Perception, Desire, and Imagination in Aristotle's Treatise On the Soul (De Anima)

This presentation addresses a seemingly inconsistent triad in Aristotle’s De Anima. In his account of the souls of animals, Aristotle stipulates that because all animals have the ability to perceive, they necessarily have the capacity to desire. He further claims that whatever has desire has imagination. Elsewhere, Aristotle states that only some animals have imagination. All three of these claims cannot be true. I argue that the third presumption is incorrect: Aristotle believes that all animals do in fact have some level of imagination. I will defend this assertion by showing that in specific passages where Aristotle claims only some animals have imagination, he is talking about determinate imagination. According to Aristotle, this type of imagination is an aid to perception in its ability to recast prior impressions, providing a more specific depiction of our objects of perception. This is the type of imagination common to all animals with sensory abilities beyond touch. Conversely, indeterminate imagination is extremely limited and belongs to animals with the sense of touch alone. While these two types of imagination have key differences, the two will be collectively exhaustive in animals. With this, the consistency of Aristotle’s triad can be preserved by confirming the presence of perception, desire, and imagination in all animals.