History of Islamic Philosophy

History of Islamic Philosophy

Imagination: Farabi vis-à-vis Hegel’s Vantage Point

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Nadia Maftouni
Full Professor, Department of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
10.22034/hpi.2025.537937.1159
Abstract
Theory of imagination shares common features in Farabi and Hegel. Imagination, Farabi believes, may well be defined by its three most notable activities of preserving the sensible forms, combining and separating the sensible forms to make new images, and representing sensible beings as well as the intelligible affairs and beings by sensible forms of two former kinds of images, that is, preserved forms in imagination and the forms created by imagination via combining and separating the sensible forms. Imagination keeps forms of a horse, a stone, a wing, a smell, etc. Imagination also makes a horse with two wings, or a stone that is crying, or a wall that is singing. Imagination gets the image of the horse from nature, and the image of the wings from nature too, then produces a new form by joining them. Imagination represents, for example, the vice of damaging environment by drawing a row of crying trees in a painting. Three stages of imagination according to Hegel include the first stage as reproductive imagination, the second stage as the productive and associative imagination, also called fantasy, and third stage as the sign-making fantasy. Mentioned features of imagination in Hegel’s work has a high resemblance to three activities explored in Farabi’s philosophy.
Keywords
Farabi
Hegel
reproductive imagination
associative imagination
Sign-making fantasy
Subjects
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History of Islamic Philosophy
Volume 5, Issue 17
Spring 2026
Pages 25-38

  • Receive Date 03 August 2025
  • Revise Date 22 September 2025
  • Accept Date 24 September 2025