Aristotle on the Sense-Organs

by T. K. Johansen

• ISBN13: 9780521583381
• ISBN10: 0521583381
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-11-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book offers an important study of Aristotle’s theory of the sense-organs. It aims to answer two questions central to Aristotle’s psychology and biology: why does Aristotle think we have sense-organs, and why does he describe the sense-organs in the way he does? The author looks at all the Aristotelian evidence for the five senses and shows how pervasively Aristotle’s accounts of the sense-organs are motivated by his interest in form and function. The book also engages with the celebrated problem of whether perception for Aristotle requires material changes in the perceiver. It argues that, surprisingly to the modern philosopher, nothing in Aristotle’s description of the sense-organs requires us to believe in such changes.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	xiii	(2)
List of abbreviations of Aristotle's works	xv
Introduction	1	(22)
1 Sight	23	(93)
1 The argument	23	(1)
2 How to explain the sense-organs	24	(8)
3 Explanation from the top down	32	(3)
4 The application of top-down explanation to sight	35	(5)
5 The composition of the sense-organs in the De Sensu	40	(4)
6 Aristotle versus Democritus	44	(5)
7 The significance of Aristotle's criticism of Democritus	49	(2)
8 Aristotle versus Empedocles and the Timaeus on the kore	51	(7)
9 The membrane of the eye	58	(9)
10 The poroi of the eye	67	(28)
11 Eye colour	95	(19)
12 Conclusion	114	(2)
2 The medium	116	(32)
1 Introduction	116	(1)
2 What the medium has to be like if we are going to see the sense-object and not the medium	117	(1)
3 What the medium has to be like if there is no perception by direct contact	118	(2)
4 The medium as what sense-objects appear through and the medium as a causal link	120	(4)
5 Teleological and `mechanical' explanations	124	(4)
6 Can sensible qualities have non-perceptual effects? An argument by Sarah Broadie	128	(5)
7 A solution	133	(3)
8 Mediation and `Cambridge' change	136	(9)
9 Conclusion	145	(3)
3 Hearing	148	(30)
1 What is hearing?	148	(1)
2 The production of sound	148	(4)
3 The mediation of sound	152	(2)
4 The sense-organ of hearing	154	(2)
5 The composition of the organ of hearing	156	(6)
6 How the environment determines the sense-organs	162	(3)
7 How a `mixed environment' determines the sense-organs	165	(3)
8 How functions other than perception may determine the sense-organs	168	(4)
9 How the available matter may determine the sense-organs	172	(2)
10 Conclusion	174	(4)
4 The contact senses	178	(48)
1 Touch is the sense of direct contact	178	(1)
2 Taste is a form of touch	179	(1)
3 Two criteria of defining a sense-faculty	179	(3)
4 What is flavour?	182	(7)
5 Why moisture is not a medium of taste	189	(4)
6 The sense-organ of touch	193	(6)
7 Flesh as the medium of touch	199	(13)
8 Variation in the organ of touch	212	(3)
9 The sense-organ of taste	215	(5)
10 Variations in the organ of taste	220	(5)
11 Conclusion	225	(1)
5 Smell	226	(26)
1 The difficulty in defining odour	226	(1)
2 The analogy between odours and flavours	227	(10)
3 The medium of smell	237	(5)
4 Smell and Aristotle's mixed methodology	242	(3)
5 The sense-organ of smell	245	(3)
6 Variations in the organ of smell	248	(3)
7 Conclusion	251	(1)
6 The actuality of perception	252	(29)
1 What is perceiving?	252	(5)
2 The reality of change	257	(2)
3 The reality of potentiality	259	(4)
4 The sense-object as an active potentiality	263	(4)
5 The sense-object as an irrational potentiality	267	(4)
6 The effects of sense-objects	271	(3)
7 Is perceiving a material change?	274	(7)
Conclusion	281
Bibliography	292	(6)
Index locorum	298	(4)
General index	302