Imagination is a complicated aspect of the human mind for the philosopher. Each philosopher seems to have their own definitions of what the human senses and imagination really are, and the role each plays in man's development and daily existence. Plato is wrong to eschew the arts and imagination in the Republic. Others, like Aristotle and Hobbes, are more welcoming and treat imagination as an aspect or close relative of memory. Despite divergent opinions, a nagging question remains: what use is imagination to the philosopher? Human imagination is one of the defining characteristics of the human being, with it man is able to delve into the human mind, investigate, theorize and, above all, allows philosophers to understand how things are and how they could be.L Imagination has always interested philosophers throughout history. Aristotle is apparently the first philosopher to introduce the concept of imagination into philosophy in his work De Anima. He writes: "imagination is what we use to say that some ghost arises within us." According to Aristotle “imaginative phantasms are to the intellectual soul as objects of the senses. But when it affirms or denies good or evil, it pursues or avoids. Therefore the soul never understands without ghosts.” Aristotle observes that ghosts are to the intellectual part of the soul as sensory objects are to the senses. He argues that the search for a thing that is not physically present to the senses must be preceded by an image or representation of the desired object, thus supporting the necessity of imagination among philosophers. Aristotle, like Hobbes, believed that knowledge came directly ...... middle of paper ...... stuff of dreams, allowing your imagination to run seemingly rampant. For the philosopher, recognition of the existence and importance of the human imagination is a necessary trait. Without an active and informed imagination, it is not possible to make judgments or investigate the world with the skill and ease of great philosophers. If you have no imagination, you cannot understand Plato's cave analogy, you cannot imagine the gray shadows flickering against the cold, jagged wall. Without imagination it is not possible to imagine the ideal city, or Santa Claus, nor to divide the imagination into two parts. Likewise, imagination is a complex and useful part of human nature. The mind, a multifaceted container of senses, dreams and imagination, opens the doors to philosophy to pave the way for the search for good, truth and beauty.