Between Instinct and Imagination

Antonio Rosmini’s Discussion of Animal Life in the “Anthropology as an Aid to the Moral Science”

Abstract

The article focuses on Rosmini’s concept of instinctive behaviour, as it is developed in the Anthropology as an Aid to the Moral Science. Rosmini refers to instinct in opposition to a widespread trend towards the mechanization of the animal; to this aim, he includes in the animal’s instinctuality the faculty of imagination. Animal imagination is seen as responsible for behavioural phenomena such as imitation and sympathy, and can even constitute an inner world organized around reliable space-time coordinates. In the concluding remarks, it will be shown that Rosmini’s approach was highly original in the contemporary and immediately subsequent Italian philosophical context.