Abstract
Submitted chapter presents Hegel’s conception of imagination in its most developed form, i.e. in the "Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences". Hegel firstly follows the individual functions of the imagination—starting with the mere activity of reproducing images to the creation of symbols and signs—and shows their interrelationship.
For Hegel, imagination is one of the development stages of the spirit, a stage where the spirit fails to fully realize itself and fails to recognize its rational nature. According to Hegel this leads to the conclusion that imagination cannot exist as an independent and self-sustained capacity; imagination is rather a necessary, but still incomplete and deficient form of thinking and reason.
In conclusion I make an attempt at answering the question of why Hegel attributed thinking and not imagination as the distinction of the principal capacity of the human spirit.