Abstract

Medieval philosophers who wrote about prophecy were influenced by Aristotelian theory of soul. Aristotle stated that understanding owes to imagination the materials of its knowledge, i.e. sensible images or phantasmata. Without images there isn’t any thought: does this Aristotelian axiom fit to prophetical knowledge, too? Prophetical knowledge, even if it is supernatural, actually does not take place without sensible images, just like any other natural knowledge. Which function do such images play within prophetical knowledge? In his Quaestio de prophetia, Albert the Great tries to answer this question. His original solution consists in claiming that sensible images do play a positive function in regard to prophecy. Prophetical knowledge, though supernatural as to its origin, does not subvert the natural process of knowledge described by Aristotle