Acta Iadertina, Vol. 22 No. 1, 2025.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15291/ai.4848
Illusions of Imagination as an Analogy for the Influence of Passive Affects on Actions and Reasoning
Ivana RENIĆ
orcid.org/0009-0006-1557-9344
; Department of Philosophy, University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
The aim of this research is to analyse Spinoza’s original philosophical
reflection on the ideas of the imagination and on the process of their
formation in analogy with the ideas of affective states of the body, that
is, in analogy with affects. The article examines the philosophical ideas
of Baruch Spinoza with a focus on the special capacity of imagination
and illusions that can arise from this cognitive capacity, thereby
pointing in an analogous way to the correlation of passive affects, judgments
and actions. The results of the analysis and comparison of the
influence of illusions created by the imagination and the influence of
passive affects on cognition, reasoning and action indicate their similar
characteristics. Despite the appearance of inadequate and illusory imaginative
ideas in experience – which, according to Spinoza, are impossible
to remove – the cognition and awareness of their inadequacy and
uncertainty strongly influence our judgment and inference and thereby
weaken their influence. Similarly, in understanding passive or negative
affects as indicators of a change in the state of the affected body and the
ideas of such changes, we recognize these very often intense affects as
inappropriate factors to guide us in judgment and action.
Keywords
affects, imagination, ideas, B. Spinoza, knowledge, judgment
Hrčak ID:
334832
URI
Publication date:
1.9.2025.
Visits: 224 *