phantasma

convertendo se ad phantasmata" (21)--in order to behold finite concrescences of divine beauty, an optics supported by the ancient Christian claim that God is light (1 Jn 1:5).

(36) Sense-images were never meant to be the primary content of knowledge, but given that the senses are not reflexive, our intellect must somehow anchor a concept by a "turning-back" to the sense-images (conversio ad phantasmata) that accompanied a particular thing:

He has in fact chosen well: the Te lucis ante terminum contains a formula for sending away ghosts of the night: "procul recedant somnia/et noctium phantasmata." But, in the Decameronian novella, the prayer is presented to the reader as a mock imitation of the Purgatorial context, and readers can certainly catch its parodic intention (Ciabattoni 73).

Plato refers to the appearances the imitator copies and the images the imitator produces as phantoms--phainomena, phantasmata, and eidola.

Por ejemplo, de acuerdo con 4a y 4e, los conceptos (ennoemata) son ficciones (phantasmata) propias de la mente de los animales racionales.