Imagination in the scientific process

This article aims to demonstrate that the theory of multi-modal scientific decentering, far from neglecting the question of scientific imagination, in fact provides a renewed framework through which to approach it. Initially introduced in La Société de l’Invention (2018) and further elaborated in its methodological sequel La Philosophie du Paradoxe (2024), the theory of multi-modal scientific decentering had, until now, not directly addressed the issue of scientific imagination. This omission stemmed from the fact that the theory arose in response to a more fundamental and global dual problem. For this reason, we first recall what is meant by “multi-modal scientific decentering”. Only in a second step we address the specific nature of scientific imagination, understood precisely as shaped and constrained by the methodological decentering unique to each scientific discipline. Scientific imagination, inasmuch as it serves the aim of explaining phenomena, is neither merely reproductive nor freely productive (or creative) as is artistic imagination ; rather, it must invent what responds to a problem posed by the observed phenomena. Moreover, an exemplary instance of scientific progress — such as the transition from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics, which will be discussed here — was made possible through a form of productive imagination that operated not by addition but by subtraction : commonsense certainties, such as that of absolute simultaneity, became mere hypotheses, now deemed unnecessary.