When we try to imagine something and we form a mental image, there is indeed something that we imagine. But what settles the issue of what we are imagining? One possibility is that we imagine whatever we were trying to imagine by forming our mental image. This view respects the intuition that we have privileged access to the contents of our mental states. But it is in tension with the possibility of misidentification errors in the imagination: Sometimes, we try to imagine some object, and we end up forming a mental image of a different object because we have a false belief about what the intended object of our imagination looks like. This possibility has prompted some to claim that, sometimes, the causal origin of the mental images that we form while trying to imagine something is what determines the contents of our imaginings. This view accommodates misidentification errors, but it does so at the cost of giving up the idea that we have privileged access to the contents of our mental states. I offer a view about the source of the contents of our imaginings that accommodates misidentification errors while preserving privileged access to the contents of our imaginings.
