A phenomenological study on memory and imagination

In this thesis, the major views and arguments on imagination and memory from Plato to Deleuze have been analyzed and compared historically. In the first section, image and memory thoughts of the ancient philosophers were discussed. The handling of these concepts from Plato to Augustinus was examined. In the second section, the concepts of imagination and memory in the modern period were discussed starting from the views of utopian philosophers such as Thomas More, Campenalla, F. Bacon, and Montaigne to Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant and Kierkegaard. In the third section, the concepts of image and memory, of which post-modern thought philosophers clearly recognized their importance, were examined. In this section, the imagination and memory concepts of Bergson, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze were evaluated. Three main approaches to imagination and memory have traced out. It is determined that while some philosophers have considered imagination as a powerful tool of rational thinking some others have considered it as an agent distorting rational thinking. Keywords: Image, Imagination, Memory, Time