Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

Fancy and Imagination at G. Berkeley

Publication |
2013

Abstract

I follow up with a presentation of the peculiar conception of imagination put forth by George Berkeley. In Berkeley's view imagination becomes imbued with the capacity of spontaneity itself.

Providing for the spontaneity of human beings as such, it is the fundamental activity and substantiality of this being. It is imagination which facilitates a spatially structured world.

I follow the dual functions of fancy and imagination and suggest their unity in a principal spontaneous capacity belonging essentially to the compositional structure of man as incarnated spirit. In conclusion I draw a conclusion arguing that in Berkeley's philosophy it seems to be precisely imagination which serves the role of the defining quality of what makes us human.