Emotion, imagination, and feeling in Aristotle

Aristotle never offers a general account of emotion, and so commentators have tried to construct a theory based on his discussion of individual emotions in Rhetoric 2. This approach has yielded little consensus and left unresolved questions. In my dissertation I take a different approach, turning to his psychological works, in particular De Anima. This approach has allowed me to develop a coherent account of emotion that cuts through many of the interpretative debates that result from focusing narrowly on the Rhetoric. I argue that for Aristotle emotions belong to the faculty of imagination (phantasia) and are best characterized as pleasurable or painful images, which are inherently evaluative, constituting genuine (non-propositional) cognitive appraisals. In arguing for this interpretation of emotion I reconceptualize phantasia (imagination). Aristotle\u27s remarks on phantasia are often viewed as incoherent and inconsistent. I take a new approach to interpreting his chapter on phantasia (De Anima 3.3), reading it alongside Plato\u27s Theaetetus and Sophist. I argue that phantasia is a capacity for producing images that originate in sense perception. When we read De Anima 3.3 as a dialogue with Plato the apparent inconsistencies in this chapter disappear and we have good reason to accept the image-view of phantasia, and consequently an image-view of emotion. My interpretation has several advantages. For one, it makes sense of the fact that Aristotle includes epithumia, our desire for food, drink, sex, and in general, what is pleasant, in his list of emotions. Many commentators interpret the emotions as beliefs or judgments and therefore cannot explain why epithumia and the emotions are grouped together. On my account both desire and emotion are pleasurable or painful images. My interpretation also explains how animals are able to experience emotions. Aristotle often ascribes emotion to animals. But animals do not have intellect (nous), and so do not have beliefs. I claim that emotions belong to the faculty of imagination, not intellect, and so there is no difficulty explaining animal emotion. A third advantage is that we can explain why emotions are aroused during tragedy even though we lack the belief that the represented contents are real