The Invention of Imagination: Aristotle, Geometry, and the Theory of the Psyche

Aristotle was the first philosopher to divide the imagination—what he called phantasia—from other parts of the psyche, placing it between perception and intellect. A mathematician and philosopher of mathematical sciences, Aristotle was puzzled by the problem of geometrical cognition—which depends on the ability to “produce” and “see” a multitude of immaterial objects—and so he introduced the category of internal appearances produced by a new part of the psyche, the imagination. As Justin Hu...