Aristotle On the Dynamic Role of Imagination
Aristotle’s model of psychology places great emphasis on the role that imagination plays in the dynamics of perception, emotion, motivation, dreams, memory, thinking, and our overall subjective experience. According to Aristotle, the imagination (phantasia) produces the mental images (phantasma) that play an essential role in the dynamics of the above-mentioned phenomena. Aristotle(1984) wrote, “…imagination is that in virtue of which an image arises for us…” (p. 680).
Two Types of Imagination: The Sensitive and Deliberative Imagination
Aristotle differentiated two kinds of imagination or mental imagery: sensitive imagination and deliberative imagination. Aristotle (1984) wrote that the, “Sensitive imagination… is found in all animals, deliberative imagination only in those that are calculative…” (p. 690). In other words, the sensitive imagination like the sensitive faculty is common to all animal life, including humans, while the deliberative imagination is unique to human beings. The deliberative imagination is unique to humans because it involves the use of the rational intellect or rational cognition.
The sensitive imagination produces the mental images that accompany sense perception. To understand the role and content of the images of the sensitive imagination, we must review the role of the specific and common sensibles in the process of perception. For Aristotle the specific sensibles (i.e., sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell) work in conjunction with what are referred to as the common sensibles (e.g. movement, rest, figure, magnitude, number, and unity). Each one of the specific sensibles is associated with its own sense organ while the common sensibles are not associated with a specific sense organ. Input from the specific sensibles is integrated by the common sensibles to create the images that form the content of perception. These images are thought of as the sense imagination. For example, when a man perceives a dog, he experiences an integrated representation of the dog that we refer to as perception. He perceives that the dog has four legs (number), that the dog is of a certain size (magnitude), that the dog is of a certain shape (figure), and hears that the dog barks (sound). According to Aristotle, the integrated object representations that form the contents of perceptions are images produced by the imagination.
The deliberative imagination, as we have said, is found only in humans and provides content for the operations of the intellect. Imagination, for Aristotle, is a necessary component of thinking in that it provides the raw content that is utilized in the processes of thought. Aristotle (1984) wrote, “To the thinking soul images serve as if they were contents of perception (and when it asserts or denies them to be good or bad it avoids or pursues them). That is why the soul never thinks without an image” (p, 685). In other words, according to Aristotle, humans think in images. These images are object representations that are utilized in a variety of ways to provide the content for the various activities of the intellectual faculty (e.g., reasoning). The process of thinking involves the manipulation of these images or object representations.
To illustrate how the process of rational (ratiocinative), or deliberative thought utilizes mental imagery consider the following example of a man who has decided to build a house for himself. It is through the production and manipulation of mental imagery that the man is able to intentionally envision what the house will look like when it is finished. In order to accomplish the task of building the house, the man must be able to imagine what can exist potentially (the house to be built) in order to take the steps necessary for the house to become an actuality. When he considers or deliberates where he should obtain the required materials, he intentionally imagines his options by drawing forth from his imagination images that represent his options. When considering how to go about getting a supporting beam into place, he again intentionally utilizes mental imagery as he reviews in his mind the necessary steps that will be required. If he begins to deliberate what may go wrong and imagines that the support beam may not fit, he may measure the log to ensure the proper length and then can proceed with confidence. It becomes evident that mental images that are deliberately elicited are involved throughout the building process. At each step in the process of building a house that is not yet built, one must be able to visualize what is needed to make what exists potentially in image an actuality in reality. This accompaniment of imagery with deliberative thought, logic, or reason is referred to as the deliberative imagination.
Aristotle’s holistic understanding of the human person is clearly represented in his understanding of the interactive relationships that exist between sense perception, imagination, and thinking. He believed that everything that exists in the intellect and the imagination must have first been in the senses. Furthermore, Aristotle thinks of images as being the very content matter of thought. Aristotle (1984) wrote:
Since it seems that there is nothing outside and separate in existence from sensible spatial magnitudes, the objects of thought are in the sensible forms, viz. both the abstract objects and all the states and affections of sensible things. Hence no one can learn or understand anything in the absence of sense, and when the mind is actively aware of anything it is necessarily aware of it along with an image; for images are like sensuous contents except in that they contain no matter.” (p. 687)
Aristotle taught that humans have the ability to consciously evoke and manipulate mental images in a variety of ways. Aristotle (1984) wrote, “For imagining lies within our own power whenever we wish (e.g. we can call up a picture, as in the practice of mnemonics by the use of mental images)” (p. 680). Aristotle’s assertion that man has a degree of volition control over the images in his imagination has important implications for the role of mental imagery in the psychological processes of man. For example, as Aristotle pointed out, man can consciously link images with specific information to help him to retain knowledge, as occurs with the use of mnemonic learning or recollection strategies. Humans can also combine elements of one image with elements of other images to create new combinations that do not actually exist in reality (e.g., centaurs, harpies, minotaurs, & mermaids). Imagination, therefore, provides the raw content or material for such things as creative activity, the arts, and practical planning. It is the volitional control of the deliberative imagination that allows man to consciously direct the use of images. In other words, Aristotle taught that the imagination, which he indicated is of the body, responds to the direction of the rational faculties. This represents a significant dimension of his understanding of the interaction between the physiological and intellectual domains.
Imagination and Language
For Aristotle, communication using spoken language depends upon the ability to associate sounds with corresponding mental images that link sound and meaning. Concerning the accompaniment of imagination with the spoken word, Aristotle (1984) wrote, “…what produces the impact must have soul in it and must be accompanied by an act of imagination, for voice is a sound with a meaning...” (p. 679). In other words, upon hearing the sounds that constitute a particular word, an individual’s imagination produces meaning-laden images that link those particular sounds with specific meanings. For Aristotle, it is the imagination’s storehouse of sound/word-related images that makes spoken language possible. An extension of Aristotle’s thought would have imagination playing the same role for the written language, which is particularly evident in the ancient pictographic forms of written language. In pictographic forms of written language, the writer uses symbols or written images to represent various meanings. In this example the written image would elicit from the imagination a mental image of what the pictograph represents, thereby making written language possible.
Imagination and Memory
According to Aristotle, images also provide the contents of memory. In his work On Memory, Aristotle (1984) wrote, “…memory even of intellectual objects involves an image and the image is an affection of the common sense…” (p. 714). For example, if a man, who had perceived a dog, were to close his eyes and call forth from his memory the scene he had just perceived, we would say that he is remembering the scene. In the process of remembering, he will elicit an integrated image of the dog. This integrated image would contain the input from the specific sensibles (i.e., sight, sound, etc.) and the input of the common sensibles (i.e., magnitude, number, figure, etc.). It is the summoning forth of the mental image that allows him to remember what the dog looked like, sounded like, etc.
The faculty of imagination is considered to be one of the common sensibles and produces integrated object representations that form the contents of memory. The common sensibles, according to Aristotle, are of the body but respond to and can be directed by the processes of the intellect. The role that imagination plays in memory is additional evidence of his holistic understanding of the relationship between the mind and body.
Imagination and Emotion
Aristotle taught that imagination also plays an important role in the operations of the appetitive faculties and the dynamics of emotion. Aristotle (1984) wrote that thinking and mental imagery elicit emotion, “For thinking and imagination…produce that which brings about the affections, since they produce the forms which bring them about” (p. 1096). In other words, images can be objects of the appetite in a manner similar to actually seeing a desirable object. Aristotle (1984) described how a man can intentionally summon a mental image of a desirable object by using his deliberative imagination, and that the mental image then becomes an object of the appetite “…as it were present to the eye of imagination” (p. 2183). Consider, for example, how it is an image that is presented to the appetite when a man thinks of a future good that exists as a potentiality but does not yet exist as an actuality. If one is to contemplate a potential good that is not present to the senses he must use his imagination. Imagery is also involved when passions are elicited from sense perception because of the above-mentioned role that mental imagery plays in the integration of the input of the specific sensibles in the processes of the common sensibles.
Aristotle thought that the role images play in the affective experience of man has important implications for man’s ability to shape his emotional experience, behavior, and overall phenomenology. As we have seen above, man has some volitional control over his imagination and can evoke and shape the images that he experiences. These images in turn have the ability to elicit emotion which in turn elicits movement or behavior; therefore, by consciously shaping and evoking certain images, man has the ability to elicit certain passions or emotions that are central in the processes of motivation and behavior. In other words, by consciously evoking or shaping mental imagery, man can impact both his emotions and his behavior.
Aristotle’s understanding of the role that images play in the mental, behavioral, and affective life of human beings is very similar to certain aspects of Beck’s (1979) cognitive-behavioral therapy and Ellis’s (1975) rational emotive behavioral therapy. Aristotle, Beck, and Ellis all have imagery playing a role in the elicitation of affect and behavior (Aristotle, 1984; Beck, 1979; Ellis 1975). Aristotle's conceptualization of the role and content of mental images also has several similarities to Beck’s (1979) conceptualization of the content and role of schema. Aristotle’s understanding of how mental images are object representations that influence emotions and behavior also has much in common with modern object relations theory (Millon, 1996, 1999, & 2000).