Imagination in Avempace

Abstract

Aristotle's first commentator, namely, Avempace, followed by Averroes and the Arab Muslim tradition, has an important role regarding the issue of human imagination when distinguishing three levels of it, which are the following: 1) Epistemological: imagination with a mediating role between external as well as the internal senses and reason, between material and spiritual, the individual and the general; 2) As life's motor: supporting an ideal “movable” life which, assisted by reason, tends to improve and engender the desire and passion for reaching the mentioned ideal, but over and done with; and 3) Moral and social dimensions: which are also divided in three forms of life depending on the spiritual degree and, because of the pleasure they offer, they become attractive to each individual, turning out to be decisive in their way of life: a) corporeal forms, b) spiritual forms and, finally, c) second degree spiritual forms, these last enclosing the supreme objective, that is, the immaterial intelligibles' contemplation and the mystical union with the Agent Intellect, hence achieving as a consequence an intellectual mysticism.