scholarly journals Aristotle’s criticism of the “like is known by like” principle (Commentary on De anima II 5, 416b 32 – 417a 20)

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 307-325
Author(s):  
Svetlana Mesyats
Keyword(s):  
Sense Perception ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Being Moved

One of the principles underlying Aristotle’s theory of sense perception is that the sense faculty is potentially such as the sensible object is actually. On closer examination, this statement turns out to be a modernization of the ancient rule "like is known by like", shared by most of the early Greek philosophers, including Empedocles and Plato. The paper shows that though Aristotle criticizes this principle in his treatise On the Soul, he doesn’t really abandon it. On the contrary, he retains it for his own theory of sense perception while using the notions of the possible and the actual. The paper is written in the form of a line-by-line commentary to De anima II 5 416b 32–417a 20, where Aristotle reproaches his predecessors for the inconsistency and contradictions of their theories; shows that the “like is known by like” principle entails certain difficulties, and solves these difficulties by introducing his own theory of being moved and acted upon, according to which the patient is in a sense unlike the agent and in a sense like it.

The Lever, or How to Act at a Distance: A Backdrop to Theophrastus’ De sensibus

Rhizomata ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-187
Author(s):  
André Laks
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Sense Organ ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Extreme Caution ◽  
Alexander Of Aphrodisias ◽  
Physiological Alteration ◽  
Material Process ◽  
Theoretical Frame

AbstractIt is well known that when it comes to perception in the De anima, Aristotle uses affection-related vocabulary with extreme caution. This has given rise to a debate between interpreters who hold that in Aristotle’s account, the act of sense-perception nevertheless involves the physiological alteration of the sense organ (Richard Sorabji), and those think, with Myles Burnyeat, that for Aristotle, perception does not involve any material process, so that an Aristotelian physics of sense-perception is a “physics of forms alone”. The present article suggests that the dematerialisation of Aristotle’s theory of perception, which has a long story from Alexander of Aphrodisias to Brentano, may be in fact traced back to Theophrastus’ exegesis of Aristotle’s relevant passages in the De anima in his Physics, as we can reconstruct it on the basis of Priscian’s Metaphrasis in Theophrastum and Simplicius’ commentary of Aristotle’s De Anima. The reconstruction also provides a scholastic-theoretical frame to Theophrastus’ critical exposition of ancient theories about sense perception in his De sensibus, whether or not the discussion originally belonged to Theophrastus’ Physics.

The Emotions

2021 ◽  
pp. 18-41
Author(s):  
David Charles
Keyword(s):  
Pure Form ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Physical Features ◽  
Distinct Features ◽  
Physical Type

In De Anima A.1, Aristotle developed an account of certain ‘affections of the soul’ such as anger which is his model for other ‘affections and actions common to body and soul’ such as desire and sense perception. His remarks about anger can be understood in two different ways. According to one account, which I call ‘the Pure Form Interpretation’, anger is essentially a compound made up of two definitionally distinct features, one purely psychological (a desire for revenge: its form) and the other physical (the boiling of the blood: its matter), where the latter in some way ‘underlies’ the former. In the other, described as ‘the Impure Form Interpretation’, the type of desire for revenge referred to in the definition of anger (its form) is inseparable in definition from (and not abstractable from) physical features such as, for example, the boiling blood. The type of desire which defines anger is itself defined as a boiling-of-the-blood-(or hot-) desire for revenge. Aristotle’s comments in De Anima A.1 are, it is argued, best understood in line with the Impure Form Interpretation, as defining anger as an inextricably psycho-physical type of desire for revenge, not decomposable into two definitionally separate features, one purely psychological, one purely physical.

Sense Organs and the Activity of Sensation in Aristotle

Phronesis ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 306-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Magee
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Transparent Medium ◽  
Living Animal ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Sense Organs ◽  
Physical Processes ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Proper Interpretation ◽  
Qualitative Changes

AbstractAmid the ongoing debate over the proper interpretation of Aristotle's theory of sense perception in the De Anima, Steven Everson has recently presented a well-documented and ambitious treatment of the issue, arguing in favor of Richard Sorabji's controversial position that sense organs literally take on the qualities of their proper objects. Against the interpretation of M. F. Burnyeat, Everson and others make a compelling case the Aristotelian account of sensation requires some physical process to occur in sense organs. A detailed examination of the interpretation by Everson and Sorabji of Aristotle's theory, however, shows that their reading cannot be the correct one, since it involves many textual and philosophical difficulties. Their interpretation, for instance, would require abandoning Aristotle's requirement that only a transparent substance is suitable matter for an eye. Likewise, their understanding of the Aristotle's doctrine of sensation as the reception of form without matter in DA 2.12 cannot be reconciled with other texts of his from On Generation and Corruption. An analysis of these texts, as well as DA 2.7 and De Sensu 6 on the roles of light and the transparent medium in vision, show that, for Aristotle, the physical processes which sense organs undergo are not standard qualitative changes (i.e. alterations), but activities or the actualizations of potencies in the material constituents of living animal bodies.

Medical Topics in the De anima Commentary of Coimbra (1598) and the Jesuits’ Attitude towards Medicine in Education and Natural Philosophy

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Sander
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Universities And Colleges ◽  
Jesuit Universities ◽  
Modern Learning ◽  
Jesuit College

Early-modern Jesuit universities did not offer studies in medicine, and from 1586 onwards, the Jesuit Ratio studiorum prohibited digressions on medical topics in the Aristotelian curriculum. However, some sixteenth-century Jesuit text books used in philosophy classes provided detailed accounts on physiological issues such as sense perception and its organic location as discussed in Aristotle’s De anima II, 7–11. This seeming contradiction needs to be explained. In this paper, I focus on the interst in medical topics manifested in a commentary by the Jesuits of Coimbra. Admittedly, the Coimbra commentary constituted an exception, as the Jesuit college that produced it was integrated in a royal university which had a strong interest in educating physicians. It will be claimed that the exclusion of medicine at Jesuit universities and colleges had its origin in rather incidental events in the course of the foundation of the first Jesuit university in Sicily. There, the lay professors of law and medicine intended to avoid subordination to the Jesuits and thereby provoked a conflict which finally led the Jesuit administration to refrain from including faculties of medicine and law in Jesuit universities. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, a veritable Jesuit animosity towards medicine emerged for philosophical and pedagogical reasons. This development reflects educational concerns within the Society as well as the role of commentaries on Aristotle for early-modern learning.


scholarly journals Body and Soul in Aristotle

Philosophy ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 49 (187) ◽  
pp. 63-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Sorabji
Keyword(s):  
Sense Organ ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Sense Organs ◽  
Physiological Aspect ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Corporeal Nature ◽  
Physical Components ◽  
Opposite Extreme

Interpretations of Aristotle's account of the relation between body and soul have been widely divergent. At one extreme, Thomas Slakey has said that in the De Anima ‘Aristotle tries to explain perception simply as an event in the sense-organs’. Wallace Matson has generalized the point. Of the Greeks in general he says, ‘Mind–body identity was taken for granted.… Indeed, in the whole classical corpus there exists no denial of the view that sensing is a bodily process throughout’. At the opposite extreme, Friedrich Solmsen has said of Aristotle's theory, ‘it is doubtful whether the movement or the actualization occurring when the eye sees or the ear hears has any physical or physiological aspect.’ Similarly, Jonathan Barnes has described Aristotle as leaning hesitantly towards the view that desire and thought are wholly non-physical. But on the emotions and sense-perception, Barnes takes an intermediate position. Aristotle treats these, he says, as including physical and non-physical components. Other writers too have sought a position somewhere in the middle. Thus G. R. T. Ross concedes that we find in Aristotle ‘what looks like the crudest materialism’. It appears that objects produce changes in an organism, ‘and the reception of these changes in the sense organ is perception’. But, he maintains, this gives us only half the picture. The complete theory ‘may in a way be designated as a doctrine of psychophysical parallelism’. W. D. Ross also seeks a middle position. He thinks that Aristotle sometimes brings out ‘the distinctively mental, non-corporeal nature of the act [of sensation].… But Aristotle cannot be said to hold successfully to the notion of sensation as a purely mental activity having nothing in common with anything physical. He is still under the influence of earlier materialism’.

Perception and Perceptual Contents

2021 ◽  
pp. 104-157
Author(s):  
Marc Gasser-Wingate
Keyword(s):  
Sense Perception ◽  
Role Perception ◽  
Cognitive Penetration ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Perceptual Objects ◽  
Broad Interpretation

I examine Aristotle’s views on the contents of perception, and how they bear on the role perception plays in our learning. I defend a broad interpretation of perceptual objects and contents, on which we perceive not just colors, sounds, and so on, but Callias, lyres, loaves of bread, and whether Callias is near, and the lyre well-tuned, and the loaf baked. I consider how this broad perception relates to the characterization of sense-perception in De Anima, and whether it depends on some sort of “cognitive penetration” from the intellect. I then consider Aristotle’s claim that our perceptions are “of universals” even though we perceive particulars, and his description of our pretheoretical apprehension of “compound” universals. I argue that Aristotle thought we could be perceptually responsive to universals we do not yet recognize as such, and that this thought informs his generous take on the knowledge possessed by those with experience.

Aristotle,De anima3. 2: How do we perceive that we see and hear?

1983 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Osborne
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
De Anima

The second chapter of book three of theDe animamarks the end of Aristotle's discussion of sense-perception. The chapter is a long one and apparently rambling in subject matter. It begins with a passage that is usually taken as a discussion of some sort of self-awareness, particularly awareness that one is perceiving, although such an interpretation raises some difficulties. This paper reconsiders the problems raised by supposing that the question discussed in the first paragraph is ‘how do we perceive that we perceive?’, and suggests an alternative interpretation which would solve many of the difficulties and have the additional merit of restoring unity to the sequence of notes which go to make up the whole chapter.

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