Soul's holistic complexity and the place of the imagination in Aristotle's conception of the soul

Abstract

The aim of this text is to expose some of Aristotle’s ambiguities about the place of imagination in his conception of the soul. Furthermore, the text presents a ground on which they might be solved. In the first part, it illustrates the ambiguities, and indicates Aristotle’s awareness of it. In the second part it suggests that those ambiguities have to be understood and eventually solved in the field of a major conundrum, namely, the impasse about the parts of the soul. In this sense, it describes what I call soul’s holistic complexity, and proposes it as an aspect of Aristotle’s conception of the soul that might be useful in order to have a better understanding of Aristotle’s concept of imagination.