Thought and imagination
Again on artificial intelligence
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, August 3, 2026
The problem of artificial intelligence, which is not always discussed with natural intelligence today, had — as we already had occasion to show here — a precursor in the history of Western philosophy: the unique, separate intellect of Latin Averroism. The analogy is so compelling — a unique and separate intellect which thinks outside of single individuals — that it can even coincide in their acronym: Artificial Intelligence — Agent Intellect (as the Averroists called the separate intellect). For medieval philosophers, more shrewd in this respect than our contemporaries, the crucial problem was how the unique and separate intellect unites (copulatur) with single humans, so that thought is acquired (adeptus) by the individual and one may say hic homo intelligit, this man understands. For Averroes, the medium that enables this union was imagination, which our contemporaries seem to lack entirely. In artificial intelligence, indeed, hic homo non intellegit, this particular man renounces understanding and delegates the most precious of his faculties to a machine, which is supposed to think for him and better than him. According to the instructions of this inexorable master, imagination is not of any use (although some form of imagination might be necessary even to apply a norm). Perhaps the true problem with artificial intelligence is that it was made possible by a general loss of the faculty of imagination, almost as if its advent had been preceded by the establishment of an omnipervasive artificial imagination. A humanity which had lost imagination, was ready to give up thinking as well (which, on the other hand, as Aristotle already taught, without imagination is simply not possible).
The first thing to do to hinder the dominance of AI is therefore a patient, punctilious, and methodical search for lost imagination. And since thought is nothing but the accomplished form of imagination, there will then be no longer any need for artificial intelligence.
Again on artificial intelligence
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, August 3, 2026
The problem of artificial intelligence, which is not always discussed with natural intelligence today, had — as we already had occasion to show here — a precursor in the history of Western philosophy: the unique, separate intellect of Latin Averroism. The analogy is so compelling — a unique and separate intellect which thinks outside of single individuals — that it can even coincide in their acronym: Artificial Intelligence — Agent Intellect (as the Averroists called the separate intellect). For medieval philosophers, more shrewd in this respect than our contemporaries, the crucial problem was how the unique and separate intellect unites (copulatur) with single humans, so that thought is acquired (adeptus) by the individual and one may say hic homo intelligit, this man understands. For Averroes, the medium that enables this union was imagination, which our contemporaries seem to lack entirely. In artificial intelligence, indeed, hic homo non intellegit, this particular man renounces understanding and delegates the most precious of his faculties to a machine, which is supposed to think for him and better than him. According to the instructions of this inexorable master, imagination is not of any use (although some form of imagination might be necessary even to apply a norm). Perhaps the true problem with artificial intelligence is that it was made possible by a general loss of the faculty of imagination, almost as if its advent had been preceded by the establishment of an omnipervasive artificial imagination. A humanity which had lost imagination, was ready to give up thinking as well (which, on the other hand, as Aristotle already taught, without imagination is simply not possible).
The first thing to do to hinder the dominance of AI is therefore a patient, punctilious, and methodical search for lost imagination. And since thought is nothing but the accomplished form of imagination, there will then be no longer any need for artificial intelligence.
(English translation by I, Robot)
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René Magritte, The imaginative faculty, 1948. Courtesy of WikiArt.
