Will and Imagination

Kant's phrase 'productive imagination' does not do justice to the significance of his discovery to which it refers. That formulation suggests that what the denoted process generates is a type of image, not, as Kant himself further explains, a procedural rule. Similarly, the common notion of 'intention' is a pre-vision of some potential object of attainment, rather than an outline of a potential course of action. For example, a thirsty person does not merely entertain an image of a cup of water, but projects the process of their picking up the cup and drinking from it, and, perhaps, that of holding the cup under a tap, turning the faucet, etc. In other words, one, and perhaps the most fundamental, contribution of Imagination to Experience is as the Formal Cause of Will, i. e. as the supplier of an Intention that structures and directs Motility.