Aristotle, Rhetoric
J. H. Freese, Ed.

1 The passage ἐπεὶ δ᾽ ἐστὶ . . . αἴσθησις has been punctuated in two ways. （1） With a full stop at ἐλπίζει （Roemer, Jebb）. The conclusion then drawn is that memory and hope are accompanied by imagination of what is remembered or hoped. To this it is objected that what Aristotle really wants to prove is that memory and hope are a cause of pleasure. （2） With a comma at ἐλπίζει （Cope, Victorius）. The steps in the argument will then be: if pleasure is the sensation of a certain emotion; if imagination is a weakened （faded） sensation; if one who remembers or hopes is attended by an imagination of what he remembers or hopes; then, this being so, pleasure will attend one who remembers or hopes, since there is sensation, and pleasure is sensation and a kind of movement （sect. 1）. φαντασία, the faculty of forming mental images （variously translated “imagination,” “mental impression,” “fantasy”） is defined by Aristotle （Aristot. De Anima 3.3.11） as a kind of movement, which cannot arise apart from sensation, and the movement produced must resemble the sensation which produced it. But φαντασία is more than this; it is not merely a faculty of sense, but occupies a place midway between sense and intellect; while imagination has need of the senses, the intellect has need of imagination. If φαντασία is referred to an earlier perception of which the sense image is a copy, this is memory. Imagination carries the sense images （ φαντάσματα） to the seat of memory. They are then transformed into memory （of something past） or hope （of something future） and are handed on to the intellect. （See Cope here, and R. D. Hicks in his edition of the De Anima.）