A criticism of two articles on Aristotle's imagination
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- Statement of Responsibility:
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Silva de Choudens, José R.
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Journal article
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Spanish; Castilian
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text (article)
- Vydáno:
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Universidad de León: Servicio de Publicaciones 1989
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Contextos ISSN 0212-6192 Nº 13, 1989, pags. 7-44
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This article deals with the subject of phantasia in Aristotle starting from the articles of Malcolm Schofield ("Aristotle on the Imagination") and Martha Nussbaum ("The Role of Phantasia in Aristotle's Explanation of Action"). The former construes phantasia as a faculty complementing perception within anomalous experiences wherein our perceptual apparatus does not function well, experiences called by the author "non-paradigmatic sensorial experiences". The latter asserts that phantasia is, in Aristotle, a function complementary of perception and of thought, which makes possible that the objects thereof attain a full sense, such that they motivate animal motion. For her, phantasia is the complement of aisthesis -by itself a passive faculty- allowing us to have experience of objects and not only perception of sense data. Here it is suggested, instead, to begin with an impartial analysis of the different contextual meanings of "phantasia". Following this method, the next three meanings of "phantasia" emerge as preeminent: l) it is the faculty of subjective presentations; 2) it is the faculty of quasi-perceptual experiences; 3) it is the presentative faculty, i.e. the faculty of conscious contents considered only as presentations to consciousness. The conclusion is drawn that meaning 3) seems to be the most important, in such a way that the other two may be understood in connection with this one. Thus phantasia would be the faculty of presentations not of the external object itself (the ones furnished by perception), but as mere contents of consciousness considered uncertain or entirely subjective.