ABSTRACT
This paper highlights biases that characterise phantasmata as essentially visual along the lines of a narrow conception of image. It is argued that eidōlon, in Aristotle’s use, necessarily entails a visual entity that typically appears in the guise of an object, as tradition has it, whereas phantasma is a theoretical term with a wider scope that occasionally includes eidōla. Thus, some but not all instances of phantasmata may appear as eidōla. Yet some cases of eidōla do not fit the description of phantasmata due to their non-psychological origin. Factors that contribute to characterising phantasmata as eidōla risk misrepresenting the nature of phantasmata and a related notion of image. The disentanglement of the notions of phantasma and eidōlon facilitates the articulation of fine-grained interpretations of key concepts in Aristotelian psychology, which, in turn, contributes to illuminate continuing debates on in what sense, if any, phantasmata may be qualified as images.
