“In the same way as regards the soul, when that kind of thing in us which mirrors the images of thought and intellect is undisturbed, we see them and know them in a way parallel to sense-perception, along with the prior knowledge that it is intellect and thought that are active. But when this is broken because the harmony of the body is upset, thought and intellect operate without an image, and then intellectual activity takes place without a mind-picture.” (Plotinus, “Enneads”, cca. 270 AD)
"The noetic act is without parts and has not, so to speak, come out into the open, but remains unobserved within, but the verbal expression unfolds its content and brings it out of the noetic act into the image making power, and so shows the noetic act as if in a mirror, and this is how there is conscious apprehension and persistence and memory of it." (Plotinus, "Enneads", cca. 270 AD)
"All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call impressions and ideas. The difference betwixt these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness, with which they strike upon the mind, and make their way into our thought or consciousness. Those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence, we may name impressions; and under this name I comprehend all our sensations, passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning. I believe it will not be very necessary to employ many words in explaining this distinction." (David Hume, "A Treatise of Human Nature", 1738)
"You cannot crown the edifice by this abstraction. The scientific imagination, which is here authoritative, demands as the origin and cause of a series of ether waves a particle of vibrating matter quite as definite, though it may be excessively minute, as that which gives origin to a musical sound. Such a particle we name an atom or a molecule. I think the imagination when focused so as to give definition without penumbral haze, is sure to realise this image at last." (John Tyndall, "The Scientific Use of the Imagination", 1870)
"The theory most prevalent among teachers is that mathematics affords the best training for the reasoning powers; […] The modem, and to my mind true, theory is that mathematics is the abstract form of the natural sciences; and that it is valuable as a training of the reasoning powers, not because it is abstract, but because it is a representation of actual things." (Truman H Safford, "Mathematical Teaching and Its Modern Methods", 1886)
"Images tell us nothing, either right or wrong, about the external world. […] It is just because forming images is a voluntary activity that it does not instruct us about the external world. […] When we form an image of something we are not observing. The coming and going of the pictures is not something that happens to us. We are not surprised by these pictures, saying ‘Look!’" (Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Zettel", 1967)
“The power of images consists largely in the fact that they integrate different types of knowledge and experience.” (David Gooding, "Creative Rationality", 1996)
"When we talk of seeing an image, either in front of us or visualised with closed eyes, we invoke a range of metaphors and ideas which highlight the relationship between perception and imagery. For those of us with unimpaired vision, to see with ‘the mind’s eye’ conjures up a picture of perception where there is not a great deal of difference between an external or internal image." (Michael Forrester," Psychology of the Image", 2000)
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