Three Kinds or Grades of Phantasia in Aristotle’s De Anima

Abstract

Phantasia / imagination in Aristotle is one of the parts or faculties / powers of the soul that cannot exist apart from sensation and thought. The function of phantasia and its connection with phantasmata, the products of this faculty, plays a significant role in the psychological treatises of the Aristotelian Corpus. The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of phantasia in Book III, Chapter 3 of De Anima, and to show that the Stagyrite philosopher distinguishes three and not two kinds of phantasia, starting from the lowest, which is found in imperfect creatures, to the highest, which appears only in the human beings.

Keywords

• Aristotle
• soul
• psychology
• phantasia
• imagination
• phantasmata