Giambattista Vico and Thomas Hobbes both are known for the particular emphasis they put on the workings of imagination in human understanding. Their respective concepts of imagination are compared in this article, with attention to the sensory basis and cultural products related to this capability. The connections and contrasts established in the analysis are contextualized by the notion of affective semiosis. An affective component can be traced at the basis of the process of image creation in both authors. The primary level of human semiotic activity where the most basic differentiation and identification processes take place must describe not only in terms of sensation but also affect, imagination, and memory. The expression of these processes on the level of culture is however understood and valued differently by Vico and Hobbes. Vico sees in myth and metaphor the necessary elements of imaginative sensemaking, for Hobbes they take the role of by-products in mind’s struggle toward rationality.
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