phantasia

Noun

phantasia (plural phantasias)

1. A phantasm (an impression received through the senses) or the faculty of receiving or representing these impressions.
   • Phantasia, then, is the animal's awareness of some object or state of affairs, which may well prove to be an object of desire. [...] I am thirsty; I have (in the absence of the object) a phantasia of drink. [...] Phantasia can also be used to account for delusion in practical cases: "Poor dog, he...1978, Martha Craven Nussbaum, Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium […], Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, published 1985, →ISBN, page 261
   • [T]he possibility of eating a piece of pie might be presented to you by your seeing it on the kitchen table. This stage is called phantasia, presentation or impression. Corresponding to a phantasia is a lekton, a proposition or sayable, for example, it is fitting for me to eat that piece of pie...1994, Derk Pereboom, “Stoic Psychotherapy in Descartes and Spinoza”, in Genevieve Lloyd, editor, Spinoza: Critical Assessments, volumes I (Context, Sources and the Early Writings), London; New York...
2. (dated) Something imaginary; a fantasy.
   • But even here suppuration does not always stop, reaching often the fore-arm, and in such cases even life is endangered. Unhealthy granulations, thrombosis of veins, septicæmia and pyæmia cause death. This picture is not merely a phantasia, but exists in reality, and I myself had occasion to witness...1872 November, Carl Proegler, “Article II. The Panaritium (Felon)—Consequences and Treatment.”, in J. Adams Allen, Walter Hay, editors, The Chicago Medical Journal. A Monthly Record of Medicine...
   • When one thing fits into another, when all the parts mutually support and are supported, when a theory is capable of accounting for all questions, and thus is, in a certain sense, self-balanced and self-sustained and entire, we have a phantasia of truth forced upon our minds, even against our will.1872, John Henry Newman, “Palmer on Faith and Unity”, in Essays Critical and Historical, 2nd edition, volume I, London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], →OCLC, page 146