Phenomenological analysis of the "Imaginative Faculty" and its management methods from Avicenna's perspective

Articles in Press

Document Type : Scientific-research

Author

The faculty member of the Department of Philosophy at Al-Mustafa International University

10.48308/jipt.2025.239171.1617

Abstract

This study examines the imaginative faculty (al-Mutakhayyila), an intrinsic and dynamic inner faculty of the human soul, as conceptualized by Avicenna (Ibn Sina). The imaginative faculty actively engages in image formation, drawing on memory stores, especially when the intellect’s supervisory role lapses, leading to unregulated fantasy and daydreaming. It synergizes with the memory faculty by utilizing raw materials stored in memory to generate and archive complex images, capable of synthesizing and dissociating image components. Avicenna highlights the phenomenological features of this faculty and proposes systematic methods for its governance. These methods include vigilant intellectual oversight, restricting access to imagination’s archives, intentional and disciplined use of imagination under rational control, and spiritual-ascetic cultivation of the soul. Additionally, physical health, temperament correction, fulfilling bodily needs, and ethical cultivation such as truthfulness are emphasized as regulatory factors. Using an analytical-rational methodology, this paper explores both the phenomenology and the management strategies of the imaginative faculty along with the consequences of its dysregulation in Avicenna’s philosophical anthropology.

Keywords

The Mirror of Knowledge

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 12 July 2025

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