Intentionality and Physiological Processes: Aristotle's Theory of Sense‐Perception

Abstract

Aristotle did not view perception as a rudimentary reaction with little content as suggested by Plato, nor as the work of reason and thought as claimed by Strato. Perception is a half-way house between the two. This essay explores Aristotle’s redrawing of the map in which perception is located, and the formal and material causes of perception.

Aristotle and Alexander on Perceptual Error

“…the eye jelly turns red when one sees a red object) are commonly known as 'literalists'; while there are also those who claim that the perceiver's sense organs must undergo some ordinary, material change in perception (against the spiritualist), while also denying that this need consist in the sense organ literally taking on the same perceptible quality as the object (against the literalist). The most prominent recent advocate of spiritualism is Myles Burnyeat (1992Burnyeat ( , 1995Burnyeat ( , 2001Burnyeat ( and 2002; the most prominent recent advocates of literalism are Sorabji (1974Sorabji ( , 1992Sorabji ( and 2001 and Everson (1997); while advocates of 'third way' alternatives to both literalism and spiritualism include for example Lear 1988, Modrak 1988, Silverman 1989, Bradshaw 1997, Caston 2007, Lorenz 2007, Polansky 2007. While my own sympathies lie with this third group (see Johnstone 2012 and2013), this issue can safely be bracketed for present purposes.…”

“…38 It is well known that Aristotle distinguishes the five senses in terms of their different special objects, rather than (say) in terms of the different sense organs involved or differences in what it is like to perceive by means of each of them (see e.g. Sorabji 1971). Thus for example Aristotle claims that the organ of smell just is whatever part of its body an animal uses to perceive odour-the organ may vary greatly in constitution and location in different kinds of animals (see e.g.…”

Why the Intellect Cannot Have a Bodily Organ: De Anima 3.4

“…A material change is a change in which a substance goes from possessing one form materially to possessing materially another form from the same range. 11) Some have taken Aristotle's discussion of change in DA 2.5 simply to introduce a particular species of material alteration, not a different kind of change (Sorabji 1995;2001), but I join Myles Burnyeat (1995a;1995b;2002) and Hendrik Lorenz (2007) in thinking that Aristotle in DA 2.5 is introducing a fundamentally different sort of change. This new sort of change is crucial to Aristotle's account of our cognitive activities, since it is preservative change that produces cognition.…”

“…Our ears are sensitive to vibrations within a certain range, but cannot handle extreme vibrations 26) There is heated dispute over the way in which, for Aristotle, the bodily organs of the sense-powers contribute to the activities of perception. Literalists, such as Richard Sorabji, interpret Aristotle as holding that in every case of perception the bodily organ must materially take on the form that is perceived: on this reading my seeing a color just is my eye's becoming colored with that color (Sorabji 1995 and2001). Myles Burnyeat, on behalf of what has been called a 'spiritualist' position, goes so far as to insist that the sense-organs are not materially affected at all in acts of perception: the sense-organs need to be in certain states of receptivity, which are conditions of the materials they are made of, but no material change occurs in them when there is an activity of perceiving (Burnyeat 2002).…”

Aristotle's Cognitive Science: Belief, Affect and Rationality

“… I intend this account to be neutral as to whether the alteration is a physiological change (as argued in Sorabji ) or some other kind of alteration with no physiological manifestation (as argued in Burnyeat — with elaboration in Burnyeat —and Johansen ). See also Caston for a transduction‐based interpretation, which he claims avoids the pitfalls of both other views. …”