Suppose you’re imagining that it’s raining hard. You then proceed to imagine, as part of the same imaginative project, that you believe that it isn’t raining. Such an imaginative project is possible if the two imaginings arise in succession. But what about simultaneously imagining that it’s raining and that you believe that it isn’t raining? I will argue that, under certain conditions, such an imagining is impossible. After discussing these conditions, I will suggest an explanation of this impossibility. Elaborating on the view outlined in Walton (1990), I will argue that the impossibility follows from the fact that imaginings ‘mimic’ beliefs in aiming at the fictionally true, just as beliefs aim at the true.

假设您正在想象下大雨。然后，您可以继续想像，作为同一个想像项目的一部分，您认为没有下雨。如果两个想象相继出现，那么这样一个想象的计划是可能的。但是，同时想象正在下雨并且您认为没有下雨怎么办？我会争辩说，在某些条件下，这种想象是不可能的。在讨论了这些条件之后，我将建议对此种可能性进行解释。在阐述沃尔顿（Walton，1990）中概述的观点时，我将认为不可能是基于这样一个事实，即想象“模仿”信仰以虚构的真实为目标，就像信仰以真实为目标一样。