Aug 3, 2026 · 1 hr 2 min · 11 segments
In this episode, the Pugsters look at the role of imagination in finding truth. Starting with Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s definition of imagination, the conversation explores the role of the Logos in…
Glenn SunshineHost
C. R. WileyHost
Tom PriceHost
It's just kind of making things up that don't necessarily have any connection to reality.
Malcolm Gite commented that his project right now, his entire project, is recovering imagination as a vehicle for truth, as a route through which you can find truth.
And so I thought that it would be worthwhile to have a conversation around that topic.
Lewis, a quote we've used many times before, I suspect, he said that as a rationalist, for him, reason is the natural organ of truth, but imagination is the organ of meaning.
And then he goes on to say that even reason relies on imagination as sort of a precondition for reasoning.
Now, what does he mean by that? Well, first of all, we have to start off by defining truth here.
So what he's saying there, I think, about truth is it's a matter of ascertaining facts.
But the interesting part of this that a lot of people miss, because they just use that part of the quote, is when he goes on to say that imagination is the precursor of reason, because in order to have something to reason about, you need imagination.
And that, it seems to me, is really one of the, a good jumping off point, for the discussion.
In his Biographia Literaria, he has a definition of imagination, which given when it was written is pretty dense, and I'm not going to read it, at least not in its entirety.
He divides imagination up into two parts, what he calls primary imagination and secondary imagination.
Primary imagination, in a nutshell, is the way that we make sense of what we see in the world around us.
It's just kind of making things up that don't necessarily have any connection to reality.
Malcolm Gite commented that his project right now, his entire project, is recovering imagination as a vehicle for truth, as a route through which you can find truth.
And so I thought that it would be worthwhile to have a conversation around that topic.
Lewis, a quote we've used many times before, I suspect, he said that as a rationalist, for him, reason is the natural organ of truth, but imagination is the organ of meaning.
And then he goes on to say that even reason relies on imagination as sort of a precondition for reasoning.
Now, what does he mean by that? Well, first of all, we have to start off by defining truth here.
So what he's saying there, I think, about truth is it's a matter of ascertaining facts.
But the interesting part of this that a lot of people miss, because they just use that part of the quote, is when he goes on to say that imagination is the precursor of reason, because in order to have something to reason about, you need imagination.
And that, it seems to me, is really one of the, a good jumping off point, for the discussion.
In his Biographia Literaria, he has a definition of imagination, which given when it was written is pretty dense, and I'm not going to read it, at least not in its entirety.
He divides imagination up into two parts, what he calls primary imagination and secondary imagination.
Primary imagination, in a nutshell, is the way that we make sense of what we see in the world around us.
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