Imagination in the Theology of Aristotle

The principal part of the Arabic Plotinus that circulated under the name of the The Theology of Aristotle consists largely in the translation and extensive adaptation of parts of Plotinus's works on psychology. Much of the adaptation of the Plotinian source material that we find in the Theology of Aristotle represents original philosophical work in a Neoplatonic paradigm. In this article, I investigate the contributions that the Theology of Aristotle makes to theory of the imagination. I argue that we can understand these contributions to be of three main kinds: the role of the imagination as mediator between the intelligible and sensible realms is enhanced; the activity of the imagination is represented as close to that of the intellect; and the imagination is associated with artistic creativity.