Abstract

This dissertation argues that Thomas Aquinas' account of imagination arises out of Aristotle and is Aristotelian in its basic character. The main focus of the argument is on Thomas' Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, Book three. ;Chapter One is an introduction to the question and raises some considerations in favor of reading Thomas Aquinas on imagination. Chapters Two and Three are directed at specific attacks on Thomas' Aristotelianism. Chapter Two argues a distinction between the "image" of imagination and that of perception. It rejects as unThomistic the view that imagination provides a "mentalized" picture of the physical processes in sensation, arguing that this belongs to a dualism Thomas explicitly rejects. Thomas' understanding of how "physical" processes become cognitive ones is Aristotle's, arising out of the De Anima. ;Chapter Three takes up the specific attacks on the coherence and consistency of De Anima 3.3, attempting to explain Thomas' placid and fairly straightforward commentary. I argue that the problems concerning the place of the chapter would be resolved by understanding it in the terms of Aristotle's methodology outlined in Book II of the Posterior Analytics and earlier in Book II of De Anima. ;Chapter Four considers imaginary objects. Its thesis is that phantasiae are material representations produced by and referring to something not present, most properly, to something which cannot be materially present. Being a sensible object is a necessary condition of such appearances. This is Aristotle's understanding of "appearing," the basic meaning of phantasia. ;Turning to the bodily activities responsible for the existence of imaginary objects, Chapter Five considers the extent to which the two activities Thomas distinguishes in imagination are present in Aristotle's text. ;Chapter Six takes up our consciousness of imaginations. Since "imaginary consciousness" is being aware of objects as such and not as "images," any puzzles regarding reference between "images" and objects are resolved. St. Thomas' account of conversio ad phantasmata however, does not imply an imaginary consciousness simultaneous with thinking