Aristotle’s arguments suggest a far greater role for imagination within cognition than do those of Plato and crucially, he acknowledges that imagination is a necessary part of logic and reason. He provides psychological insight into the workings of imagination which include its necessary bodily basis but does not condemn it by this association.
He avoids mind/body dualism. He details and defines a model of imagination which enables the possibility of useful, human creativity (even if he is a little suspicious of this power). He also expresses an alternate (to Plato’s) view of poetry and arts, proposing that such activities support the representation of essences or universals, a theme which will appear later in this thesis as we discuss symbolism and metaphor in visual art (Chapter 5).
Aristotle defines imagination (in his terms: ‘phantasia’) as a mediator between sense perception and judgement. He tells us that ‘...imagination is a different thing from both perceiving and thinking. Imagination cannot occur without perception, nor supposition without imagination.’ (De Anima, 3, 3, 427b). Whilst liminal, the importance of this role should not be underestimated. It is the basis for our consciousness because without it, our sense perceptions would not be accessible to our internal thought process.
Schlutz explains that for Aristotle:
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‘...phantasia is the particular capacity that allows a mediation between aesthesis (sense perception) and dianoia (discursive thought). As the ability to produce mental images, it is responsible for transforming the data of aesthesis and to make them available in the form of representations (phantasmata) to dianoia for further processing. ’ (2009, p.17)
Aristotle proposes the notion that we think using mental images, in a positive light rather than as a critique of their mimetic properties which copy already ‘copied’ images of divine truths.
‘For in the thinking soul, images play the part of percepts, and the assertion or negation of good or bad is invariably accompanied by avoidance or pursuit, which is the reason for the soul’s never thinking without an image.’
(De Anima, 3, 4, 431a).
This assertion of the role of mental images enables Aristotle to get to grips with how imagination actually works as a process. Mental images are ‘stand-ins’ for the sensed perceptions they represent when required within thought:
‘The thinking faculty, then, thinks the forms in images, and, as what it should pursue or avoid is defined in the images, it is moved even in the absence of perception, whenever there are images before it.’ (Ibid, 431b)
Aristotle gives us a more elaborated theory of how imagination functions than does Plato. Within this theory mental images act as malleable, ‘building blocks’ for our thought. Plato’s distrust of images and their root in experience of the material world, a mere shadow on the wall of his allegorical cave, is not shared by Aristotle.
‘The Platonic paradigm of the image as a form of painting – an external copy of nature which is itself an external copy of transcendental Ideas – is replaced by the Aristotelian paradigm of the image as an internal activity of mind which mediates between sensation and reason...The image serves as a bridge between the inner and the outer. It is both a window on the world and a mirror in the mind.’ (Kearney, 1988, p.107)
We begin to see that the ability to think, in this scenario, should be enabled or increased by extending sensed experiences and accumulating a rich ‘bank’ of images from which to draw on in thinking. We are also able to free ourselves from the ‘rational verses sensual’ or ‘mind verses body’ dualism and the problems which such dualisms
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introduce for the role and value of imagination. Aristotle’s descriptions of how imagination functions dispense also with Plato’s strict hierarchies of thinking which place imagination in the lowest ranks. So how does Aristotle model imagination?
Firstly, as ‘movement: ‘...imagination is held to be a kind of movement and not to occur without perception’ (De Anima, 3, 3, 428b). ‘Movement’ within imagination is an act of deliberation in which mental images are selected and manipulated to support thinking:
‘Phantasia must have the ability to create a unity of manifold images for the intellect to work with. The moment of “deliberation” is an intermediary step, necessary to support the more advanced cognitive processes’ (Schlutz, 2009, p.19)
So, imagination consists of ‘movement’: from sensations to cognition. It is associated with desire for knowledge, which is what produces the movement ‘For it lies in our power to be affected by imagination whenever we wish’ (De Anima, 3,3, 428b), ‘’The object of desire is the point of departure for action’ (Ibid, 3, 10, 433a). Returning briefly to the example of practice given in the previous section, relating to the ‘Mind the Gap’
project where children and parents made an animation, what was apparent from the research was the extent to which the animation as an output was the driver of the thinking. The prospect of producing this film provided the ‘desire’ which Aristotle refers to as what produces imaginative movement. In such a motivated and cognitively active state, participants were able to achieve in their learning, as well as produce their film.
Imagination is also associated with the regulation of behaviour, as
‘…whenever we hold the belief that something is terrible or fearsome, we at once experience the corresponding emotion, as also with comforting beliefs. But in the case of imagination, we are in just the same state as if we were looking at the terrible or comforting things in a painting.’ (Ibid, 3, 3, 428b)
This might explain the effect on young children of the Yoko Ono exhibition at Baltic (1.1), in which the intentionally calm and gentle atmosphere of the works seemed to be reflected in the children’s behaviour. The children had enough previous experience to connect with the feelings embodied in or suggested through the art, to ‘lock on’ to and manifest them.
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Finally, Aristotle alludes to the temporal nature of imagination, its role in memory and supposition about our future:
‘The thinking soul apprehends the forms in images, and since it is by means of these images that it determines what is to be sought and what avoided, it moves beyond sensation when it is concerned with such images...Moreover, it is by means of the images or thoughts in the soul, which enable us to see (the future), that we calculate and deliberate about the relationship of things future to things present.’ (De Anima, 3, 7, 431b)
So, for Aristotle, imagination connects sensory perception with our mental worlds, is driven by desire, regulates our behaviour (relating to self-regulatory descriptions of metacognition discussed in chapter 4) and allows us to think backwards and forwards through time. A distinction between ‘sensible’ imagination and ‘deliberate’ imagination completes our model – only humans have the latter, which is the ability to deliberately combine images in order to support reasoning (De anima, 3, 4 429a., 3, 10, 433a-b).
As described previously, such images are drawn from an internal store and recombined as required, as opposed to being immediately empirically experienced.
We see clearly that ‘For Aristotle, phantasia remains an intermediary faculty residing, as it were, between primary and pre-existing faculties of sensation and reason.’
(Kearney, 1988, p.112). The mental image, as a kind of building block of the imagination plays a critical role in cognition, including reason (noesis). The origin of mental imagery in sensed experience is regarded as a necessity rather than as a problem. .
‘For Aristotle to affirm that images are modified modes of sensory perception, is not therefore to condemn them to a pseudo world of untruth...Without the transitional services of imagination, reason would be unable to make contact with the sensible world of reality...It would not be able to represent anything... Reason simply cannot function without the mediation of the mental image.’ (Kearney, 1988, p.109)
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Aristotle raises the status of imagination by explaining its integration and function within our broader cognition, asserting its necessity for our ability to reason. It has certainly shifted position from its awarded place in Plato’s ‘divided line’ and we begin to see it not as the bottom ‘rung’ on a ‘ladder’ but more as a dynamic force which permeates our thinking more generally. Plato’s rigid, hierarchical notions of thought begin to seem inadequate and ill-suited to the way we actually think if we see imagination working so fluidly to support this.
Having noted that Aristotle’s perspective is more dynamic and ‘soft’ than Plato’s, we must be mindful that as malleable as imagination is in his model, there is no implied belief that we are interpretive, creators of knowledge. Aristotle has reservations about imagination and describes its potential negative influence:
‘When imagination originates movement, it necessarily involves appetite...Now thought it is always right, but appetite and imagination may be either right or wrong – the object may be the real or apparent good...Many men follow their imaginations contrary to knowledge.’ (De Anima, 3, 10, 433a)
Figure 3.5 Model of Aristotle’s perspective of imagination
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The Aristotelian legacy of a philosophy of imagination implies some negative consequences for attitudes towards creative thought, despite the fact that it might seem to us like an opportunity for a positive acceptance of our capacity to be autonomously creative. This creativity and the wandering of our imagination is still something to be restrained and used in the service of more legitimate thought. While imagination is regarded as indispensable and necessary for connected experience, it
‘...is considered more a mechanical operation tied to the sensing faculties than a creative process constitutive of genius...In becoming philosophically respectable, imagination also became somewhat tame and unremarkable.’
(Johnson,1987, p.145)
Despite the limitation of imagination within Aristotle’s model, there is a major difference between his and Plato’s conception of the nature and role of mental images which has implications for art-based learning. For Aristotle the role of the mental image is as ‘a mental intermediary between sensation and reason rather than as an idolatrous imitation of a divine demiurge.’ (Kearney, 1988, p.106). Aristotle is sceptical of the
‘divine visions’ which Plato sees as the best means of creating worthwhile art, seeing them as ‘...merely effusions of our physical impressions which rise up when reason is asleep or in a fever’ (De Insomniis,462a). Visionaries confuse ‘...the representation of a perception with perception itself.’ (De Memoria, 451,a). Aristotle recognises our ability to use images to arrive at essential truths inherent in the world around us. Thus, art is not mimesis, instead:
‘…it re-describes reality so as to disclose the ‘essential’ dimension of things...the practice of poetic imitation is one which fosters truth rather than falsehood, which deals in essences rather than appearances.’ (Ibid)
As well as situating imagination throughout the entire breadth of our cognition, thereby raising its cognitive status, Aristotle provides a more respectable role for the arts. He is the originator of a psychological approach to imagination and of a belief in the possibility that it can be nurtured towards productive, cognitive ends. The idea of art dealing in ‘essence’ suggests its valuable relationship with meaning and thought and gives it purpose beyond aesthetics. In these ways he sowed the seeds for a cognitive (as opposed to a mimetic and by implication, technical) perspective on art. His approach to imagination is foundational in terms of western philosophy and in the
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context of this thesis, relevant later as we come to consider the relationships between art, imagination, cognition and metacognition. The inference that as human beings we are able to connect and build ideas, while somewhat restrained by Aristotle, is nevertheless both powerful and empowering. It enables thinkers after him to build on the notion of human autonomy in ‘making sense’ and to award increased power as to the capacity of human beings to understand and live creatively within our universe.