ABSTRACT
This chapter is an analysis of Ficino’s reading of Plotinus’s view that the soul has a twofold life, one which ascends towards Intellect and the other which descends towards Matter. This position implies that each of the soul’s faculties – the intellect, reason, the imagination, and the senses – has a double dimension. It also discusses Ficino’s account of the imagination and focuses on its role in the mental and physical well-being of the soul. In discussing Ficino’s use of the terms imaginatio and phantasia, I explain that the linguistic difference between the two words had a clear speculative relevance for him. I then demonstrate that the imagination was seen, by both Plotinus and Ficino, as the source of the soul’s awareness, which made it an essential mental power. Finally, Ficino considered the imagination to be the faculty which conveyed to the body the influence of the soul and which was therefore responsible for many physiological processes, such as, for example, falling ill and recovering, either from a fever or from lovesickness.
