FANTASY. — In general, it is the intermediate function between the immediate appearance of objects to the external senses and the reflective knowledge of them as found especially in understanding. In this twofold relation to the external senses first, and then, in man, to higher activities, fantasy (f.) conditions, in its first structural phase, knowledge itself both in the sensory sphere and in the intellectual.
Yet in this intermediate position, f. cannot terminate any cognitive process: neither that of existence, which can be attested only by immediate sensory presentations, nor that of essence, since knowledge of essence involves the apprehension of the absolute meaning of things, which by its very nature transcends image and particular representation, even though it presupposes the latter as the first global presentation of the object. Indeed, the etymology of f., which Aristotle derives from “light” (ἀπὸ τοῦ φῶνος: De An., III, 3, 429 a 3), indicates the (interior) appearance of objects that the senses see externally; this interior appearance in turn presupposes that objects of experience have a second mode of presence, beyond that of direct stimulation of the senses. This presence is called image or “phantasm,” which in turn is structured differently according to the multiplicity of tasks that fall to f., depending on whether it relates to sensory knowing or to the intellectual sphere, to existence or to essence.
The essence of f., therefore, is to provide and consolidate in consciousness, at a first level, a constant structure of the object so that it is not left entirely at the mercy of mutable sensory impressions and can, however remotely, be susceptible to rational comprehension and development. Moreover, f., in retaining and arranging the structures of objects in its own way, constitutes the fundamental condition of action itself, which, whether it aims to construct objects through technique or to appropriate them to satisfy vital needs, requires that the object, in its spatio-temporal reality, constitute a “whole” and thus precisely present itself with its own structure.
Thus, while f. conditions all completed knowledge and all organized activity, it itself is indifferent both to the truth of knowing and to the morality of acting, since truth and morality properly constitute the fulfillment of the movement of consciousness: they therefore demand a judgment of value that bears directly, though differently according to the various objects, on the existence or essence of things, and this judgment always, in various forms, has a value of transcendence and definitive positing of the object, whereas the proper movement of f. is in the direction of imagining the object and its primordial, still problematic positing.
Around these difficult and intricate relations that f. presents with the various forms of knowing and acting, the philosophical schools most directly engaged in problems of gnoseology have taken an interest. Already Democritus maintained, against Protagoras’ phenomenism, that to say that every f. is true, since even this principle is founded on a f., is equivalent to justifying the opposite principle that not every f. is true, and thus the principle itself will also be false (cf. H. Diels – W. Kranz, *Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker*, III, 5th ed., Berlin 1935, p. 111, 19). Such skepticism seems to have been expressly upheld by Leucippus, for whom, as Epiphanius writes (Adv. haer., III, 2, 9), “everything comes to be according to f. and opinion, and is modeled according to truth” (κατὰ φαντασίαν καὶ δόξαν … ταὐτὰ γίνεται καὶ μηδὲν κατὰ δόξαν: A 33; ibid., II, p. 79, 19-27 and *Doxographi graeci*, 2nd ed., Berlin 1935, p. 79, 19-27).
Aristotle sets forth his doctrine of f. (De An., III, 3, 427 a 16 ff.) in such a way as to safeguard the originality and clear distinction between sensing and understanding, which the pre-Socratics, even Homer (427 a 26), seem to confuse. First, f. is not mere sensing, because one senses only in the presence of sensibles, whereas f. operates even in sleep or with eyes closed (428 a 1 ff.). Nor does f. identify with opinion (δόξα), for the latter generates a conviction usually lacking in f., and also because opinion can be true or false, whereas f. is also had by animals, from which the persuasion of truth is absent (428 a 25–9). Nor can f. be a mixture (συμπλοκή) of sensation and opinion, as Plato held (Soph., 263b: σύνδεσμος ἀληθοῦς καὶ δόξης).
In its elementary function, f. is “the product of sensation in act” (429 a 1) and thus a movement whereby “the same sensation persists and continues” (De An., I, 4, 408 b 18) in the sensory centers. The phantasm therefore constitutes the first structure of the object for consciousness: for Aristotle, it presupposes the convergence of the external senses in the common sense (κοινὴ αἴσθησις), so that in the phantasm the real offers a first barrier of resistance to the incessant flow of experience and its fragmentariness (Post. An., II, 19, 100 a 3 ff.).
Thus Aristotle on the one hand attributes to f. the primary sensory synthesis by which the apprehension of “perceptive continuity,” of space and time, is rendered possible (cf. De An., 450 a 10–12), and on the other places f. as the foundation of intellectual knowing, inasmuch as the phantasm exhibits that particular and material structure of which the concept expresses the universal and necessary reason. And it is therefore in f. that understanding accomplishes its reference to reality, since “the soul understands nothing without phantasms” — the fundamental principle of Aristotelian realism (De An., III, 7, 431 a 14; De An., 450 a 1 ff.). As St. Thomas explains, the sensible real is always individual: “Unde natura lapidis vel cuiuscumque materialis rei cognosci non potest complete et vere, nisi secundum quod cognoscitur ut in particulari existens. Particulare autem apprehendimus per sensum et imaginationem; et ideo necesse est ad hoc quod intellectus actu intelligat suum obiectum proprium, quod convertat se ad phantasmata et speculetur naturam universalem in particulari existentem” (*Summa Theologiae*, I, q. 84, a. 7).
In a second moment, Aristotle affirms an active collaboration of f. with the higher functions of understanding and willing, so that alongside a sensory f. there is also a rational f. (φ. λογιστική) and a volitional f. (φ. βουλευτική), which are evidently proper functions of human f. by reason of its natural connection with intellect (De An., III, 10, 433 b 29; II, 43, 4 a 10). Finally, it is f. that renders possible the expression of subjective states through voice and language (De An., II, 8, 420 a 32), as well as every artistic and practical activity.
The Greek and Latin Aristotelians for the most part limited themselves to listing the principles of Aristotelian theory: the most notable contribution is to be seen in the distinction advanced by Averroes and accepted also by St. Thomas between f. and the cogitative power (v.), inasmuch as the latter directly elaborates the phantasms, already given, in their concrete meaning and thus renders possible the reference of the act of understanding to them. Thus St. Thomas assigns as the object of f. the “form” or external structure, reserving for the cogitative power the “intentio,” the concrete meaning of things (*Summa Theologiae*, I, q. 78, a. 4).
BIBL.:
H. Diels – W. Kranz, *Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker*, Berlin 1934–40.
Aristotle, *De Anima*.
St. Thomas Aquinas, *Summa Theologiae*, I, qq. 78, 84.
In the psychology of the Stoics, fantasy is “an impression of an image in the soul” (τὰ πνεῦμα ἐν ψυχῇ; Stoic. vet. fragm., ed. H. V. ARIMAN, I, Lipsiae 1924, p. 56), and a distinction is drawn between a fantasy that apprehends existing reality and one that does not (φαντασία καταληπτική, φαντασία ἀκατάληπτος). For Philo, fantasy, together with appetite, constitutes the essential function of the soul, which is defined as φύσις προσέλκυσα φαντασίαν καὶ δόξαν (Leg. Alleg., II, 7; ed. L. Cohn and P. Wendland, I, Berolini 1896, p. 95, 15), so that fantasy penetrates all the functions of knowing and acting, even to the revelations that God may make in dreams (De Somn., II, ed. cit., III, 18, 1898, p. 239, 16 sqq.). Plotinus substantially accepts the Aristotelian theory of fantasy, to which he attributes as a special function memory (τοῦ φαντασμένου ὡς ἦν μνήμη: Enn., IV, 3, 29; ed. E. Bréhier, IV, Parisiis 1927, p. 98, 31); but in his intellectualism Plotinus distinguishes two kinds of fantasy: one for sensible objects and one for intelligible objects, not separated, however, but in such a way that intelligible fantasy dominates sensory fantasy as reality dominates the shadow that reflects it (ibid., 31; ed. cit., p. 99, 4 sqq.).
In late Scholasticism, outside the Thomist tradition, with the simplification of the theory of internal senses, fantasy is often identified with common sense in a single internal sense, of which the four senses of Thomist psychology represent only different functions (cf. Suárez, De Anima, III, cap. 30; Lugduni 1635, p. 171 rb); a doctrine that was not without influence on the critical problems of the foundation of truth that gave rise to modern philosophy.