ARISTOTLE'S DE MOTU ANIMALIUM
plausibly be described as a transferred sense, and that has no
connection with the occurrence of phantasmata. As Freudenthai
correctly observed,48 phantasia by Aristotle's time had acquired
the transferred meaning, "(mere) show, pomp, ostentatious-
ness." This use makes its first appearance (the word being
phantazesthai) in Herodotus (VII. 10.5), is frequent by the time
of Polybius, and appears at least once in Aristotle, in the popular
style of the Rhetoric (1404al 1): "But all these (sc. points of
diction) are phantasia, and aimed at the audience." This passage,
unnoticed by Freudenthai, strengthens his case. The use of
phantasia to mean "mere show" can, unlike the uses connected
with phainetai that form the basis of the word's semantic devel-
opment, accurately be described as kata metaphoran; and, unlike
the basic use, it involves no reference to phantasmata, in however
general a sense. Aristotle is precise about linguistic relation-
ships. If he had meant, "and not as the many use it," or "and
not in its non-scientific sense," he might easily have said so.
Instead he seems to be saying, "Assuming when we say
phantasia we mean the faculty in virtue of which we are ap-
peared to in such-and-such a way, and are not using the trans-
ferred sense according to which it means (mere) show, then it
can be said that in virtue of phantasia we tell truth or falsehood—
whereas to say, 'in virtue of ostentatiousness we tell truth or
falsehood' would be silly." It will be objected that this is a
trivial point. But for Aristotle it is never trivial to recognize
all the senses of a word and to indicate carefully those with
which he will be concerned. And there is, after all, no reason
in the context for us to see this as a major theoretical statement.
It has been inflated into one because of the interpretation
standardly given it. It can just as well be seen as a parenthetical
aside, similar to that in the HA passage cited above. It need
not lead us to form any other view concerning Aristotle's
interests and projects than that suggested by the evidence in
general. The passage has probably been interpreted as it has
only because commentators, holding to the image view, had
48
Freudenthai, 30.
254
INTERPRETIVE ESSAYS
already decided that the uses connected directly with phainetai
represented one sense, the "image" uses another.
In numerous contexts, then, in which he is analyzing prob-
lems of delusion, dreaming, and memory, Aristotle speaks of
phantasia and phantasmata. But the evidence indicates that his
basic interest is in how things in the world appear to living
creatures, what the creatures see their objects as. Sometimes he
does speak of decaying-sensc images that are like that which
they represent. Occasionally these are characterized as phan-
tasmata. But the evidence offers us no license for reading images
into every passage, nor does the image view seem to be of such
central importance to Aristotle that it robs his general observa-
tions of their broad interest. We do not need to assume that the
role of phantasia in action and thinking must be explained by
reading in images. W e will find, in fact, that a more plausible
and interesting account can be produced without them.
PHANTASIA AND AISTHESIS
The limitations of Aristotle's decaying-sense doctrine as a key
to explaining all phantasia contexts become particularly ap-
parent when we turn to the difficult problems concerning the
connection of phantasia with aisthesis. W e saw that the state-
ment that phantasia and aisthesis were one, but different in einai,
was best understood as a claim that these were two aspects to
be discerned in many perceptual activities, and not that there
were some activities of the perceptual capacity that should be
called phantasia, other quite separate activities that should be
called aisthesis. It would not be sufficient, then, to see phantasia
as everywhere picking out a process of decaying sense in the
absence of actual perception. The theory of action in both the
MA and the DA strongly claims that even when aisthesis is
going on, phantasia must also be mentioned in the explanation.
The use of phantasia in action-contexts, and its broad connection
with phainetai throughout Aristotle, suggested to us that phan-
tasia is the faculty in virtue of which the animal sees his object
as an object of a certain sort, so that we can say the perception
255
 ARISTOTLE'S DE MOTU ANIMAUUM
has for him some potentially motivating content.49 In order to
be convincing, this hypothesis must be developed in more
detail against the background of Aristotle's theory of aisthesis.
We must discover why, according to this theory, aisthesis is,
by itself, insufficient to present the object in such a way that
the animal is moved to act—why, instead, it must, in the MA
terminology, "prepare" a phantasia which, in turn, "prepares"
the desire.
The first place to which we would obviously turn for some
help with these problems is the section of III.3 that contrasts
phantasia with aisthesis. W e must, however, be cautious in our
use of these passages to explain those dealing with action: for
Aristotle seems here to be thinking primarily of phantasia in the
absence of the perceptible object. The statement that aisthesis
but not phantasia, is always going on (428 a 8-9) might mean
that we are always receiving various stimuli, but not always
attending to them or perceiving them as anything in particular;
but it might also be taken to indicate that we have phantasia
only when the object is not present. (Note, however, that if
this second reading is correct we will have the problem of ex-
plaining why Aristotle should say aisthesis goes on even in the
object's absence.) The statement that aisthesis is always accu-
rate, but phantasia can be false (428al 1—12) is more clearly
helpful in that it emphasizes the mechanical, reproductive side
of aisthesis in Aristotle's theory; this will prove the key to
understanding the large role he gives phantasia. The statement
that, in contrast to doxa, phantasia is in our power (427b19-20)
might be interpreted to be about conjuring and imagining alone;
but it might have a broader scope and resemble Wittgenstein's
"Seeing an aspect and imagining are subject to the will." 60
A more clearly revealing distinction is the contrast drawn
in the MA between the physicalist explanations we should
provide for phantasia and for aisthesis. Aisthesis just is a bodily
alteration under a different description;61 Aristotle feels con-
49
Cf. Dennett, chapters IV, VI.
60
Wittgenstein, PI, H.xi, p. 213.
61
Cf. 424M7, 425 b 27, 426M6, 427»3, 431-14, 19, 432 b l.
256
I N T E R P R E T I V E ESSAYS
fident that he can pick out the physiological alloioseis that are
its matter. He goes on to infer from the fact that phantasia
alone, in the absence of the object, can result in motion that
phantasia, too, is accompanied of necessity by some bodily
change (701 b 17-21, cf. p. 238). But the nature of the alteration
is much less evident. Phantasia, or thought accompanied by
phantasia, works by presenting the animal with the form or
essence of its object, which has an effect like that of the object
itself (701b19 ff., 703b19 fF.). The forms presented by phantasia
were called the forms "of the pleasant or painful" (701b21),
or, equivalently, "of that which produces the affections"
(703 b 19-20). These remarks seem to imply that whereas in
aisthesis the animal becomes just like the object, when phantasia
is operative he becomes aware of the object as a thing of a
certain sort.62
So far the evidence indicates that phantasia is a special kind of
awareness of a perceptible object. But why is this special kind
of awareness important? Our initial examination of some at-
tempts to distinguish it from aisthesis proper indicates that it is
because of the passive character of Aristotelian aisthesis that
a further faculty is required to explain the agent's selective
62
The puzzling statement that phantasmata are like aisthemata, only
"without matter" (DA 432»9-10) might also be taken to emphasize the
active role of the phantasizing agent by stressing that, whereas in aisthesis
there are obvious material changes—a kind of "impress" of the o b j e c t -
in phantasia this is not the case. T h e context suggests that this passage
could just as well be taken to mean, "a phantasma is like an aisthema, but
one that can come about when the object is not physically present." But
our interpretation derives some support from the similar language of
429 b 20 ff., where reason is said to judge "as things are separate from
matter" (hfis chorista ta pragmata (is hules)—meaning it judges forms, not
particulars. While aisthesis receives the impress of a particular object,
phantasia involves seeing its form, i.e., seeing it as an F, as a thing belonging
to a certain class of objects and not just as a particular materially distinct
item. W e could not, of course, really want to confine the operations of
phantasia to the level of species or genus. This man can appear to me as
Socrates, not just as a man. But to decide whether Aristotle's metaphysics
and his theory of action really pull him in two different directions on this
point would require a full analysis of Metaph. V1I-VIII.
257
 ARISTOTLE'S DE MOTU ANIMALIUM
fastening on certain aspects of his environment. There is evi-
dence that Aristotle did not always give aisthesis such a passive
role; some passages in DA II.S, particularly, seem to ascribe
to it a more active, interpretive function.63 But the passive
conception still remains central in the DA and the PN. I think
it can be argued that it is because of the prevalence of the
passive picture (necessary, in his view, to explain perceptual
accuracy), and because of his belief that the proper objects of
the senses are not things but their qualities, that Aristotle is
forced to turn to phantasia in a number of passages to explain
the agent's selective interpreting of his environment. A key
passage in developing this view is chapter 11.12 of the DA.
Chapter 12 describes aisthesis as "what receives perceptible
forms without the matter" (424 a 18-19). It is compared to
wax that receives the impress of a metal signet-ring without
receiving the metal itself. (Below, the case of plants will be
contrasted: they are only affected when they absorb as well
the matter of what affects them—424a33 ff.). The impress is
the aisthema, its matter (analogous to the wax) a physiological
alteration. There is, when aisthesis occurs, a physiological
change that is the direct impress of something in the world. The
faculty seems here to play an entirely passive role, receiving,
but not selecting. Aristotle has said that what aisthesis receives
are forms (eide). Now, lest we be misled by this claim, he goes
on to explain that "aisthesis is affected by the things that have
color or taste or sound, but not insofar as they are what each
of them is spoken of as being, but insofar as they possess a
certain quality, and in virtue of their relations to the sense in
question."64 Though translators differ in their renderings of
crucial phrases here,55 they seem to agree about the nature of
63
1 have been much helped in reading this chapter by a very interesting
unpublished paper by John Cooper, delivered at the Princeton University
Ancient Philosophy Conference, 1973.
64 424a21 fF.: bfioUes 8i nai ij a'icdrjais knctoTov imb rov ix0y7°s XP<*>/ia fj
Xvpov ij ^bipov 7ra<rx") aW ov% jl hcaarov ixiivuv Xiyerai, &W jj roiorSi,
nal xara rov \byov. Cf. also DA 430 b 26-30.
56
1 follow Ross in understanding kai kata ton logon to refer to the pre-
viously discussed relations between each of the senses and its proper
object.
258
I N T E R P R E T I V E ESSAYS
the contrast. As Hicks puts it, when we perceive a rose by
sight, it is not the rose qua rose, but the rose qua white that
acts upon our sight. But to be moved to action an animal has to
become aware of something qua what-it-is-called; he has to see
the man as a man, not just as pale.66 The forms said to be pre-
sented by phantasia were forms of the pleasant and the fearful,
hence necessarily of the thing as a unitary object under some
description, not just as an assortment of various perceptible
characteristics. We are always passively receiving perceptual
stimuli; but when we actively focus on some object in our
environment, separating it out from its context and seeing it as
a certain thing, the faculty of phantasia, or the phantasia-zspect
of aisthesis, is called into play. Aristotle is, admittedly, not
entirely consistent. In some passages aisthesis plays a more
active part; and phantasia is not always mentioned where we
might expect. But it seems reasonable to suppose that it was in
answer to the problems growing out of his precise delimitation
of aisthesis in, e.g., DA 11.12 that Aristotle turned increasingly,
in the DA's subsequent account of perception's role in action,
to the faculty of phantasia.67
There is one more curious passage that, though obscure,
seems to confirm our conclusions about the interpretive function
of phantasia. In DA II.8, 420b31 ff., Aristotle distinguishes
voice from mere noise:
But that which does the striking must be a living creature,
and must be with some phantasia; for voice is a noise that
is indicative (semantikos) of something.
A speaker only means or conveys something (phone is, of
66
It is, of course, called "white," as well as "rose"; but the substance-
term is, for Aristotle, the one under which we must pick it out before we
can go on to say anything else about it. " T h e white thing" does not pick
out anything that we can confidently trace through time and reidentify;
"rose" does. Cf. Cat. 5, Metaph. VII.1, 4, 5, etc.; Strawson, Individuals,
chapter V. (1). [7]. 2 (168 ff.) on "sortal" and "characterizing" uni-
versals; and Wiggins, 1STC, especially 27-40.
67
One answer to problems of inconsistency is to suppose that aisthesis,
like phronesis (cf. n. 28 supra), is used in both a generic and a specific sense,
and phantasia, like politike, picks out a particular aspect of its activity.
259
 INTERPRETIVE ESSAYS
ARISTOTLE'S DE MOTU ANJMALIUM
that aisthesis and phantasia are "the same faculty" now amounts
course, more general than logos) if he is exercising phantasm.
to the contention that reception and interpretation are not
Hicks, predictably, interprets, "It is by the presence of the
separable, but thoroughly interdependent. There is no receptive
image that vocal sound is mainly differentiated from mere
"innocent eye" in perception. How something phainetai to me
noise."88 This reading is singularly uninformative. If Hicks
is obviously bound up with my past, my prejudices, and my
means strictly a decaying-sense image, this is surely too con-
needs. But if it is only in virtue of phantasia, and not aisthesis
fining. W e very often use voice in the presence of the per-
alone, that I apprehend the object as an object, then it follows
ceptible object. If he means some image that is produced along-
that there is no uninterpreted or "innocent" view of it, no dis-
side the aisthenia, but is distinct from it, neither he nor Aristotle
tinction—at least on the level of form or object-perception—
shows us how to make the distinction.69 It seems more plausible
between the given, or received, and the interpreted.61 Aisthesis
to see Aristotle as saying simply that an animal's utterance
still seems to present uninterpreted colors, sounds, etc.; to this
conveys something only if it is about something—i.e., only if
extent Aristotle is still a believer in the given. But this theory
the animal is aware of something in the world in virtue of the
of phantasia (like his theory of the phainomena in his philosophy
faculty of phantasia. On this view voice is semantikos of an ob-
of science) has taken him a long way in a more promising
ject or state of affairs to which the animal has directed his
direction.
attention. On the image reading, it is semantikos not of an ob-
ject, but of the mental picture; this seems to be a bizarre claim,
for which it would be difficult to find either textual or philo- PHANTASIA AND OREXIS
sophical backing.60 Phantasia, then, is the animal's awareness of some object or
The theory of phantasia, then, helps Aristotle to account for state of affairs, which may well prove to be an object of desire.
the interpretive side of perception; and it does more. The claim It can serve both to present the object of desire initially and,
later, to specify the object at hand as what is desired. This need
68
Hicks, in his note on this passage. not involve two steps, but often does. I am thirsty; I have (in
69
Hicks's conclusion that wc require an image even in the presence o)
the absence of the object) a phantasia of drink. I then see a
the object suggests the following suspicious line of thought: psychic
processes must always have an object. If the actual object is absent (as in water fountain and direct my attention to it as drink. It is
many cases of phantasia) wc must supply an internal object. But since Aris- singled out from the conglomerate of my perceptions. It means
totle must have had a unitary theory of phantasia, we will have to say an something to me. I go and take a drink. Phantasia can also be
image is present even in cases where the object itself is actually there. used to account for delusion in practical cases: "Poor dog, he
60
It is true that in DI chapter 1 Aristotle makes two claims: (1) Vocal
saw that as water (or as drink) when it was really ammonia
sounds arc nrmbola of psychic affection. (2) These affections (pathemata)
are the same for all men and arc likenesses (homoiomata) of actual states of solution." The role of phantasia here is, of course, the same as
affairs. Only the second claim is troublesome, since we would agree that in the non-practical case (e.g., "He saw the sun as a foot wide");
phantasia is a psychic process and that when vocal sounds are emitted that the difference between the practical and the non-practical lies
is a sign that some psychic process is taking place. But this early work docs solely in the role played by desire. And in both cases the exer-
not make the important distinction between the role of a'isthesis and that of
phantasia to which Aristotle is forced in the DA by considerations such as
cise of an opposing judgment can prevent the agent from acting
wc have outlined. So the talk of similarity may refer only to the passivity. on the basis of phantasia. In the case of non-linguistic creatures
of aisthesis and the status of the aisthenia as "impress." And the DA passage we will, as a rule, speak of phantasia only in practical cases; we
may well be a later correction in view of the theory of phantasia: mere 61
aisthesis, and the representative aisthenia, arc not enough. Cf. Goodman, LA, 6-10, and The Structure of Appearance, 132 ff.

261
260
 ARISTOTLE'S DE MOTU ANIMAL1UM
infer the content a perception has for them from the appropri-
ateness or inappropriateness of their response. It looked like
drink to him, so he wanted it; but if he had seen it as what it
was (poison), he would have stayed where he was, or run away.
If we can guess at the creature's probable desires, we can infer
from the behavior to the phantasia.*2 But I think it would be a
mistake to conclude that phantasia is best analyzed as a disposi-
tion, or a tendency to treat the object as an X. It is a psycho-
logical process, for which a physiological description is always
theoretically available; if we knew the physiological description,
we could potentially determine the phantasia even in cases where
no desire, and, hence, no behavior followed. (Though I suspect
that the identities would be token- and not type-, so we would
in practice have a hard time doing this.) Thus phantasiai are
not logically dependent on the resulting action and can be used
to explain it. 63
If phantasia is not opposed by judgment, and if the creature
desires the object as presented by phantasia, he will, then, act
accordingly. In the case of animals, there will seldom be op-
position; they cannot weigh one phantasia against another, de-
liberate about which to pursue, or even correct one with the
aid of judgment, so they generally just follow whatever presents
itself to them as suitable.64 With human beings, as Aristotle
explains in DA III. 11, the situation can be more complex.
62
There is evidence that Aristotle believed phantasia alone, in a limited
range of cases, is sufficient to cause a part of the creature to move without
desire being operative in any genuine sense—cf. chapter 11, and notes.
63
On the implications of this for our understanding of the practical
syllogism, cf. Essay 4.
M
Cf. EN 1150,,28, 1147H-5, and Metaph. 980>>25-27, which denies that
animals can acquire experience. DA 428"21-23 distinguishes phantasia from
doxa by claiming that the latter requires the additional clement of pittis,
which other animals lack. (Pistis is conviction dependent on experience,
relying on logos as well as perception—cf. Pol. 1322"32, 1326"26, Ph.
262M8, EE I216 b 26, etc.) Aristotle's remarks on animal psychology look
rather cavalier and unreflcctivc; his theory of motivation would obviously
be more convincing if he had devoted more attention to problems of animal
instinct, learning, habituation, and behavioral responses. T h e collection of
lore about animal behavior in HA IX is a poor substitute for such an
inquiry.
262
I N T E R P R E T I V E ESSAYS
There are two types of phantasia, the deliberative (or calcula-
tive) and the perceptual (433 b 28). Not every phantasia of a
rational creature is a rational phantasia, we must assume. (The
perceptual is said to "belong to other animals as well" (sc. as
to humans)— 43 3b29-30, cf. also 434a6.) But any that involve
looking to the future, weighing one possible course of action
against another, appear to be of this sort. The workings of
deliberative phantasia are explained in the following way:
For whether he will do this or this is already the job of
reasoning. And he must measure using a single criterion; for
he seeks the greater good. So he is able to make one
phantasma out of many (434 a 7-10).
This is a very difficult passage for image-theorists to interpret.
Ross ends up with a collage view of deliberation: the deliber-
ating man combines elements from the different pictures in his
head, ending up with a single picture.65 This, of course, already
implies that the agent does something more active than merely
contemplating an image, and so is a bit nearer our view. But
it seems an unfortunately crude and over-narrow picture of
deliberation to ascribe to Aristotle, in that it implies (though
whether or not Ross would accept the implication is unclear)
that whatever criterion one selects (goodness, for example, as
well as bigness or beauty) must be susceptible of pictorial
representation.
I would argue that the sense of the passage is, instead, the
following: creatures with reason do not always, like animals,
follow one phantasia after another, sporadically and without an
overall plan. Animals can act only according to the awareness
of the moment. Human beings can, however, look to the future
and to past experience, deliberating and weighing one "this"
against another. They become aware of several possible courses,
and are able:
(1) To see the consequences of an action as following from
that action—the two "appearings" being thought by reason as
a unity.
65
Cf. Ross's commentary ad be.
263
 ARISTOTLE'S DE MOTU ANIMAL1UM
(2) To measure one set of consequences against another in
terms of some criterion whose maximization is desired—thus
relating the two sets of consequences and making a unified ap-
pearing. The discrete considerations, "This or that," become
the unity, "This rather than that."
The relation of the deliberative phantasia to the practical syl-
logism would then be twofold: first, the sort of deliberation en-
visaged here could help to explain chains of reasoning, as in the
"cloak" example in MA 7: "I want X, but to have X I must
get Y first," and so on. Second, having reasoned in chain fashion
about different possible courses, a man can compare the out-
comes with a view to the good desired. Thus the man in MA 1
who needs covering might consider several candidates for the
minor premise, speculating on which would give him the degree
of warmth he required. Other animals, too, employ the struc-
tures revealed in the MA account of the syllogism, but only
men have the phantasian ek sullogismou ("from inference"),66
and, in consequence, animals' desires have no results of de-
liberation to work with; the animal is ruled now by one desire
(as the result of a particular activity of phantasia), now by
another.
So far the account of deliberative phantasia has been inter-
preted without reference to images, even to episodes of visual-
izing. But it seems fair to concede at this point that Aristotle
does, in DA III.7 (431 b 6-8), speak of calculation about the fu-
ture as though it involved a kind of picturing: "When one calcu-
lates, using the phantasmata or noimata in the soul, as if one saw
the things, and plans for the future in view of the present. . . ."
The fact that noemata are included here alongside phantasmata
indicates that Aristotle is not committing himself to explaining
all phantasia cases with reference to picture-like internal ob-
jects; but he may be saying here, and in III.11 as well, that the
activity of deliberative phantasia often can involve picturing, or
at least some sort of envisaging. This is not an implausible
thing to say. I have interpreted the passages speaking only of
66
With Hicks, I take this to be the natural construction of ten at 434M1.
264
INTERPRETIVE ESSAYS
"appearing" in order to show that coherent sense can be made
of them without invoking pictorial images, a sense that seems
to tie them more closely to what I have argued is Aristotle's
basic intuition in constructing a theory of awareness.
PHANTASIA AND T H I N K I N G
Aristotle insists in both DA III.9 and MA 6-7 that think-
ing by itself is insufficient to lead to action. The object
of thought must be present to the animal's awareness as an
object of desire before he will move towards it. It is, as we
argued, through phantasia that a perceptible object is seen as
an object under a certain formal description. Only once phantasia
has endowed the object of perception with a formal content can
it become an object of pursuit or avoidance. This is what
Aristotle seems to mean by saying that in the phantasmata what
is to be pursued or avoided is determined (horistai) for the
creature (431 b 2). In DA III.7 he takes the further step of in-
voking phantasia to explain how we can be moved to action by
thinking of a non-present object: the noetic faculty is said to
be provided with the form of its object by phantasmata, which
provide a starting-point for the operations of desire. Phantasia
ties abstract thought to concrete perceptible objects or situa-
tions, the form of which it presents to the noetic faculty. To
use as an example the Rhet. passage (1370b32) cited in note 44,
one might say that victory is regarded as desirable because we
have an awareness of being superior: our thought of victory is
tied to the concrete impression of getting the better of some
enemy, and it is such focussing on the concrete that gives
thought its motivating power. Desire never has a purely ab-
stract object.
One further reason for introducing the phantasma into the
explanation of thinking was, we suggested, to maintain a con-
sistently physicalist picture of action. Aristotle does not wish
to say that thought processes are identical with, or even neces-
sarily accompanied by, any physiological change. But in living,
sublunary creatures, every thought is accompanied by a quasi-
265
 ARISTOTLE'S DE MOTU ANIMALIUM
sensory awareness of the form of the object, and this is neces-
sarily linked to some physiological change. This argument
implies that in cases in which a judgment opposes a sensory
phantasia, this judgment cannot lead to action unless it is accom-
panied by a further activity of phantasia, hence a physiological
change.
We arrive here at the most difficult part of Aristotle's dis-
cussion of phantasia and no'esis—his claim that phantasia is active
every time we have any thought at all. Elsewhere he often
emphasizes the importance of perceptual experience for the
exercise of intellectual faculties. ,De Sensu 1 (437a2 ff.) claims
that perception, which makes us aware of distinctions, is essen-
tial for practical wisdom (cf. also the opening of Metaph. I
and Sens. 445b16 ff.). In APo 1.18 (81a38 ff.), Aristotle argues
that perception is essential both to induction and to demonstra-
tion, since induction proceeds from particulars and the first
principles of demonstration are arrived at by induction. But
DA III.8 claimed not only that the ability to perceive is a
necessary condition for thinking in general (432 a 6-7), but also
that all our thinking, theoretical as well as practical, is neces-
sarily accompanied by some activity of phantasia.
Aristotle does not explain this blanket claim with any care;
but we are in a position to conjecture. There is no thinking
(whether practical or theoretical) that is simply abstract; I
cannot think of a pure proposition. For every thought there is
some episode of symbolizing or envisaging that, as it were,
provides a concrete vehicle for the thought. I do not simply
think of the Principle of Non-Contradiction, in all its abstract
purity. At the same time I am also somehow symbolizing it to
myself, whether by imagining an example of it, or a logical
formalization, or even by saying some words. 67 Another point
made by Aristotle in this regard {Mem. 449b31 ff.) is that
usually my symbolization will convey other strictly unneces-
sary information: I want to think about the mathematical
abstraction, Triangle, and my thought is accompanied by the
envisaging of a particular kind of triangle, having a certain size.
67
Cf. some useful remarks by Price, p. 139.
266
INTERPRETIVE ESSAYS
I am inclined to think that, so far, the theory is true. It is,
insofar as it is true, merely an empirical claim, which might be
upset by the discovery of people who do think in purely ab-
stract fashion. But that is, presumably, all Aristotle means to
claim for it. God would not require phantasia. There are, how-
ever,. a number of problems with Aristotle's exposition of his
view. He suggests strongly, with his Mem. triangle example
(which even uses the phrase "he places before his eyes"), that
the activity he has in mind is quasi-visual and involves a picture-
like object, and, too, that this object symbolizes in virtue of a
similarity. He may even be suggesting that every such object,
like a picture, is definite (and dense?) in a way we have argued
imaginings need not be: he seems to say we can't help picturing
the triangle as of some definite size. Aristotle takes picturing
as his central case and similarity as his central case of pictorial
representation. He does not present the example as an exhaus-
tive analysis, but he certainly does not indicate that such a
reading of it would be limited or wrong. (The fact that as he
concludes his III.8 exposition he is troubled about how to dis-
tinguish phantasmata from the prota noemata** does, however,
suggest that he is not deliberately restricting the account to the
pictorial—for how, then, would any such confusion arise?)
A second problem is that his denial that thinking is physical
commits him to what we might consider a messy overcom-
plexity. If it is true that my thought of the sun's true size must
be accompanied by some symbolizing, isn't it very likely to be
much the same as the pre-judgmental phantasia that sees it as a
foot wide? But the exigencies of Aristotle's account of action,
as we saw, will force him in all such cases (for we have no
reason to think the sun case ought to be analyzed differently
from a practical case) to insert an extra phantasia. One solution
might be for Aristotle to adopt for thinking the same sort of
account he gives for other life-processes: that it is a functional
state of matter (cf. Essays 1 and 3). But there are, I think, good
non-arbitrary reasons (having nothing to do with Platonist con-
68
Probably the asuntheta, the basic and simple concepts discussed in
Metaph. IX. 10.
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servatism) that prevent the adoption of this picture—reasons
connected with his theory of action and responsibility.69 This,
however, is not the time to become enmeshed in an analysis of
these complicated problems.
Aristotle's theory of phantasm attempts to deal with a large
range of problems. With some of these it is more successful
than with others. And the theory is so inclusive that it is not
always easy to see how its various parts fall into place, or even
whether they really do constitute a unified theory. The basic
insight underlying the theory is the important one that per-
ceptual reception is inseparable from interpretation—that we
cannot explain an animal's perception of something as a distinct
feature in his environment with reference only to a process of
receiving or imprinting, but must refer also to his interpretive
activity, the activity in virtue of which the scene appears
a certain way to him. This activity, as Aristotle saw, is de-
pendent not only on the creature's natural endowment, but also
on its past and on its other present activities. As in science
generally the philosopher must begin with and return to the
phainomena (and not to some "pure" or "raw" data), so, in
the explanation of action, he must begin not with received,
unprocessed sensory material, but with the way the world looks
to the particular creature, what it sees things as. It is this
interest in appearing, and not a conviction that images play a
central explanatory role, that underlies Aristotle's development
of a theory of phantasia and his use of it to explain such appar-
ently diverse happenings as imagination, dreaming, delusion,
and motivation. This unified theory of awareness supplements
his account of aisthesis in an important way. Imaging could,
and does, find its place within this theory, but Aristotle is right
not to make it theoretically central; because he does not,
his sub-theory of imaging is less objectionable than the blanket
69
T h e general line I would take would be to trace the worries of DI 9
about the compatibility of freedom of action with causal determinism to
DA III.5, where the separable, non-physical nous is invoked to explain
why, out of all the potential objects of thought, we focus on some and not
others.
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INTERPRETIVE ESSAYS
theory that is sometimes ascribed to him. And he is also right
to make it the job of the same theory to explain both practical
and non-practical cases; for these differ not cognitively, but
only with reference to the role played by desire. It is perhaps
the mistaken notion that epistemology and the explanation of
action are, for Aristotle, two different branches of inquiry,
that has led many critics to mark off some phantasia-contexts
from others and to feel no qualms about offering an interpreta-
tion for one set that could not fit the other. To move a creature
to action, an object must appear to him: he must select it,
mark it off, organize it, interpret it. But this is, desire aside,
what it is to see it. Learning to perceive, as Aristotle tells us,
is learning to make distinctions.70 The passive infant may re-
ceive some stimuli, but perception, thought, and action all pre-
suppose the exercise of phantasia.71
70
On seeing and making distinctions, cf. Metaph. 1.1, 980*26-27 Sevs.
432 a 2 ff., also Ph. 184 b 2-4, where cognitive development is again a
matter of progressively sophisticated sorting and interpreting. Note that
Aristotle's blanket name for the cognitive faculties is the kritika—those
that "sort" or "discriminate."
71
This paper developed side by side with a forthcoming one on the same
general topic by Malcolm Schofield, which addresses itself to different
passages and reaches rather different conclusions. I am indebted to him for
his criticisms and for some helpful conversations about the evidence.
269