Final Thoughts

This chapter draws together some of the main conclusions of the book: that perceptual cognition yields a form of knowledge valuable in itself, and which plays a central practical role even for those with more advanced forms of understanding, that this means we share an important part of our cognitive lives with nonrational animals, and that these features of Aristotle’s epistemology have important consequences for his account of our learning, and his conception of perception’s role as our most basic source of knowledge.

Perception, Knowledge, and Understanding in Aristotle’s Epistemology

In this chapter I consider how we should approach questions about the relationship between perception and the more advanced cognitive states Aristotle thinks derive from it. I argue that it’s reasonable to talk of perceptual knowledge, and explain how I will be using various knowledge terms to capture the different cognitive states that feature in Aristotle’s epistemology. I then offer an account of scientific understanding (Aristotle’s epistemic ideal) as a form of theoretical expertise requiring a synoptic, reflective appreciation of the explanatory structure of some domain. I argue we should resist views that would make scientific understanding the sole locus of justification, and on which perception would therefore never play any significant epistemic role. I also raise some concerns about invoking talk of justification in this context, and suggest an alternative conception of epistemic value which I think better fits Aristotle’s descriptions of our learning.

Perception, Experience, and Locomotion: Aristotle on Nonrational Learning

I examine the zoological and psychological views that motivate Aristotle’s ambitious conception of perceptual learning. I focus on two key ideas. The first is the idea that perception can solicit some behavior from a perceiving subject: we and other animals perceive how things are, but also perceive what’s to be done in the situation we face. This is possible because we perceive things as pleasant and painful, and thus as objects of some of our appetites. The second idea is that perceptual phantasia makes possible the retention of past perceptions as memories, and the association of memories with some occurrent perception. This mechanism allows past perceptions to inform what we recognize perceptually, and accounts for the development of the complex dispositions that constitute the state of experience. I end by contrasting experience with forms of understanding that depend on our rational powers, and considering the limits of Aristotle’s empiricism.

Understanding by Induction

I offer an interpretation of Aristotle’s account of our cognitive development, as he presents it in Posterior Analytics II.19 and Metaphysics A1. I defend an expansive reading of inductive learning as a form of cognitive progress from a range of particular truths to some universal explanation why all these truths hold. I argue that, if inductive learning is understood this way, Aristotle’s claim that we learn first principles by induction is not an implausible one—and I present some examples where Aristotle seems to be displaying just this sort of inductive progress in his own scientific works. I end by examining the notion of particularity and universality at play in his descriptions of various cognitive states, and considering what his views on induction tell us about the role perception plays as a starting point for our learning.

Perception and Perceptual Contents

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.

Perception in Aristotle’s Ethics

How do Aristotle’s empiricist views bear on the role perception plays for the virtuous? Do they point towards a certain kind of ethical particularism, according to which universal rules could never adequately codify virtuous behavior? I argue they do not. Virtuous agents always need perception to determine what to do, and it is inexpedient for them to articulate general rules of conduct, but this is not because it is in principle impossible to do so, or because virtuous conduct does not admit of theoretical treatment. Still, perception and experience do play an indispensable role in the development and deployment of practical wisdom. For our learning to be virtuous depends on first-hand, personal experience that theoretical modes of thought could not provide. I end by considering what a practically-oriented treatment of virtuous conduct would look like, and how we might conceive of its ethical significance.

Plato and Aristotle on Our Perceptual Beginnings

I consider the Platonic background for Aristotle’s account of our cognitive development. On the Platonic view, we learn from perception in a purely causal sense: our perceptions lead us to reflect on their shortcomings, and thereby prompt us to recollect the knowledge of the Forms relative to which they fall short. But perception is not something that would supply us with a valuable kind of knowledge, or be useful except as a means to recollect: the fact that our learning begins from perception is just a lamentable consequence of our embodied existence. Aristotle presents his account of the perceptual origins of our learning as a challenge to this sort of view. He does so, I argue, precisely because he takes perception to be an epistemically valuable capacity—a capacity whose exercise supplies us with sophisticated forms of knowledge, and provides a foundation for our learning, rather than merely prompting it.