Abstract
This paper offers a new interpretation of Aristotle’s account of basic perceptual discrimination in On the Soul II 11. This is the discrimination of single perceptible qualities like, e.g., ‘red’, ‘sweet’, ‘hot’ of which even the simplest animals on the scala naturae are capable. It is argued that, for Aristotle, basic perceptual discrimination is largely—but not entirely—a causal process in the course of which a perceptible quality is isolated from the matter of a sensory input. That isolation is interpreted as the result of a juxtaposition of the sensory input with a neutral perceptual value provided by the perceptual soul. The contrast resulting from that juxtaposition is basic phenomenal content like, e.g., ‘red’, ‘hot’, ’sweet’. Basic perceptual discrimination is thus interpreted as the production of phenomenal content in the animal organism. The paper ends with a discussion of the underlying notion of ‘juxtaposition’ of perceptual input with the soul and an interpretation of basic perceptual awareness as the reception of discriminated content.
I would like to thank the editors of this volume, Mikko Yrjönsuuri and José Filipe Silva for their patience with a previous draft of this chapter. I owe special thanks to discussions with Timothy Clarke, Pavel Gregoric, and Justin Vlasits.
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Notes
- 1.
That this catches a genuine and important strain in Aristotle’s thinking about sense perception is clear from passages such as DA 420a911 where it is said that the air in the ears tends to be unmoved (akinetos) in order for it not to interfere with the incoming sensual input so as to be capable of perceiving the differences provided by the incoming sensual input accurately (akribôs). Similar points about the passive (non-interfering) material structure of the sense-organs can be found in passages like PA 652b26sqq., 656a25sqq., 686a6sqq; and by way of a general statement in 672b14sqq. (See also GA 780b31–33). For discussions of Aristotle’s perceptual realism, see e.g. Broadie (1993); Esfeld (2000).
- 2.
Cp. the very general remark in HA VII, 588b10–24 “The transition from them [i.e. plants] to animals is continuous, as we said before. (…) And with regard to sensation, some of them [i.e. the very simple animals like razor fish, testacea, and sponges] give no sign at all, others faintly, for example those called tethya, and the sea-anemone kind; but the sponge in every respect resembles the plants. But always, by a small difference at a time, one after another shows more possession of life and movement. And it is the same with the activities of their life” (trans. Balme, slightly altered). See also GA 731a30–b5. I do not distinguish between perception and sensation, as Aristotle does not make explicit use of that distinction. It is not entirely clear what the distinction is and whether Aristotle has the resources to draw it, let alone an interest in drawing it.
- 3.
This method of procedure conforms to Aristotle’s own scientific methodology. Generally, the treatment of each subject matter ought to start with the most general features and add the specifics later. More specifically, the Posterior Analytics insist that a science should explain (demonstrate) each of its explananda on a commensurately universal level (prôton katholou, Anal. Post. I 4, 73b25–74a3; a32–b3). This serves not only the end of methodological economy (i.e. minimization of explanatory work and avoidance of repetition, PA I 639a15–b5, 644a25–b15, cp. Phys. 189b31–32, DA 402b8–10), but also ensures the proper hierarchical sequence of explanations: within a given science, explanations should stand in the right order such that (ideally) there is only one place where each explanandum is dealt with. For Aristotle, only what is known in this commensurably universal way is scientifically, and therefore genuinely, known. His stock example is the knowledge of the proposition that every triangle has a sum of angles equal two right angles (2 R). To know this proposition in a commensurably universal way is to know it as a proposition about triangles simpliciter and neither e.g. about figures–since that would include items for which 2 R is not true (squares e.g.)–nor about specific kinds of triangle; so, even though 2 R is true of, e.g., equilateral triangles, it is unscientific to demonstrate 2 R on that level, since it would be false to say that 2 R holds because, or in virtue of the fact that they are equilateral triangles. This is the case only and uniquely because of the fact that they are triangles simpliciter. Aristotelian sciences have to comply to this order. This holds also for the science of living beings whose fundaments are laid in the De Anima: Aristotle clearly thinks that there is one common and basic account of sense perception across all animal species. And since the basic features of perceptual discrimination are instantiated already in the humblest animals, it should not be irrelevant to the higher forms of perceptual cognition how things work in the simplest case. On the contrary. Since animals differ from plants by the possession of the perceptual capacity (cp. Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus s.v. αἴσθησις), it is precisely at the point on the scala naturae at which animals differ from plants minimally where one should expect the most fundamental expression of their common essence.
- 4.
Verbally, there is evidence for thinking both: Aristotle calls perception a pathos (passive affection, DA 403a16–19 and 24–5), whereas the Greek verbal form of “discriminate” is active (krinein). Johansen (2002, pp. 175–176) is skeptical about the adequacy of the active grammatical form, see below, fn. 31.
- 5.
E.g. DA 425b26–426a1.
- 6.
DA 426a20–26. See also the discussion of a potential smell DA 424b15–18.
- 7.
In the case of sound, which is produced by the striking of two solid objects against each other, the causal story seems slightly more complex.
- 8.
Aristotle nowhere says how these two functions of the perceptual object are supposed to relate to each other (apart from saying that the one is a perceptual object potentially and the other actually). Silverman (1989, p. 272) suggests accounting for them in terms of essential features and per se accidents.
- 9.
In this connection Aristotle typically uses terms like kinêtikon (“capable of setting up motion”) or poiêtikon (“capable of bringing about”) or sometimes both (426a4–5). For color, see 418a31–b2, 419a3, a9–11, a13–15; for sound: 419a25–27, 420a3–5; smell: 419a25–27; taste: 422a17–19, b2–3, b16–17; touch: 423b12–20, b31–424a2.
- 10.
Forms of sound: 420a26–b5; of taste: 422b10–15; of smell: 421a26–b8, of haptic qualities: 423b26–29, and—extremely superficially—the forms of color in 422b24.
- 11.
The distinction between the causal and the phenomenal aspect of the object of perception is made explicit in the case of the object of sight in DA 418a30–31. It is only much later, in his works on the actions and affections common to body and soul, that Aristotle will discuss the phenomenal qualities of the perceptual objects in a more systematic fashion (the discussion in DA III 2, 426a17sqq. is very brief). This is confirmed by the beginning of De Sensu 3 where the principles of the division of labor between De Sensu and De Anima are set out: “Of the objects of perception corresponding to each sensory organ, viz. colour, sound, odour, savour, touch, we have treated in On the Soul in general terms, having there determined what their function is, i.e. what their actuality in relation to each of the perceptual organs is. We must next consider what account we are to give of any one of them; what, for example, we should say colour is, or sound, or odour, or savour; and so also respecting [the object of] touch. We begin with colour.” (DS 439a6–12 trans. Beare, modified). Here, Aristotle describes his general account of the perceptual objects in the De Anima as specifying merely the causal effect that they have on the sense organs (ti to ergon autôn kai ti to energein kath’ hekaston tôn aisthêtêriôn), and then goes on to announce his account of their essence (ti de pote dei legein hotioun autôn, hoion ti khrôma ê ti psophon ê ti osmên ê khumon, homoiôs de kai peri haphês, episkepteon). That account of the essence of the perceptual objects will be in terms of logoi. See below.
- 12.
Recall: above statement (i) makes the actuality of the perceptual object dependent on their perception. That the kind of circularity at issue is not likely to have escaped Aristotle’s notice is clear from passages such as Met. 1021a26–b3 and 1049b4sqq. See also Silverman (1989, p. 272); Johansen (2002, pp 171–172).
- 13.
Sometimes addressed as the perceptual organ (aisthêtêrion), sometimes as the sense itself (aisthêsis).
- 14.
Although there is a description of the whole process in a summary fashion in DA 434b27–435a10.
- 15.
Phys. VII 2, e.g., which will be discussed below, even offers a proof for the gaplessness of that chain by way of an inductive argument (244b2–245a11). For the continuity of that causal chain, see also DA 419a14, 434b27–435a10; Insomn. 2, 459b1–7.
- 16.
- 17.
See DA 424a17–24, 426b3–8 and DS 440b18–25, cp. 445b20sqq.
- 18.
Color is a relatively simple case since it seems to involve only one contrariety. Other sense modalities, especially the sense of touch, can be multi-dimensional (DA 423a23–33).
- 19.
See also the definition of the perceptual capacity of the soul in 424a17–24 (quoted below) as “that which can receive perceptible forms without their matter” and “in so far as they are things of a certain sort and in accordance with the proportion (logos).”
- 20.
See the discussion in Sorabji (1972); in the case of color, there is an important question as to what these values are (light and dark or white and black), see De Sensu 3, and the discussion in Sorabji (1972); the discussion in Met. X 7 seems relevant here (1057b4sqq.). But the issue should not affect the present argument. Interpreters agree that the content of perception is defined by proportions (logos) of the extreme values on the relevant scales of perceptible values.
- 21.
Phys. VII 2 makes that point by saying that unlike other kinds of alteration perceptual alteration “does not escape notice” (ou lanthanei, 244b12–245a1, Ross). For another interpretation of the above DA-passage, see below, Fn. 48.
- 22.
This is presumably why Aristotle classifies perception—along with the intellect—as capacities that are “capable of discriminating” (kritikon, DA 427a17–21; 429b12–18; 432a15–16; MA 700b20; Anal. Post. 99b35). This classification seems to me to attach great weight to discrimination as an essential feature of cognition.
- 23.
Some scholars even think that perceptual discrimination and awareness (“receiving”) of the perceptual form are one and the same event, see de Haas (2005, p 336). See Fn. 48 below.
- 24.
Ebert (1983, p. 193). One of the merits of this excellent paper is to have argued conclusively against the old habit of translating perceptual krinein with “to judge”.
- 25.
It is in line with this tendency that his article does not discuss what seems the most basic account of perceptual krinein in DA 424a5–6.
- 26.
That interpretation of discrimination is by no means unique to Ebert. Rather, Ebert’s account represents a whole family of interpretations: see, e.g., Polansky (2007, p. 343), “comparative assessment”; de Haas (2005, p. 336), “compare”; and many others. The language of “picking out” one among the many possible sense qualities which sometimes can be found in the literature does not settle the issue, see e.g. Bynum (1987, p. 175). Bernard’s study (1988), which argues against empiricist readings of Aristotle by emphasizing the active nature of krinein as an “active distinguishing” (“aktives Unterscheiden”) does not give us the details of the workings of discrimination. If I am not wrong Bernard (1988, p. 268) seems largely to follow Ebert’s lead (whom he approvingly cites along with A. Schmitt’s similarly broad characterization “to distinguish one definite entity from another”). Welsch (1987) who pursues a similar argumentative goal, offers no detailed account of the act of krinein in DA II 11 as well. The other family of interpretations is causal interpretations of perceptual discrimination. As far as I can see, that family is represented solely by Johansen (2002).
- 27.
Johansen makes the interesting suggestion that we should understand the neutrality of the intermediate position as that position on the scale on which the extreme values “cancel each other out” (2002, p. 181).
- 28.
A point Aristotle insists upon in DA I 3 and 4 (405b31–407b11; 408a30–409b18).
- 29.
See Met. X 8, 1058a6–17 for an argument as to why different positions on perceptual scales are best characterized as contrary opposites.
- 30.
This bears some resemblance to what Aristotle says about discrimination elsewhere (DA 411a4–6): “(…) it suffices when one of the two parts of the contrary opposition discriminates itself and the opposite as well. For it is also with the straight that we discriminate itself and the bent. The rule is the judge (kritês) of both, whereas the bent is (a judge) neither of itself nor of the straight”. In this passage, the subject of discrimination is not a neutral subject and outside beholder of an external object, viz. of a difference between a plurality of objects, but itself on a par with the object it discriminates and (in this case) even itself a possible object of discrimination. This is of course different from our case where x is perceptually discriminating y from itself, but without being an object of perception: Q 0 , although a value on the perceptual scale, is not perceptible (at least not in that moment).
- 31.
Johansen suggests that we should understand it as a passive process tout court (2002, pp. 180–181), (comparing it to the motions of a thermostat). That only works if the concept of discrimination is not meant to be addressing “hard” questions about perception, which I think it is meant to address in Aristotle. He also suggests to understand Aristotle’s repeated observations according to which the mean states of our sense organs can adapt to different conditions, of, e.g., light etc. (“range shifting”), as a point about the mean state of the perceptual capacity (2002, pp. 182–85). On the current interpretation, by contrast, “mean state” is ambiguous between the intermediate state of the medium in the sense organ and the mean state of the perceptual capacity: while the former would be capable of adjusting to different environmental conditions, the latter would not.
- 32.
This point is emphasized by Johansen (2002, p. 180).
- 33.
The passage is discussed below. Aristotle sometimes talks as if the soul was a subject of change (e.g. Somn. 454a8–10) but he also uses the language of quasi-affection (“the soul is somehow, pôs, affected”, Phys. 244b10–13). Heinaman (1990, pp. 85–88) and Menn (2002, pp. 86–91) give chronological explanations: by the time he wrote Physics VII and like passages Aristotle was still on his way to his mature position in the De Anima (or even still in the grip of the Platonic analysis of sense perception). For an attempt at assessing that language on the basis of two different kinds of affections (“destructive” and “quasi alterations”), see Lorenz (2007, pp. 214–216). I hope my interpretation will to some extent mitigate these inconsistencies. See also Fn. 42 below.
- 34.
Historically speaking, assumptions (i) and (ii) should be default positions for Aristotle anyway, given that many of his predecessors, including Plato, agreed on both of them (in the stronger version of an affection of the soul by the sensory input). The point of disagreement where Aristotle stands against the tradition is (iii). This point has been made by Menn (2002).
- 35.
Cp., for instance, PA 647a25sqq. There are, of course, many issues here; e.g., even though he undoubtedly localizes the soul (assigns it a certain location), Aristotle cannot consistently think that the soul has a place (topos), given that his definition of place is tied to the notion of extended bodies (Phys. 212a5–7). So the soul seems to be somewhere in the sense of being in something but without this implying that it has a place. On that distinction, see Morison (2002, pp. 15–20).
- 36.
A consequence of the location of the soul in the heart is that the heart is also the place where perceptions (holôs pasês aisthêseôs) arrive (pros tautên perainousai) and motor reactions (kinêseis tôn hedeôn kai tôn luperôn) originate (enteuthen archomenai), PA 666a11–13.
- 37.
Cp. MA 703b26–35. For an analysis of this passage, see Corcilius and Gregoric (2013, pp. 84–86).
- 38.
Note that the exclusion regards the soul only as a subject of motion: while denying motion to the soul, Aristotle affirms the soul’s active role perceiving and in originating motor processes (in this case an episode of recollection). The soul, in spite of being unmoved, is both responsible for sensory receptivity and causally spontaneous. This (rather bold) claim requires at least three qualifications. First, Aristotle does not say that the soul is responsible for receptivity and causally spontaneous in the same respect. Rather, as we will see, there are different contexts in which the soul can play these roles. Second, the passage does not say that the soul is the subject of intentional states. Aristotle is careful to exclude this option by stating that the subject of intentional states is not the soul, but the “man”, i.e. the soul/body compound. Third, the soul is not declared to be capable of initiating motor processes by itself, see below Fn. 40.
- 39.
This bears directly on our initial question regarding activity and passivity of sense perception. The passage shows that either/or versions of our initial question (“is the act of perception active or passive?”) are somewhat ill posed. The role of the perceptual soul as the unmoved terminus of incoming and outgoing motions suggests that it is somehow both and neither.
- 40.
Since for Aristotle efficient causation requires contact (haphê) and ordinary cases of contact are reciprocal, the idea of the soul being the unmoved mover of the animal body is based on a conception of contact that does not imply a reciprocal affection of the soul. Aristotle offers such a non-reciprocal conception of contact. On that conception, there are cases of contact in which only the patient (the body) is affected, not the agent (the soul) (cp. GC I 6, cp. Phys. 198a35–b1). Aristotle’s example is this: “for we say sometimes that the man who grieves us ‘touches’ us, but not that we ‘touch’ him” (GC 323a32–33), the point being that a moves b in virtue of the fact that b stands to a in a non-reciprocal relation such that a changes because of b without this having an effect on a; a causes the process, but is not a part of it. How is this supposed to work in the concrete case? Presumably, the soul “touches” the living body by providing a cognitive content that, given the right circumstances, affects the animal body, i.e. phenomenal content provided by the actuality of the soul efficiently causes (triggers) motor responses in the animal body and it does so in virtue of the fact that the body relates to it in certain ways; the content remains unaffected thereby. This is also what I take to be the gist of the pronouncement in DA 407b17–19: “It is because of the communion (of soul and body) that the one acts and the other is affected and the one is moved and the other sets into motion”. For an account of efficient causation of animal locomotion by the soul in Aristotle, see Corcilius (2008, Sect. I, 2011); Corcilius and Gregoric (2013, pp. 60–67); for other recent accounts, see Buddensiek (2009); Morel (2010).
- 41.
Unlike the others, the sense of touch is not mentioned explicitly, but haptic qualities are mentioned towards the beginning in 244b7–8.
- 42.
The language of the sense being directly affected by the incoming sensory motion (alteration) in Physics VII cannot easily be done away with as a reflection of a supposed earlier stage in Aristotle’s thinking about sense perception, since we do find the same language also inside of the De Anima, e.g. in the (largely parallel) passage in 434b27–435a10 (tên opsin kinei, see also 422b3, paschei gar ti hê geusis, 426b31–427a1, kinei tên aisthêsin). This, I think, suggests that Aristotle thinks of the affection of the perceptual capacity in a way that is compatible with his hylomorphic claim of the immobility of the soul. So I suggest that “the sense is affected in a certain way” in Phys. 244b10–11 and other like passages points to the actualization of the soul’s neutral value by the sensory input such as proposed above, and not, as “spiritualist” interpretations have it, to a cognitive act of the soul itself.
- 43.
Presumably, as a phantasma, cp. DA 428b10sqq. The point at which the sensory input stops moving towards the soul is described as a limit in DA 435a8–10: “[it is better to say that] (…) the air, so long as it remains one, is affected by the shape and color […], hence it is that it in turn sets the sight in motion, just as if the impression on the wax were transmitted to the limit (hôsper an ei to en tôi kêrôi sêmeion diedidoto mekhri tou peratos).”
- 44.
Cp. the discussion of the perceptual capacity in DA III 2, 425B26sqq. The existence and nature of the perceptual capacity is a foundational assumption for the science of living beings, see Corcilius and Gregoric (2010).
- 45.
From this point onwards we can ask whether things (pragmata) are adequately presented by their appearance (phantasia) and whether these appearances are true or false (cp. Met. 1024b21–26). The perception of special objects of perception, Aristotle says, is for the most part true (DA 438b18–19). Presumably, he says this because (i) its content more or less coincides with the causal effect of the sensory input and (ii) special objects are simple, i.e. they do not involve a combination of a plurality of appearances, as higher forms of perceptual cognition seems to do.
- 46.
Hence, it is a capacity of the soul only in the sense that it is a part of the soul, and this part of the soul is a capacity of the living body. On parts and capacities of the soul in Aristotle, see Corcilius and Gregoric (2010).
- 47.
The animal body being by its nature designed to do precisely that, see MA 703a29–b2. For further discussion of what this means, see Corcilius and Gregoric (2013, 78sqq).
- 48.
Hence, one may say that discrimination and awareness are one and the same event, but different in being (as was suggested by de Haas, see Fn. 23 above, even though his interpretation of “reception” differs from the one offered here), the one being the act of discrimination, the other the reaction of the animal body to the discriminated content. Caston argues that Aristotle’s wax analogy in 424a19–21 shows that “taking on the perceptible form without the matter” is only a necessary, not a sufficient condition of perception on the grounds that this process does not require consciousness or even life (2004, p. 307, Fn. 121, citing Philoponus’ comments on a later passage in the same chapter where Aristotle discusses the difference between air that carries a certain scent and the actual perception of that scent, DA 424b16–18, In De an. 444,17–20. It should be noted, however, that Philoponus does identify sufficient conditions of perception in the relevant passage in DA 424a17–24, including the wax analogy, In De an. 437,4–438,23). On the interpretation I am suggesting “taking on the form without the matter” means something different from what Caston takes it to mean, namely being aware of phenomenal content previously isolated (discriminated) from a given sensory input. This is something signet rings, or any other non-perceptive being, cannot do. It follows that on my reading the signet ring analogy cannot be understood as an “example” of taking on the form (Caston), for the trivial reason that animals are capable of perceiving and wax is not. I do not think that this is necessarily to the detriment of that interpretation, though. If perception is the receiving of the isolated form, as I think it is for Aristotle, then there could be no other non-cognitive example for this. The point of the analogy is rather to provide a necessarily somewhat inadequate illustration of what it is to receive cognitive content without its matter. For the view that the soul is a “receptacle” of the perceptual forms that itself undergoes non-standard kinds of change, see Lorenz (2007, p. 204). For the (in that respect similar) view that the soul is affected by ratios, see Ward (1988, p 221).
- 49.
This is, as said above, the point at which animals differ from plants minimally. The reason why plants do not perceive, even though they are affected with the same kind of perceptible input as animals are, is precisely that they have no perceptual mean—and hence are incapable of discriminating—nor a principle capable of receiving the perceptual forms without their matter (DA 424a32–B3).
- 50.
See above, p. 2. Aristotle speaks of discrimination (krinein) with regard to all forms of cognition, perceptual and intellectual (e.g. DA 404b25–27). Since the content of higher forms of perceptual cognition may not be exhausted by what causally affects the perceptual system of the animal (cp. DA 418a23–24), it seems that there are different ways in which perceptual discrimination can work: basic discrimination seems to be exactly about what causally affects the perceptual system at a given point of time (which is why on the present account it does not seem to be representational), whereas higher forms of perceptual cognition may be not (and hence may perhaps be regarded representational). I believe that the production of the objects of higher objects of perceptual cognition involves a great deal of active “construction” by the perceptual system and I am also inclined to think that the efficient cause of this “constructing” is the animal itself. But in spite of this active involvement of the animal in the production of perceptual objects it seems that for Aristotle all forms of perceptual discrimination do involve affections and that he also thinks that this feature is their common essential characteristic. This is different in the case of intellectual discrimination. Aristotle insists that intellectual thinking is not itself an affection–although it does involve a great deal of affection as necessary conditions (see e.g. De Mem. 449b31–450a1; DA 403a9; 427b15; 431a17, b2; 432a8–10). From this it seems to follow that the notion of intellectual discrimination is not the same as that of perceptual discrimination. This, it seems to me, is as it should be, given that thinking and perceiving are supposed to be two fundamentally different cognitive activities.
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Corcilius, K. (2014). Activity, Passivity, and Perceptual Discrimination in Aristotle. In: Silva, J., Yrjönsuuri, M. (eds) Active Perception in the History of Philosophy. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04361-6_3
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