistently examined.

Importantly, the collection does not reach terminological or semantic consensus—many of the terms identified above do not settle into concrete definitions. This is not meant as a criticism. Although the shifting meanings of key concepts may confuse readers unfamiliar with the discourse, definitional work remains clear and constructive within each essay. It would be more productive for readers to approach The Scientific Imagination as a collection of individually useful chapters rather than a cohesive, homogenous object. Of course, those familiar with the field will have an easier time moving through the chapters. In any case, the book as a whole enriches the reader's understanding of how the imagination, fiction, models, and thought experiments operate within the sciences.

Despite the heterogeneity of the collection, the chapters are in constant conversation with each other. For example, many authors compare both models and thought experiments to fiction and to the inventive, imaginative process of producing fiction. Imagining a scenario (unironically) in which two people are discussing Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Martin Thomson-Jones observes that statements about a fictional character like "Emma is unhappy" are treated as "meaningful" even though neither participant believes that Emma Bovary really exists (p. 78). For Thomson-Jones and others, this fictional-but-meaningful discourse "parallels the semantic problem about missing-systems modeling" (p. 78). Given the importance of fiction in thinking through models and thought experiments, readers shouldn't be surprised...