Imagination
Ancient

Ancient Greek philosophers conceived imagination, or "phantasia," as working with "pictures" in the sense of mental images. Aristotle, in his work De Anima, identified imagination as a faculty that enables an image to occur within us, a definition associating imagination with a broad range of activities involved in thoughts, dreams, and memories.

In Philebus, Plato discusses daydreaming and considers imagination about the future as the work of a painter within the soul. However, Plato portrayed this painter as an illustrator rather than a creator, reflecting his view of imagination as a representational rather than an inventive faculty.

Greek philosophers typically distinguished imagination from perception and rational thinking: "For imagination is different from either perceiving or discursive thinking, though it is not found without sensation, or judgement without it" (De Anima, iii 3). Aristotle viewed imagination as a faculty that mediates between the senses and intellect. The mental images it manipulates, whether arising from visions, dreams or sensory perception, were thought to be transmitted through the lower parts of the soul, suggesting that these images could be influenced by emotions and primal desires, thereby confusing the judgement of the intellect.
length_constraints:number_words[367]