Publication Details

Abstract

The article offers an explication of the concepts of middle soul or middle man. The non-individual animal soul, being rather a capacity of feeling, is joined with individual rational human soul. From the connection of these heterogeneous souls imagination as a middle faculty arises. The lower imagination transcribes the desires of sensitive soul into images, while the higher imagination transcribes the contemplations of the intellect into words. Middle man having the faculty of imagination weighs the value of desire by comparing the image of desire with what he acquires by the discursive expressions of the intellect. In case of compliance he tries to satisfy the desire, but if the rational imagination is not consistent with the image the desire leads to, he abandons the desire. Thus the middle man is not the place of an automatic transcription of desire/image/discourse/intellect in any direction. It is rather a place where the choice of true desires is made – the choice that constitutes a virtuous person.