Layered Imaginative Acquaintance: A Roadmap
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12697/spe.2026.19.1.05Keywords:
Acquaintance Principle, imagination, aesthetic appreciation, aesthetic properties, artistic prescriptions, aesthetic judgmentAbstract
This paper explores the role of imagination in aesthetic appreciation, distinguishing between its function as a medium of basic acquaintance and as a surrogate. While imagination has long been acknowledged as essential for experiencing aesthetic qualities, its status in the debate surrounding the Acquaintance Principle remains controversial. The aim of this paper is to clarify the distinction between basic and surrogative acquaintance through imagination. It argues that the most promising way to make sense of the distinction is to appeal to the artwork-specific standards, such that it is a matter of artistic context as to whether imagination counts as a medium of basic acquaintance or surrogative acquaintance, or whether it is not suitable as a medium of acquaintance at all. The resulting view accommodates the variety of ways in which imagination figures in warranting aesthetic judgment and draws together the two strands of literature in which the aesthetic role of imagination has been discussed, in the context of first-hand experience and in the context of surrogates. This provides a unified account of how imagination figures in aesthetic appreciation, both in its basic and in its surrogative capacity.
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