{"id":572655,"date":"2026-07-07T04:03:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T04:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/572655\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T04:03:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T04:03:25","slug":"people-who-cant-visualize-anything-are-challenging-a-300-year-old-theory-of-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/572655\/","title":{"rendered":"People Who Can’t Visualize Anything Are Challenging a 300-Year-Old Theory of Thought"},"content":{"rendered":"

The philosopher David Hume believed that, to understand abstract concepts, humans needed to summon a mental image to picture the idea. But since Hume\u2019s time in the 18th century, we now have a more nuanced understanding of the human brain\u2019s complexity\u2014and our philosophy might be due for some upgrades, according to a new study.<\/p>\n

Scientists estimate<\/a> that roughly 4% to 5% of the population experience aphantasia, or the inability to form mental images. People can be either born with aphantasia or develop it later, but it\u2019s typically not considered<\/a> a disability or medical condition. But aphantasia isn\u2019t known to prevent people from having a firm grasp of abstract ideas\u2014things like \u201ctriangle,\u201d \u201cfriend,\u201d or \u201cmemory,\u201d explained Uku Tooming and Roomet Jakapi, philosophers at the University of Tartu in Estonia, in a statement<\/a>. So, what\u2019s going on here?<\/p>\n

In a recent paper<\/a> published in Neuropsychologia, Tooming and Jakapi present a challenge to Hume; that is, abstract thought might not be as grounded in images as we might believe.<\/p>\n

Imagine an apple\u2026 <\/p>\n

As a concept, aphantasia first entered the scientific discourse in 1880, when British geneticist (and eugenics pioneer) Francis Galton described<\/a> interacting with individuals who \u201cprotested that mental imagery was unknown to them.\u201d But the phenomenon was officially termed<\/a> much later, in 2015. In other words, although people knew about aphantasia for a long time, it has only been in the past decade or so that scientists have started to systematically investigate the condition, according to the paper.<\/p>\n

\"AphantasiaAn original representation of an informal test of aphantasia. \u00a9 Belbury via Wikimedia Commons <\/p>\n

This includes<\/a> philosophers, who typically struggle to ignore unexpected twists in human cognition. The link between visualization and reasoning has always been foundational to the history of philosophy, the researchers explained in the paper. For example, Hume and empirical thinkers like 18th-century Irish philosopher George Berkeley believed that thought and knowledge emerged from sensory experiences, with the former saying that ideas are \u201cfaint images\u201d of \u201cthinking and reasoning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026Unless you can\u2019t? \"DavidA portrait of Scottish philosopher David Hume. \u00a9 National Galleries Scotland via Wikimedia Commons <\/p>\n

However, Tooming and Jakapi argued in the paper that aphantasia \u201cposes a problem\u201d for Hume\u2019s view of abstractions. In typical philosophy fashion, the pair demonstrated the validity of their claim by examining four possible scenarios of \u201chow Hume would respond\u201d to their challenge. For instance, Hume (or his supporters) may argue that aphantasics could rely on other sensory factors or linguistic cues to \u201cvisualize\u201d ideas.<\/p>\n

However, as Tooming and Jakapi counter in the paper, experimental evidence suggests that some aphantasics lack imagery across other types of sensory experiences, and yet are still capable of abstraction. Then there\u2019s the easy way out: Okay, maybe aphantasics are an exception to the rule. But the authors took issue with that response, as the challenge is \u201cnot merely one of accommodating an exception but of explaining how abstraction is even possible without reliance on the imagistic processes that Hume sees as essential.\u201d<\/p>\n

Picking apart the brain <\/p>\n

From what we understand of aphantasia so far, there isn\u2019t evidence to suggest that aphantasics have a wildly different psychology from non-aphantasics\u2014therefore, perhaps it\u2019s actually the case that human abstraction isn\u2019t as dependent on mental imagery as it may seem, they added. In that sense, the challenge doesn\u2019t just address Hume\u2019s ideas but other theories that \u201ctry to ground various higher-level mental phenomena in the capacity to generate mental imagery,\u201d Tooming and Jakapi wrote.<\/p>\n

In any case, the study demonstrates the complex and flexible nature of the human mind\u2014something that, in the centuries since Hume\u2019s time, we still don\u2019t fully understand. Although Hume\u2019s theories should be understood as a product of their time, considering the limitations could serve as a \u201cproductive constraint on future accounts of abstraction and higher cognition,\u201d the authors concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The philosopher David Hume believed that, to understand abstract concepts, humans needed to summon a mental image to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[40588,18,19,17,7842,133],"class_list":["post-572655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-cognitive-science","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-philosophy","tag-science"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116876713794674591","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}