Mind and World in Aristotle's de Anima 9781108832915, 9781108966375, 1108832911

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the fit between the mind or soul and the world. How are humans knowers and perceivers? How is the world knowable and perceivable? The proposed answers shed new light on the De Anima and on the James Warren, University of Cambridge Why is the human mind able to perceive and understand the truth about reality; that is, why does it seem to be the mind’s specific function to know the world? Sean Kelsey argues that both the question itself and the way Aristotle answers it are key to understanding his work De Anima, a systematic philosophical account of the soul and its powers. In this original reading of a familiar but highly compressed text, Kelsey shows how this question underpins Aristotle’s inquiry into the nature of soul, sensibility, and intelligence. He argues that, for Aristotle, the reason why it is in human nature to know beings is that ‘the soul in a way is all beings’. This new perspective on the De Anima throws fresh and interesting light on familiar Aristotelian doctrines: for example, that sensibility is a kind of ratio (logos), or that the intellect is simple, separate, and unmixed. Sean Kelsey is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. His work has appeared in Ancient Philosophy, Apeiron, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Phronesis and several edited volumes.

Mind and World in Aristotle’s De Anima

methods Aristotle uses to pursue these questions.”

Kelsey

“Sean Kelsey asks important questions about Aristotle’s views on

Mind and World in Aristotle’s De Anima

Sean Kelsey

Mind and World in Aristotle’s De Anima Why is the human mind able to perceive and understand the truth about reality; that is, why does it seem to be the mind’s specific function to know the world? Sean Kelsey argues that both the question itself and the way Aristotle answers it are key to understanding his work De Anima, a systematic philosophical account of the soul and its powers. In this original reading of a familiar but highly compressed text, Kelsey shows how this question underpins Aristotle’s inquiry into the nature of soul, sensibility, and intelligence. He argues that, for Aristotle, the reason why it is in human nature to know beings is that “the soul in a way is all beings.” This new perspective on the De Anima throws fresh and interesting light on familiar Aristotelian doctrines: for example, that sensibility is a kind of ratio (logos), or that the intellect is simple, separate, and unmixed. Sean Kelsey is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.

Mind and World in Aristotle’s De Anima

SEAN KELSEY University of Notre Dame, Indiana

University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108832915 doi: 10.1017/9781108966375 © Sean Kelsey 2022 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2022 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. isbn 978-1-108-83291-5 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For Christel

Contents

Acknowledgments

page ix

List of Abbreviations

xi

Introduction

1

part i questions 1 Objectives 1.1 To Define and Explain 1.2 To Know Beings (All Beings) 1.3 Kinds of Psuche¯, Kinds of Knowledge 1.4 Subject and Attribute (Psuche¯ and Knowledge) 1.5 Conclusions

27 27 29 31 33 37

2 Problems 2.1 Two Key Issues: Similarity and Alteration 2.2 The Shadow of Protagoras (De Anima III 3) 2.3 Knowledge and Similarity: Homer et al. 2.4 Knowledge and Alteration: Empedocles 2.5 Alien and Impassible: Anaxagoras Contra Mundum

39 39 42 43 46 48

3 Solutions 3.1 Perception and Similarity (De Anima II 5) 3.2 Perception and Alteration (De Anima II 5) 3.3 Conclusions 3.4 Appendix (De Anima II 5, 417a30–b16)

50 51 55 58 59

vii

viii

Contents

part ii angles 4 Affinities 4.1 Preliminary Observations 4.2 Friendship (φιλία) 4.3 Nutrition (τροφή) 4.4 Movement (φορά) 4.5 Affection (πάσχειν) 4.6 Conclusion 5 Measures 5.1 Measures of Quantity 5.2 Measures of Quality

67 68 69 75 78 80 82 84 85 90

part iii proposals 6 Sensibility 6.1 Preliminaries 6.2 Sensibility as Form (De Anima II 12) 6.3 Receiving Forms without Matter 6.4 Sensibility as “Ratio” 6.5 Sensibility as “Measure” 6.6 Objections and Replies 6.7 Conclusion 7 Intelligibility 7.1 Intelligibility and Essence 7.2 Essence and Entelechy 7.3 Essence and Energeia 7.4 Intelligibility and Immateriality 7.5 Immateriality and Intelligence 7.6 Objection and Reply

99 100 103 107 109 112 117 120 122 124 128 130 132 135 142

8 Intelligence 8.1 Understanding Everything 8.2 Being Separate and Unmixed 8.3 Separation as Measure 8.4 Objection and Reply Conclusion

145 146 149 152 157 159

References

165

Index Index Locorum

173 176

Acknowledgments

A first draft of this book was written in 2017–2018, on a sabbatical leave funded by the University of Notre Dame and by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities; I thank both institutions for their generous support. I want also to thank my friends at L’Auberge du Port for allowing me to work on their patio overlooking the port and beyond it the sea. The ideas in this book have benefited from trial runs both in graduate seminars at the Universities of Chicago and Notre Dame and in presentations at various colloquia, conferences, and workshops; I am very grateful for those opportunities and for the time and conversation of those present on those occasions. A very special thanks to my dear friend Gavin Lawrence for organizing and hosting a workshop on the typescript at UCLA; thanks also to Victor Caston, Panos Dimas, Jessica Gelber, David Lefebvre, Sara Magrin, Christian Pfeiffer, and Joel Yurdin for their time and trouble working up presentations on individual chapters. I want also to thank many other friends and colleagues for conversation, correspondence, and comments on some or all of earlier versions of this material, including Jonathan Beere, Sarah Broadie, Arnold Brooks, Jon Buttaci, John Carriero, Laura Castelli, David Charles, Tim Clarke, Caleb Cohoe, Klaus Corcilius, Carlo DaVia, Sylvain Delcomminette, David Ebrey, Mohammad Esmaeili, Andrea Falcon, Christopher Frey, Lloyd Gerson, Robert Howton, Thomas Johansen, Joseph Karbowski, Mark Kalderon, Sare Khaledi, Matthis Koschel, James Lennox, Jonathan Lear, Yannig Luthra, Alasdair MacIntyre, William Mattison, Allison Murphy, Sasha Newton, Daniel Nolan, David O’Connor, Marco Panza, Spyros Rangos, Robert Roreitner, Fred ix

x

Acknowledgments

Rush, Christopher Shields, Stasinos Stavrianeas, Daniel Sutherland, Katherine Tillman, and Josh Trubowitz. I would also like to thank the readers for Cambridge University Press for their patience with my typescript and their thoughtful and helpful comments. Thanks too to Max Minicus for help with the bibliography and to Nat Brown for help with the proofreading. It goes without saying that the many shortcomings that remain are entirely my own. Earlier versions of Chapters 2, 7, and 8, here reused with permission, were published (or will be) elsewhere as follows: An aporia about aisthêsis. In R. Radice & M. Zanatta, eds., Aristotele e le sfide del suo tempo, Milan: Edizioni Unicopli, 2018, pp. 161–171. Intelligence, intelligibility, and insight. In C. Cohoe, ed., Aristotle’s “On the Soul”: A Critical Guide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming). What is intelligence? (Aristotle, De Anima III, 4–8). Philosophia (Yearbook of the Research Centre for Greek Philosophy at the Academy of Athens), 48, 2018, pp. 139–151.

Abbreviations

Aristotle APo Cael. Cat. DA EE EN GA GC HA Insom. Iuv. Mem. Met. Meteor. PA Phys. Pol. [Prob.] Rhet. SE Sens. Somn. Top. Plato Phdr.

Posterior Analytics On the Heavens Categories On the Soul (De Anima) Eudemian Ethics Nicomachean Ethics On the Generation of Animals On Generation and Corruption On the History of Animals On Dreams On Youth and Old Age On Memory Metaphysics Meteorology On the Parts of Animals Physics Politics [Problems] Rhetoric On Sophistical Refutations On Sense and Sense-Objects On Sleep Topics Phaedrus xi

xii

Phil. Prot. Rep. Stsmn. Tht. Tim.

List of Abbreviations Philebus Protagoras Republic Statesman Theaetetus Timaeus

Introduction

My object in this book is to put a question to Aristotle and to work out his answer to it as developed in the De Anima. My question, roughly put, is about Mind and World: what about the one makes it such as to know the other – that is, to perceive and to understand honest-to-God truths about honest-to-God beings? My principal contentions will be, first, that the question is Aristotle’s, and second, that the nub of his answer to it is that in a way Mind is World – in his language, “psuche¯ in a way is all beings” (ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ ὄντα πώς ἐστι πάντα, DA III 8, 431b21). (I leave psuche¯ untranslated for reasons I will come to.) The snippet I have just quoted is admittedly cryptic. It is introduced as wrapping up and drawing the moral of at least some of what Aristotle has said to this point about psuche¯ (DA III 8, 431b20–21, see Rodier 1900, 520 ad loc.). But the moral as stated is highly compressed, perhaps even startling; anyhow it cries for elaboration and comment. Some of this, we get in the lines that immediately follow (DA III 8, 430b21–432a3); I start then by quoting this passage and briefly rehearsing its main points, by means of clarifying in a preliminary way some aspects of my proposal: But now, to sum up what we have said about psuche¯, let us say again1 that psuche¯ in a way is all beings; for beings are either perceptible or intelligible, and in a way scientific understanding (ἐπιστήμη) is its objects, and perception its objects. But what way this is needs looking into. Well, scientific understanding and perception are divided into the things: [what is scientific understanding and perception]

1

“again” (πάλιν): I follow Rodier and now Crubellier in taking πάλιν here as marking not the repetition of a previous point but simply the progress of the narrative (Rodier 1900, 520 ad loc., Crubellier 2020, 230, also Bonitz s.v. 559b13–23).

1

2

Introduction

potentially into [things that are] potentially, [what is scientific understanding and perception] in fulfillment into [things that are] in fulfillment. But the sentient and scientific [parts] of psuche¯ are these potentially, in the one case what is scientifically understandable, in the other what is perceptible. And it is necessary that they be either the things themselves or their forms. But surely not the things; for it is not the stone that is in the psuche¯ but rather its form. The upshot is that psuche¯ is just like the hand: indeed, for the hand is tool of tools, and intelligence form of forms, and sensibility form of sensibilia.2 (DA III 8, 431b20–432a3)

There are three points in this passage I want to draw attention to. [1] Aristotle’s initial wording notwithstanding, it is not, in fact, all psuche¯ he thinks is all beings;3 that honor belongs only to some psuche¯: specifically, to such psuche¯ as is at once sentient and intelligent (cp. DA III 8, 431b26– 28). This is clear from the reason he gives for saying psuche¯ is all beings: namely, that while beings are either perceptible or intelligible, perception (or: sensibility) in a way is the perceptible beings, as “scientific understanding” (ἐπιστήμη) in a way is the intelligible ones (lit. τὰ ἐπιστητά) (DA III 8, 431b21–22).4 Since the only psuche¯ Aristotle thinks is capable of both perceiving and understanding is our psuche¯, we may put the point this way: for Aristotle, it is specifically human psuche¯ that “in a way is all beings.” [2] The statement that psuche¯ is all beings, even when restricted νῦν δέ, περὶ ψυχῆς τὰ λεχθέντα συγκεφαλαιώσαντες, εἴπωμεν πάλιν ὅτι ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ ὄντα πώς ἐστι πάντα· ἢ γὰρ αἰσθητὰ τὰ ὄντα ἢ νοητά, ἔστι δ’ ἡ ἐπιστήμη μὲν τὰ ἐπιστητά πως, ἡ δ’ αἴσθησις τὰ αἰσθητά· πῶς δὲ τοῦτο, δεῖ ζητεῖν. τέμνεται οὖν ἡ ἐπιστήμη καὶ ἡ αἴσθησις εἰς τὰ πράγματα, ἡ μὲν δυνάμει εἰς τὰ δυνάμει, ἡ δ’ ἐντελεχείᾳ εἰς τὰ ἐντελεχείᾳ· τῆς δὲ ψυχῆς τὸ αἰσθητικὸν καὶ τὸ ἐπιστημονικὸν δυνάμει ταὐτά ἐστι, τὸ μὲν ἐπιστητὸν τὸ δὲ αἰσθητόν. ἀνάγκη δ’ ἢ αὐτὰ ἢ τὰ εἴδη εἶναι· αὐτὰ μὲν δὴ οὔ· οὐ γὰρ ὁ λίθος ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, ἀλλὰ τὸ εἶδος· ὥστε ἡ ψυχὴ ὥσπερ ἡ χείρ ἐστιν· καὶ γὰρ ἡ χεὶρ ὄργανόν ἐστιν ὀργάνων, καὶ ὁ νοῦς εἶδος εἰδῶν καὶ ἡ αἴσθησις εἶδος αἰσθητῶν. 3 In fact, Aristotle’s initial wording recalls a view attributed earlier to some of his predecessors: namely, that psuche¯ is an amalgam of (ἐκ) the elements of all beings (e.g. DA I 2, 404b8–10, 405b11–19, I 5, 410b16–17, 411a24–25) (so too Hicks 1907, 543 ad loc.). This makes it tempting to read the present passage as intended to correct that view: so to say, psuche¯ is not an amalgam of the elements of all beings, but simply all beings (ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ ὄντα πώς ἐστι πάντα). (For a recent, detailed, and rather different reading of the chapter as a whole – different, in seeing the chapter as focused on the integration of sensory and intellectual cognition within the psuche¯ of individual human beings, rather than as making a pointed correction of a conception of psuche¯ prevalent among his predecessors – see now Crubellier 2020.) 4 “perception (or: sensibility)”: αἴσθησις. I generally use “sensibility” for αἴσθησις when it stands for “the senses” or the power to perceive, “perception” or “perceiving” when it stands for their operation or activity, that is, perceiving. Though the Greek word αἴσθησις can designate either, the English word “perception” is not similarly flexible, at least not to my ear; also, it is useful for my purposes to have a different word for each. (The passage I am discussing plays on the ambiguity of the Greek word αἴσθησις: there, what Aristotle calls αἴσθησις “potentially” [δυνάμει] is what I would call “sensibility”; what he calls αἴσθησις “in fulfillment” [ἐνετελεχείᾳ] is what I would call “perception” or “perceiving.”) 2

Introduction

3

to just human psuche¯, needs further qualification. In a way, Aristotle says, psuche¯ is all beings, and the “way” he means, as he also says, is “potentially” (δυνάμει) (DA III 8, 431b23–28). It is only when our psuche¯ is (so to speak) “at work” – when we are using our senses or our intelligence, when we are perceiving or understanding – that it is, “in fulfillment” (ἐντελεχείᾳ), the beings we are then perceiving or understanding (cp. DA III 8, 431b24–28). [3] Even then a further qualification is in order. When Aristotle says of (our) psuche¯, that it is (potentially) all beings, what he means is that it is potentially the forms of all beings: “for it is not a stone that is in the psuche¯ but rather its form” (DA III 8, 431b28–432a1). These points, though still in need of interpretation – so far, they are just jargon – are relatively straightforward; they mark out a piece of uncontested, standard issue, garden variety Aristotle. Things are different when we come to the upshot, as stated in the last remark I want to consider at this juncture: “The result is that psuche¯ is just like the hand: indeed, for the hand is tool of tools, and intelligence form of forms, and sensibility form of sensibilia.”5 Though interpreting this remark is (in a way) the task of this book, I want here to make a suggestion about its relationship to the point I initially began from: again, that “psuche¯ in a way is all beings.” We have it so far that this initial point is to be limited and qualified: it is the point that (our) psuche¯ is (potentially) (the forms of) all beings. We have also some indication as to why Aristotle thinks this fairly characterizes our psuche¯: namely, because our psuche¯ is both sentient and intelligent. Owing to its “sentient part” (τὸ αἰσθητικόν), or to what I will call “sensibility,” our psuche¯ is potentially the forms of all perceptible beings; owing to its “scientific part” (τὸ ἐπιστημονικόν), or to what I will call “intelligence” (νοῦς), our psuche¯ is potentially the forms of all intelligible beings. So far so good, but suppose we were to press a step further and ask: “yes, but owing-to-what are they, sensibility and intelligence, potentially and between them the forms of all beings?” Perhaps we will be told: “why, each of them thanks to its very own self, to its own nature or essence.” No doubt. But still the question remains, or at least seems to remain: “yes, but what are those natures? what is the nature, the essence, the ‘what-is-it’ (τί ἐστι) of sensibility? and what is the nature or essence of intelligence?” Granted Aristotle himself does not take this further step – does not raise these further questions – not explicitly, not in this passage. Still he does raise them, and answer them, earlier in the De Anima: sensibility, he says, 5

DA III 8, 432a1–3: ὥστε ἡ ψυχὴ ὥσπερ ἡ χείρ ἐστιν· καὶ γὰρ ἡ χεὶρ ὄργανόν ἐστιν ὀργάνων, καὶ ὁ νοῦς εἶδος εἰδῶν καὶ ἡ αἴσθησις εἶδος αἰσθητῶν.

4

Introduction

is “a kind of ratio” (λόγος τις), specifically “as it were a kind of mean” (οἷον μεσότης τις), and intelligence is something “simple” (ἁπλοῦν), “separate” (χωριστόν), “unmixed” (ἀμιγές) (DA II 12, 424a27–28, 31, II 11, 424a4–5, III 4, 429b23–24, III 5, 430a17–18). It is these doctrines, I suggest, that Aristotle is drawing the moral of here in De Anima III 8. That moral, in a word, is that (our) psuche¯ is “just like the hand” – just like the hand, in that intelligence is the form of intelligible forms (lit. εἶδος εἰδῶν) and sensibility is the form of perceptible forms (lit. εἶδος αἰσθητῶν). Fitted to our questions, the idea is that it is by being that – the one the form of perceptible forms, the other the form of intelligible forms – that sensibility and intelligence are potentially and between them the forms of all beings.6 Well – whatever else we are to make of the remark that psuche¯ is “just like the hand,” one thing it shows is that Aristotle thinks of sensibility and intelligence as each of them forms: indeed, not just any forms, but special forms – special, that is, in their relationship or standing vis-à-vis other forms (all other forms). To be sure, the exact nature and consequences of this “special standing” are hardly to be extracted from this remark alone.7 Still the remark is suggestive, especially when read against the background of my question: why is it (in Aristotle’s view) in our nature to know beings? If the question were Aristotle’s; if he thought the answer to it lay in the very nature of our cognitive powers, of sensibility and intelligence; if the point of the remark we have been considering was to draw the moral of his accounts of the natures of those powers – in that case the result would be that, for Aristotle, the reason it lies in our nature to know beings is that sensibility and intelligence are “forms” of the forms of all beings. Put more intuitively, in terms of a tradition Aristotle is responding to, the result would be that, for Aristotle, the reason it is in human nature to know

Cp. now Crubellier 2020, 236–238, esp. 237: “La comparaison [of psuche¯ to hand] suggère donc que les ‘formes’ dont on parle ici sont des moyens qui permettent (facilitent, rendent plus précise) la connaissance des choses” (emphasis added). 7 The comparison to the hand is suggestive, especially given the similar remark in PA IV 10, 687a20–23: “the hand seems to be not one tool but many; for it is as it were the tool before tools (ὄργανον πρὸ ὀργάνων). So, nature has given the hand, the tool whose uses are most varied (τὸ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον τῶν ὀργάνων χρήσιμον), to the creature capable of acquiring the most arts.” But even this leaves many things unclear. What is the point – that hands are multipurpose (many tools or organs in one)? that they are our first tool? that they are useful in making or using other tools? that many other tools are, in their very idea, hand-tools? And which points are invoked in De Anima III 8? How do they carry over when we put “intelligence” or “sensibility” for “hand,” “form” for “tool,” and “forms” or “sensibilia” for “tools”? 6

Introduction

5

beings is that in a way man is “the measure of all things.” (I return to this below.) These at any rate are the points I try to develop in this book. But I have gotten ahead of myself. The question I am proposing to put to Aristotle – that I am proposing is his question – itself needs clarifying. Considered very generally, my question seeks the “cause” of a “fact,” the “why” (διότι) of a “that” (ὅτι): in a headline, of the “fact” that Mind Knows World. To start with, we might ask what fact this is. It is characteristic of animals, in different ways and degrees, to be sensitive to opportunities afforded by their environments: to “make discriminations” (κρίνειν) and to “perceive” (αἰσθάνεσθαι), for example, predators and prey, obstacles and paths, offspring and mates, and so on – and if all that, then also things like size and shape and motion and rest – and if all that, then also one or more of (say) temperature, hardness, moisture, savor, odor, color, pitch. In Aristotle’s view, there is no question but that this is characteristic of animals. That is a simple “fact of life,” on a par with the “fact of nature” that some beings move (cp. Phys. I 1, 185a12–14, II 1, 193a4–9). As such, it is both a starting point for inquiry and a target of explanation – explanation ultimately in terms of the nature of psuche¯ (if not of all psuche¯, then of sentient psuche¯). Another such fact, similar but different, concerns human beings. It is in human nature to pick up what is on offer, not merely in our environment in the way of just getting by, but in the whole wide world in the way of understanding or insight. It is true that, for Aristotle, not everything “is” (so to speak) “on principle,” and also that (in a way) absent a principle there is nothing to “get.” Some things are done on impulse, not on policy; some are due to luck, not to skill; some are due to chance, not to nature; of such matters (in a way) there is no “why.” But none of this upsets the larger point, which is not merely that (by and large) there is a “what” and a “why” to what we do and what there is, but that it is in human nature to seek and to find it. In short, understanding “why” is a “function” (ἔργον) or “fulfillment” (ἐντελέχεια) of our nature as intelligent creatures. In Aristotle’s view, this too is a fact of life, a starting point for inquiry, and ultimately to be explained in terms of the nature of psuche¯ – not of all psuche¯, but of the intelligent part (lit. “the part of psuche¯ with which it both knows and judges,” τὸ μόριον τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ᾧ γινώσκει τε ἡ ψυχή καὶ φρονεῖ) (DA III 4, 429a10–11). For a start, then, it is these big, broad, basic facts of life, about animals in general and about human beings in particular, that my question is about: taken together and in a headline, the fact that “Mind Knows World.” I take them together because Aristotle himself often takes them

6

Introduction

together, treating them as one big fact. He puts that fact, roughly and schematically, by imputing “knowing” (τὸ γινώσκειν) to psuche¯. The exact formulation varies. Sometimes he flat-out predicates knowing of psuche¯, as in the passage just cited: “psuche¯ both knows and judges” (γινώσκει τε ἡ ψυχή καὶ φρονεῖ) (DA III 4, 429a10–11). Sometimes he uses a genitive of characteristic, saying that knowing or perceiving is “of” psuche¯ (e.g. DA I 2, 405b6). Other times he says that knowing “belongs” to psuche¯, or, more fully, that it “belongs” to it “by nature” (ὑπάρχει κατὰ φύσιν) (DA I 5, 411a24–25, I 2, 403b25). Other times he speaks of perceiving or understanding as among the “attributes” (πάθη, συμβεβηκότα), “affections” (παθήματα), or “functions” (ἔργα) of psuche¯ (e.g. DA I 1, 403a3–11, I 5, 409b15–16). These formulations may be regarded for now as equivalent variations of a kind of shorthand.8 They serve to indicate, roughly and in general, what Aristotle regards as simply a fact: namely, that it is in the very nature of living things, at least some living things, to perceive, or to understand, or to perceive and understand, beings. My question asks for the “cause” of this fact: in brief and in shorthand, why does it “belong” to (some) psuche¯ to know beings? This shorthand brings me to a second point. Considered in terms of its form, my question asks of an attribute (“knowledge,” τὸ γινώσκειν) why it belongs to some subject (psuche¯). But this may be put a little more precisely: what I am asking, in particular, is what about that subject makes it a subject of that attribute. In Aristotle’s language, I am asking “by being what” (τί ὄν, διὰ τὸ τί εἶναι) it belongs to psuche¯ to know beings. The point may be illustrated from a criticism Aristotle makes of some of his predecessors. These thinkers, he says, arrived at their views about psuche¯ from looking to the fact that it is of psuche¯ to know beings (DA I 2, 404b8–10). What must psuche¯ be, they wondered, if knowledge of beings is to belong to it by nature? An amalgam, they concluded, of the elements of beings. For, they held, knowledge is of like by like; but in that case, they reasoned, if it is of psuche¯ to know beings, psuche¯ must be like beings – just what it would be, if it itself were an amalgam of (ἐκ) all the same elements. The result is a view about “what” psuche¯ “is,” about its nature or essence. But it is not merely a view about that nature or essence. As Aristotle represents it, it is a view about the nature or essence of psuche¯ which purports also to show “why” it is of psuche¯ to know beings: it is of psuche¯ to know beings, because psuche¯ is like beings (like them, because an amalgam of all the same elements). Now, one criticism Aristotle makes of this view is that it fails to explain the fact it sets out to explain: it is not, he 8

I discuss this further in Chapter 1, Section 4.

Introduction

7

says, of psuche¯ to know beings because psuche¯ is an amalgam of elements (οὔτε τὸ γινώσκειν ὑπάρχει τῇ ψυχῇ διὰ τὸ ἐκ τῶν στοιχείων εἶναι, DA I 5, 411a24–25). What is more, in making this criticism, or so it seems to me, Aristotle is virtually begging us to ask him in turn: then “by being what” does it belong to psuche¯ to know beings? It is true that, thus formulated, the question presupposes things Aristotle rejects: for example, that it does belong to psuche¯ (i.e. to all psuche¯) to know beings, or that all psuche¯ is “uniform” (ὁμοειδής), that is, one and the same in every living creature. But even once these points and some others are acknowledged, the broad fact from which we began remains basically intact: that is, it does belong to psuche¯ – not all psuche¯, but some psuche¯ – to know, that is, to perceive and to understand, perceptible and intelligible beings (i.e. all beings). And if the fact remains, the question remains too: by being what is it of (such) psuche¯ to do that? In a way the answer to this question is obvious: the reason it belongs to (some) psuche¯ to know beings is that psuche¯ (of that kind) is sentient and intelligent. This brings me to a third point, which is that the question I am asking – that I think Aristotle is asking – is after something more than this. The point may be illustrated from Aristotle’s treatment of another “fact of life,” that animals move: in the shorthand, that it belongs to (some) psuche¯ to impart motion to animals. Here too we may ask: “by being what” does it belong to (such) psuche¯ to do that? What sort of answer would Aristotle give to this question? He imputes to his predecessors a tolerably substantive answer: roughly put, that the reason it is of psuche¯ to impart motion (κινεῖν) is that psuche¯ is in motion (κινεῖται) (cp. DA I 2, 403b28–31). It is true that Aristotle himself rejects this answer: it is impossible, he says, that motion should be even an attribute of psuche¯, let alone any part of what it is in its essence (DA I 3, 405b31–406a2). But though he rejects the answer, he does not reject the question. He is not for his part content simply to say that the reason it belongs to (some) psuche¯ to impart motion is that psuche¯ (of that kind) is “motion-imparting” (κινητικόν, κινοῦν). On the contrary, the first question he asks, when he begins his own treatment of this topic, is what on earth is the motion-imparting part of the psuche¯ of animals (lit. περὶ τοῦ κινοῦντος, τί ποτέ ἐστι τῆς ψυχῆς [sc. τῶν ζῴων])? Is it, in fact, just a part of their psuche¯, or is it the entire thing (lit. πότερον ἕν τι μόριον αὐτῆς . . . ἢ πᾶσα ἡ ψυχή)? And if a part, which part – one already mentioned or some other one besides (DA III 9, 432a15–22)? I leave aside the details of Aristotle’s answers to these questions, which are in any case controversial.9 The point 9

The short answer is that the reason it belongs to (some) psuche¯ to impart motion is that psuche¯ (of that kind) is desiderative, where it is understood that desire is an “operation”

8

Introduction

I am now making is just that, in seeking why it belongs to some psuche¯ to impart motion, Aristotle is not content just to say that psuche¯ of that kind is “motion-imparting.” Ditto, I submit, as regards why it belongs to our psuche¯ to perceive and to understand beings. What is wanted is not simply the information that our psuche¯ is the kind that is sentient and intelligent. What is wanted is an account of what makes our psuche¯ sentient and intelligent – if not its being an amalgam of elements, then what? Put slightly differently, what is wanted is an account of sensibility and intelligence themselves, an account of “what” each of them “is,” such as will also tell why (lit. “by being what,” τί ὄν, διὰ τὸ τί εἶναι) it belongs to them, is their function or work, to perceive and to understand beings. This brings me to a final clarification I want to make at this juncture. I am asking of an attribute (“knowledge”) why it belongs to a subject (psuche¯); the question seeks a categorical answer, in terms of the nature or essence or “what-is-it” (τί ἐστι) of that subject. My hypothesis – it is defeasible – is that Aristotle means to provide such an answer. That said, the question is dizzying in its generality. What could count as a satisfying answer? What would such an answer exclude? What would it secure? Though really these are matters for the book as a whole, I do want to say something here about how I am thinking about them. Consider first some analogous questions as raised about analogous facts: for example, why (“by being what”) does it belong to the art of medicine to heal or to the art of building to build? These are questions about the “functions” (ἔργα) of these arts; they ask why those functions are functions of those arts and seek answers in terms of the nature of those arts. I allow that these are questions which (in some moods) Aristotle might well refuse, on the grounds that the arts in question are simply defined by their functions.10 But I observe that (in other moods) he might well rise to the bait, making appeal to the doctrine that arts are the forms of what it is theirs to produce (e.g. Met. Z 9, 1034a24). This doctrine makes a categorical statement, admittedly very general, about what arts are. The generality of the statement precludes it from saying very much. Still, it does exclude something: for example, that the association of medicine with health (ἐνέργεια) of sensibility, which in turn has been defined as a kind of ratio or mean (DA III 10, 433b10–11, III 7, 431a10–14). But this short answer needs qualifying if it is to be adequate to certain problems in this area and the necessary qualifications are not easy to interpret. (For the problems, see DA III 9, 432a30–433a8; for the qualifications, see esp. DA III 10, 433b10–13.) 10 Cp. Cael. IV 3, 310b16–19, Phys. VIII 4, 255b15–17, Cael. IV 1, 308a29–31.

Introduction

9

and of building with buildings is merely a coincidence.11 It also secures something: for example, that healing and building really do “belong” to the arts of medicine and building – that they really are functions of those arts. Moreover, there is sometimes a point to securing even this much, in contexts in which the going alternatives effectively deny it. Such is the context Aristotle often takes himself to be in. Certainly it is the perceived context of his investigation of “nature” (φύσις); as he complains about Empedocles in Physics II 8, “a person who says that” – namely, roughly, that this comes from that “as luck would have it” (ὥς ἔτυχεν) – simply “does away with nature and things due to it altogether” (Phys. II 8, 199b14–15, tr. Charlton 1970). And he speaks in a similar vein about earlier views about psuche¯, complaining that most of them neglect the fact that things interact, not just any old thing with just any old thing, but “because of their community” (διὰ τὴν κοινωνίαν) (DA I 3, 407b15–19) – in the case that interests me here, the community of subject and object, of knower and known, of psuche¯ and beings. Considerations like these are a guide – a defeasible guide – to what we may expect from Aristotle in the way of explaining certain “facts of life”: that is to say, the fact that it belongs to our psuche¯ to perceive and to understand – taken together and in short, “to know beings.” We may expect him to try to explain this fact in terms of the nature of psuche¯ – not of all psuche¯, but of our psuche¯, and specifically of its cognitive powers, sensibility and intelligence. In particular, we may expect that his accounts of “what” those powers “are” will be calculated to reveal their “community” with their respective objects, with perceptible and intelligible beings, and thereby to ensure that the association of those powers with those objects is not merely “as luck would have it,” but is rather in line with their respective natures. Put another way, we may expect his accounts of the natures of those powers, of sensibility and intelligence, to be attempts to say “by being what” it is their work to perceive and to understand perceptible and intelligible beings. In fact, we already know (more or less) what we will find: the thesis that sensibility is a kind of ratio, specifically a kind of mean, and that intelligence is “simple,” “separate,” “unmixed.” These theses, I suggest, just are Aristotle’s attempt to answer my question: to say “by being what” it is of sensibility and intelligence to perceive and to understand beings. In particular, I will suggest, they address that

11

Compare Lewis 1983.

10

Introduction

question by attempting to specify the “forms of the forms” (i.e. the measures) of those beings. The literature on the De Anima continues to grow. One indication is the recent appearance of five new translations, four of them in English.12 Business is booming. I should say at least something about the relationship of this book to that literature. First, the book is not primarily conceived of as remedying its deficiencies: I mean, for example, as correcting important, long-standing, deep-seated mistakes, or as filling deplorable lacunae, or as providing new definitive treatments of select central topics. The particular question I have decided to pursue, and my particular understanding of it as detailed above, has arisen for me out of my own study and teaching of the De Anima; though I have been helped a great deal by the extant literature on countless points of detail, it has not been the essential point of departure of the broader inquiry.13 The book is rather in the first instance an essay: an attempt to follow out, and to make articulate in writing, a particular line of inquiry I have found useful in opening up and entering into a compact and difficult text. I do not mean that I aim to be idiosyncratic; on the contrary, I do think my question is implicit in Aristotle’s question – in a word, what is psuche¯ – as I think the nub of his answer to it is encapsulated in the passage from which I initially began (DA III 8, 431b21). That said, however, I do try to enter into and appreciate his questions, or what I take to be his questions – to acquire a feel for the itch he thinks wants scratching. This does not admit doing just once and for all; it is something we do for ourselves, each in our own way, with the assistance of scholarship, but driven by our own questions, pursued to our own satisfaction; as such it is to some extent inescapably personal. Nonetheless I do hope and expect that at least some of what has seemed interesting and useful to me will also be of service to other readers of the De Anima.14 Second, my object in this book is not to cover an area, but to follow a line: Aristotle’s line, on my question.15 This has some consequences. First, there are a number of traditional questions I say little or nothing about. Does Aristotle think (some) psuche¯ is separable from body? Does 12

Shields 2016, Corcilius 2017, Reeve 2017, Bolotin 2018, and Miller 2018. Though it is difficult to prove a negative, I do not think that my question, understood as I have tried to clarify it above, is a preoccupation of any considerable portion of the literature. (Note that in saying this I do not mean to be finding fault.) 14 Cp. Newman 1889, 384–385. 15 For a recent, comprehensive, book-length treatment of the De Anima, viewed as making a seminal contribution to “faculty-psychology,” see Johansen 2012. 13

Introduction

11

he believe in personal immortality? Does he steer a middle course between Platonic dualism and a kind of reductive materialism? Is he a “literalist” or “spiritualist” about the reception of forms in perception? How and why does he think the use of intelligence depends on sensory images? How does he conceive of the relationship between receptive and productive intellect? Between productive intellect and human psuche¯? These are questions which (in the main) I do not go into, not because they are bad questions, but because they are largely orthogonal to my chosen line of inquiry. Second, there are a number of not so traditional questions – concerning, for example, Aristotle’s conceptions of “community” (κοινωνία), “likeness” (ὁμοιότης), “affinity” (συγγενεία), or “measure” (μέτρον) – which to some extent I do go into. I do so because I have found them useful in trying to think my way into what Aristotle might be looking for in an answer to my question. Third, and finally, the book is unorthodox in its handling of some terms and expressions. The reason is that while my object requires a certain mindfulness, about how to put my questions in Aristotle’s terms, and vice versa, some traditional renderings interfere with this. In negotiating this I have mainly followed my nose, on the principle that (better or worse) it is the only nose I have. Though the results are occasionally idiosyncratic, still, to speak for myself, sometimes, within limits, it is good to be arrested – made to pause and to think, what am I talking about? In any case I will explain myself once I get going, and also try to be clear throughout about what in Aristotle I take myself to be rendering. There is one case I want to address at the outset. I mean the word psuche¯, traditionally rendered “soul.” Though I will leave the word untranslated, I do want to make clear what I take Aristotle to be talking about when he talks about psuche¯, at least in the De Anima.16 The facts as I see them are about as follows. First, psuche¯ is Aristotle’s word, at least in the De Anima, for what distinguishes the living from the non-living, “the animate” (τὰ ἔμψυχα) from “the inanimate” (τὰ ἄψυχα). Second, a little more precisely, it is his word for what is “as it were the principle” (οἷον ἀρχή) of living things (DA I 1, 402a6–7) and also the “cause” (αἴτιον) of their characteristic behavior: that is, of its belonging to them to do what it belongs to them to do, for example, to feed, grow, perceive, move, reason, understand – in a word, to live (ζῆν), that is, to perform or engage in “vital activity” (ζωή) (DA II 4, 415a23–26, b8–27).17 Third, this behavior, “vital 16 17

Essential reading on psuche¯ in Greek philosophy more generally is Lorenz 2009. In Aristotle zo¯e¯ and ze¯n generally designate an “operation” or “activity” (ἐνέργεια) (see e.g. EN IX 9, 1170a16–19, EN X 4, 1175a12, Met. Θ 8, 1050a34–b1).

12

Introduction

activity,” ζωή or τὸ ζῆν, also distinguishes living from non-living things (DA II 2, 413a21–23). It does so in much the way that (say) healing the sick distinguishes physicians from non-physicians: namely, in being their “function” or “work” (ἔργον). Just as healing the sick is for physicians to do thanks to their “art” (τέχνη), having which constitutes being a physician, and using which is an “operation” or “activity” (ἐνέργεια), a “doing one’s work” (ἐνεργεῖν), so too “vital activity” (ζωή) belongs to living things thanks to their psuche¯, having which constitutes being a living thing, and the activity or use of which is a “doing one’s work,” for example, feeding, perceiving, moving, reasoning – in a word, liv-ing, τὸ ζῆν.18 Finally, Aristotle regards these behaviors of living things as “attributes,” “affections,” or “works” (πάθη, παθήματα, ἔργα) of psuche¯ itself, it being “because of” (διά) psuche¯ that they also “belong” (ὑπάρχει) to living things too (DA I 1, 402a8–10). Again, just as healing the sick is for physicians to do because it is the work of their “art” (τέχνη), so also to live (τὸ ζῆν) is for living things to do because it is the work of their psuche¯, the “employment” or “operation” of which is their “vital activity” (ζωή) or “living” (ζῆν). Though some of these points I have put my own way, they will be readily allowed by most readers of the De Anima.19 How best then to render psuche¯ in English? The answer will vary with the purpose. My purpose is not to translate the De Anima, but to identify and make sense of Aristotle’s line on a particular question. This purpose requires a certain coordination, deciding and keeping track of what he is talking about, so as to identify where he is addressing that question. Here the word “soul” simply gets in my way, evoking either the wrong thing or else nothing at all. Besides, what do we call it in English, that “something” (whatever it is) which distinguishes the living from the non-living, which all living things have just so long as they live, and which all of them lose whensoever they die? Certainly, a word for it, a good word, is “life.” Let it be, as maybe it is, that “life” is also a word for the behavior of living things; the fact remains that it is also a word, not for something they “do,” but for something they “have,” having which makes them be living things. To this, it might be objected: it is intolerably distracting Cp. EE II 1, 1219b2–3, “each of them, zo¯e¯ and action, is use and activity” (ἕκαστον χρῆσίς ἐστι καὶ ἐνέργεια, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ καὶ ἡ πρᾶξις); EN I 7, 1098a13, “we say the function [of human beings] is a certain zo¯e¯, and this is an activity of psuche¯” (τίθεμεν ἔργον ζωήν τινα, ταύτην δὲ ψυχῆς ἐνέργειαν); DA II 4, 415a25–26, nutritive psuche¯, “whose functions are to beget” etc. (ἧς ἐστὶν ἔργα γεννῆσαι). 19 The principal exception, not relevant at this juncture, is the tacit assimilation of “operation” or “activity” (ἐνέργεια) to “employment” or “use” (χρῆσις). On this topic, see Menn 1994, especially 78–87. 18

Introduction

13

in a book on the De Anima to translate psuche¯ by “life,” especially if the argument does not absolutely require it. I concede the point, and so leave psuche¯ untranslated. Still, I suppose I have the right to state what I understand the word to mean. I understand it to mean what I would call life – not “vital activity” (ζωή) (!!), but in the sense described above. I use the rest of this introduction to describe the progress of my argument. My first task is to show that my question is Aristotle’s; this is the work of Part I (“Questions”). My basic idea is that the question is implicitly raised by Aristotle himself, when he sets out to define psuche¯, to say what it is, to determine its “nature” (φύσις) or “substance” or “essence” (οὐσία). My argument comes in three stages. I begin in Chapter 1 (“Objectives”) with two passages from De Anima I. The first sets out what Aristotle is aiming to do in the De Anima; the second criticizes his predecessors for failing to have done it (DA I 1, 402a7–10, I 5, 411a24–26). My argument has two parts. First, I argue that these passages show that one of the things Aristotle demands of a definition of psuche¯, of an account of its nature or essence, is that it reveals the “cause” of knowledge: that is, that it show “why” (lit. “by being what,” τί ὄ ν or διὰ τὸ τί εἶ ναι) “it belongs naturally to psuche¯” (τῇ ψυχῇ ὑπάρχει κατὰ φύσιν) “to know all beings” (τὸ γινώσκειν πάντα τὰ ὄ ντα) (DA I 2, 403b24–27, 405b15–16, I 5, 411a24–26, 409b24–25, 411a4, cp. Sens. 2, 439a16–17). Second, acknowledging that this demand needs qualifying in various ways, I try to identify and enumerate those qualifications, working from the complications by which they are induced. The complications are essentially three: that psuche¯ comes in varieties, that knowledge does too, and that neither of the principal varieties of knowledge (perceptual, intellectual) belong to every kind of psuche¯ (e.g. it is not of plants to perceive or understand, nor of gods to perceive, nor of nonhuman animals to reason or understand). Supposing, then, that cause and effect are commensurate, the consequence is that the reason why perceptual and intellectual knowledge belong to such psuche¯ as is sentient and intelligent must lie in the nature of that kind of psuche¯: specifically, it must lie in what is distinctive of that kind of psuche¯, namely, “sensibility” (αἴσθησις) and “intelligence” (νοῦς). More particularly still, since there is only one kind of psuche¯ which is both sentient and intelligent, namely human psuche¯, it is an account of the nature and essence of that kind of psuche¯ – that is to say, of what distinguishes it from other kinds of psuche¯, viz. sensibility and intelligence – that must reveal “by being what” it belongs naturally to it to know all beings. The upshot is that when at

14

Introduction

last Aristotle puts it on the agenda of his inquiry to define human psuche¯ (DA II 3, 414b32–33), he is ipso facto putting it on his agenda to reveal what it is about “Mind” (i.e. sensibility and intelligence) that makes it such as to “know” (i.e. to perceive and understand) “the World” (i.e. beings, i.e. all beings, whether perceptible or intelligible). This much in place, the next chapter develops, from another angle, a point implicit in the foregoing: namely, that the phenomenon which particularly wants explaining is that it is of psuche¯ to know beings. That is, the “knowledge” (τὸ γινώσκειν) whose cause Aristotle has set out to identify does not consist merely in being appeared to (whether veridically or no), or in being aware that or how one is being appeared to, but also or rather and in any case crucially in being au fait with real beings, as they are “in themselves” (καθ’ αὑτά) or “in truth” (τῷ ὄντι). In developing this point, I work from Aristotle’s view of certain problems which (as he sees it) prevented his predecessors from defining psuche¯ satisfactorily. It is true (in the main) that he thinks their views are absurd. But he does not feel the same about their questions: on the contrary, he regards the absurdity of their views as an index of the difficulties in this area, and thinks we cannot make progress without first identifying those difficulties and getting clear of them (DA I 2, 403b20–24). The task of Chapter 2 (“Problems”), then, is to bring out what is at stake in these difficulties. I focus on two issues in particular, which for Aristotle are paramount: namely, whether knowledge is [1] “like by like” and [2] a kind of “alteration.” The problem raised by both issues, I argue, is at bottom the following. On the one hand, if knowledge is alteration, and is “like by like,” the apparent result is that knowledge is so colored by arbitrary facts about us as to belie the idea that it really is knowledge of beings, as they are “in themselves” or “in truth.” (As Aristotle understands his predecessors, to say that knowledge is “like by like” is to say that we “see” [so to speak] what we “want” to see – that is, what we are antecedently disposed to see – while to say that it is alteration is to say that what we “want” to see is idiosyncratic to each of us and constantly changing, being a function of our individual “situations” or “perspectives,” which in turn are products of previous cognitions and altered by subsequent ones.) On the other hand, if knowledge is not “like by like,” and leaves its subjects unaltered, the apparent result is to make it unintelligible – unintelligible in principle – why subjects of knowledge should have anything at all to do with its putative objects. (On such a view, those objects comprise a world that is entirely alien to those subjects, one whose vagaries and

Introduction

15

fortunes leave them completely untouched.) In brief, I argue, the problem raised by both issues is how to respect the fact that knowledge is of beings, as they are in their own right, without rendering that fact an inscrutable mystery. For these points I rely on De Anima I 2, III 3, and Metaphysics Γ 5. These texts, which are connected by a number of common threads, combine to establish that, for Aristotle, the outstanding representative of the problems in this area is Protagoras, and that among the problems being negotiated in the De Anima is the problem of how it is that it lies in our nature to know beings. In the De Anima this problem is “flagged” or “signaled” by the questions of whether knowledge is “like by like” or a kind of “alteration” (it is signaled by those questions, as being what is ultimately at stake in them). Here I pause to emphasize that the problem is not about how living things are so much as appeared to at all (whether accurately or not), nor about how they manage to be aware of how they are appeared to. These problems, which concern intentionality and consciousness, do not seem to be of particular concern to Aristotle. I admit that this might seem like swallowing camels and straining at gnats: why fuss about why things appear as they are, when the real marvel in this area is that they so much as appear at all? Though there are many things one might say about this – one might wonder, for example, whether Aristotle thinks cognition requires consciousness, even in the most primitive animals – I limit myself here to just the following. In Chapter 1, I will have argued that, for Aristotle, to ask why to know is an attribute of psuche¯ is to ask why knowing is among the “operations” (ἐνέργειαι) or “functions” (ἔργα) of psuche¯. But the operation Aristotle calls “knowing” (τὸ γινώσκειν) does not merely consist in being aware, or in being appeared to, or even in being aware that or how one is being appeared to, but rather first and above all in being appeared to correctly: in Aristotle’s language, it is “discriminating something” (κρίνει τι) and “getting to know beings” (γνωρίζει τῶν ὄντων) (DA III 3, 427a20–21).20 This is not to deny that, in undertaking this work, living things often fall short of the mark, nor even that there are other uses of their cognitive powers – notably, the use of sensibility in “imagining” (φαντασία) – which at least arguably do not have a mark. But it is to say that, for Aristotle, the phenomenon being investigated, when the phenomenon is knowledge, is hitting the mark, knowledge of beings. (It is also to suggest that, in Aristotle’s thought-world, these other 20

For the point that “knowledge” (γνῶσις) (in Aristotle) is true cognition, see recently Bronstein 2016, 16–18.

16

Introduction

proceedings are conceptually posterior to the knowledge of beings: e.g. missing the mark, because it is no function at all, and imagining, because its elements are produced by perceivings.) This brings me to the last stage of my argument in Part I (Chapter 3, “Solutions”). Here, I propose to strengthen the results of the preceding chapter by looking at how Aristotle attempts to negotiate the issues I have identified: again, whether knowledge is [1] “like by like” and [2] “alteration.” This is the work of De Anima II 5, a difficult text which has attracted a considerable literature, much of it animated by the question of whether Aristotle conceives of perceiving as something purely “spiritual.” Though I argue (as have others) that this question is not settled by II 5, my primary object is to present a reading on which its main business is to clarify the “grammar” of perception, so as to respect the fact that perception is of beings without rendering that fact unintelligible in principle. I argue that what the chapter says about the way perception is (and is not) a kind of alteration, and about the way it is (and is not) like by like, is as though designed to secure it that knowledge of beings is a fact that has causes.21 To this point, I will have argued that it is fair to press the De Anima for an answer to my question of why it is in human nature to know beings. It is fair, because it is Aristotle himself who demands that an account of the nature or essence of human psuche¯ reveal “by being what” we are such as to know the world, both perceiving its surfaces and reaching in and laying hold of the very natures of things. It remains to identify and interpret his account of these matters. My basic idea is that the core of the account is that sensibility and intelligence are measures of perceptible and intelligible beings. The task of Part II (“Angles”) is to introduce and to motivate this basic idea. Aristotle represents many of his predecessors as having arrived at their views about psuche¯ from reflection on the fact that knowledge is of beings; it is this fact, together with the principle that knowledge is “like by like,” which is supposed to have led them to the view that psuche¯ is an amalgam of the elements of all beings (DA I 2, 404b8–10, 17–18, 405b13–17, I 5, 409b26–28). To this view, Aristotle objects: even if psuche¯ were an amalgam of elements, it is hardly on that account that its work is to know beings (DA I 5, 411a24–25). This being so, it is fair to ask him in 21

Though the ostensible topic of De Anima II 5 is perceiving, the distinctions made therein, regarding different ways a thing may be “affected” or “altered,” also encompass intellectual knowledge, both its acquisition (learning) and use (contemplation).

Introduction

17

turn, then “by being what” is it of psuche¯ to know beings? Presumably his answer must be somehow connected to his own definition of psuche¯ as the substance, form, and “fulfillment” (ἐντελέχεια) of certain kinds of body. My own idea is that, for Aristotle, psuche¯ is somehow the form, not only of those bodies whose work is “to live” (ζῆν), but also of “the objects” (τὰ ἀντικείμενα) of their vital activities. As applied specifically to human psuche¯, the idea is that sensibility and intelligence are somehow parts of the form, not only of such creatures as are sentient and intelligent, but also of such beings as are perceptible or intelligible. I am encouraged in this idea by Aristotle’s saying that intelligence is the form of intelligible beings (lit. “form of forms”) and that sensibility the form of perceptible ones (DA III 8, 432a2–3). But the task of Chapter 4 (“Affinities”) is to take a step back and to begin to establish the idea on a broader footing. My argument begins from two observations. The first is that although Aristotle thinks little of the view that psuche¯ is an amalgam of elements, in fact, he accepts the considerations (once duly qualified) from which the view is derived.22 This observation suggests that, in a way, his reason for thinking psuche¯ is form is the same as their reason for thinking it is an amalgam of elements: namely, the fact that it belongs to psuche¯ to know beings, together with the principle that knowledge is “like by like.” Now, this principle is an explanatory principle; it locates the “cause” of knowledge in an antecedent likeness between its subjects and objects. Moreover, analogous principles have been offered to explain analogous facts. For example, why are some things dear to others (e.g. children to parents)? Or nourished by them (e.g. animals by meat)? Why do things move where they do (e.g. fire up)? Why are some things affected by others (e.g. human beings by wine)? The reason, according to the principles in question, is that children and parents, animals and meat, fire and up, human beings and wine, are somehow “alike.” My second observation, then, is, not merely (what is true) that such explanations have been offered, but further that they too are explanations (again, once duly qualified) Aristotle accepts. To be sure, we may expect the qualifications to vary from case to case, in ways dictated by the particulars of the phenomena in question. Still, we might wonder whether they aren’t all of a piece: whether there isn’t some mistake, or family of mistakes, they all correct – some point, or family of points, they all enforce. This is the 22

This is shown by (among other things) his objecting that the view does not go far enough, and by his maintaining instead that life is, not the elements of everything there is, but (in a way) simply “everything there is” (DA I 5, 409b24–29, III 8, 431b21).

18

Introduction

question I pursue in this chapter. I argue that there is such a point: namely, that the “likeness” that makes a thing dear to something, or move to it, or be nourished or affected by it, is not just any likeness, such as obtains “as it happened” (ὡς ἔτυχεν), incidentally or by chance, but is rather an antecedent likeness in form – not any form, but one common and natural to all parties involved. This point is one part of the foundation for the idea that psuche¯ is somehow the form, not only of living creatures, but also of the objects that, in living their lives, those creatures have to deal with. The fact is that, for Aristotle, all natural phenomena depend, for both their being and their intelligibility, on a non-incidental likeness in form; it is this likeness that makes the parties to those phenomena be what by nature they are (friend and friend, feeder and food, agent and patient, and so on). Indeed, I argue, this is but an instance of a general rule: namely, that things interact, not any old thing, with any old thing, in any old way, but “because of their community” (διὰ τὴν κοινωνίαν), that is, each with such others and in such ways as are in line with their respective natures.23 The consequence is that, for Aristotle, showing why it is ours to know beings is (in a way) no different from showing why it is of anything to do anything. In each case, the task involves identifying the form uniting the parties in question in a kind of natural “community” (κοινωνίαν). Now, in the particular case at hand, the forms in question must both pertain to our essence and be common to the objects of all our knowledge: that is, we must by nature be “like” every being it is ours to perceive and to understand. The reason is that the “community” established by this likeness is not the result of particular cognitions, but rather the cause of the fact that to know beings is an operation of our nature as sentient and intelligent creatures. This is already a tall order: what could the forms in question possibly be? But in fact, what Aristotle says implies considerably more: not just that there are such forms – that is, one natural and common to every perceptible being, the other natural and common to every intelligible one – nor just that these forms are also natural and common to us human beings, qua sentient and intelligent creatures, but also that to identify these forms is to define 23

DA I 3, 407b17–19. See also Phys. I 5, 188a31–34, Cael. IV 3, 310a20–31, GC I 7 323b30, GA II 6, 743a21–23. Regarding psuche¯ and knowledge in particular, see esp. EN VI 1, 1139a8–11: “for where objects differ in kind the naturally corresponding parts of psuche¯ differ in kind too, if indeed knowledge belongs to them in accordance with a kind of likeness and kinship” (πρὸς τὰ τῷ γένει ἕτερα καὶ τῶν τῆς ψυχῆς μορίων ἕτερον τῷ γένει τὸ πρὸς ἑκάτερον πεφυκός, εἴπερ καθ’ ὁμοιότητά τινα καὶ οἰκειότητα ἡ γνῶσις ὑπάρχει αὐτοῖς).

Introduction

19

sensibility and intelligence. For again, he says that sensibility and intelligence are forms of their respective objects (DA III 8, 432a2–3). But what could that mean? As noted above, my basic idea is that it means that sensibility and intelligence are measures of their respective objects. But before trying to make good on this idea, it will be useful to have worked up some account of how Aristotle actually thinks about “measures” (μέτρα). This is the task of Chapter 5 (“Measures”). Here, I pause to note that the basic idea will need making precise in rather different ways for sensibility and intelligence. This is inevitable, given that these powers are so very different in range: that is, whereas the proprietary objects of each of the five senses are apparently confined to a single “field” or “subject” or “kind” (ὑποκείμενον, γένος), the case is different for intelligence, whose primary objects are found in every kind of every category of being. That said, however, I want to draw attention to two points. First, it should hardly be controversial that forms are in some sense “measures” of the objects they are forms of. For an account of what they are is an account of “what being is” for those objects qua objects of those forms (e.g. qua straight or qua curved, or qua a statue or house, or qua angry or sad, or qua sentient or intelligent, and so on); seen this way, the form of an object is a kind of “standard of being” for that kind of object. Second, suppose that Aristotle did hold, of sensibility and intelligence, that each of them was, in its nature or essence, the “measure” of its respective objects. The result would be that to define those powers would be to identify those “measures,” and also (thereby) to show why it is their work to know those objects. To illustrate, suppose I admitted that one use of a straightedge is to “discriminate” (κρίνειν) linear shape, but then got to wondering, what is a straightedge anyway, such that its use should include that? Suppose I then hit upon the suggestion that the essence of a straightedge lies in the shape of its edge, and that this shape (viz. straight) is the “measure” of linear shapes (e.g. because it is the standard in reference to which they are defined, inasmuch as linear shapes are either curved or straight, and inasmuch as what it is to be curved is to depart from the straight). (The illustration is drawn from DA I 5, 411a5–7, a passage I am often guided by, although generally implicitly.) If the essence of a straightedge did lie in the shape of its edge, and if straight was the measure of linear shape, the suggestion would have a further point in its favor, which is that it would squarely address the original question: in Aristotle’s language, it would tell “by being what” it is in the nature of a straightedge to discriminate linear shape. Similarly, suppose I admitted that one use of sensibility was

20

Introduction

to discriminate perceptible forms, but then got to wondering, what is sensibility anyway, such that its use should include that? Suppose I then hit upon the suggestion that the essence of sensibility lies in the “shape” of the primary sense organ (namely, “a kind of ratio,” “as it were a kind of mean of the contrariety in perceptible qualities”), and that this “form” is the “measure” of perceptible qualities (e.g. because it is the standard in reference to which they are the particular sorts of quality they are, inasmuch as what it is for them to be dark or light, or cold or hot, or low or high, or bitter or sweet, is defined in reference to the form of the primary sense organ). If sensibility were the form of the primary sense organ, and if that form (“as it were a kind of mean”) was the “measure” of perceptible qualities, the suggestion would have the further advantage of squarely addressing the question of why it is a use of sensibility to discriminate, that is, perceive, the perceptible forms of bodies. And similarly, as regards the nature of intelligence and of its work and its objects (though the details would have to be rather different, for the reason alluded to above). But to return, how does Aristotle himself actually think about “measures,” and about their role in knowledge? Measures, for Aristotle, are “that with which primarily” (ᾧ πρώτως) we know: in the first instance, or most properly speaking, with which we know “how many” (πόσα) or “how much” (πόσον), but also, by extension, with which we know “of what sort” (ποῖον) (Met. I 1, 1053b4–8, picking up 1052b18–20, cp. 1052b33–35, 1053a18–21). Though the devil is in the details, the fundamental point is tolerably clear. It is that the measures for knowing objects of some genus are prior to – enter into the very idea of – certain particular forms of objects of that genus. The inch, for example, is a measure of length, and it enters into the very idea of certain particular lengths, for example, one inch, two inches, three inches, and so on. Similarly, if straight is the measure of linear shape, it enters into the very idea of certain particular shapes, for example, straight and curved. Again, if virtues are measures of character, they enter into the very idea of certain particular characters, for example, courage into the very idea of cowardice and recklessness. In this way and in this sense, measures are “forms of forms”: that is, what it is to be certain particular quantities or qualities of a genus is to stand in some relation to – for example, to be thus and so many of, or different from, or more like some contrary extreme than – the “measure” of that genus. This is the point I propose to make use of in trying to make sense of what Aristotle has to say about the nature of sensibility and of intelligence.

Introduction

21

At this point, it will remain to use these results to interpret what Aristotle says about sensibility and intelligence. This is the work of Part III (“Proposals”). I begin in Chapter 6 (“Sensibility”) with his account of sensibility as “a kind of ratio” or “mean” (DA II 12, 424a31, cp. 424b1, picking up II 11, 424a4–5). This doctrine, I argue, identifies sensibility as the “standard” in relation to which perceptible qualities are the particular sorts of quality they are. To illustrate, Aristotle holds that some colors are dark and others light, that some pitches are low and others high, that some temperatures are cold and others hot, and so on. (This is implied by his idea that particular qualities differ from their “kin” in the “ratios” in which they are “composed of” the same perceptible contraries.) Note that this implies that the spectra perceptible qualities lie on have “middles”: that is, each spectrum is “divided” into two “sides” – dark and light, low and high, cold and hot, and so on. Now, in Chapter 5, I will have suggested that what it is for a quality to lie on one side of a spectrum – for example, to be a dark color, or low pitch, or cold temperature, and so on – is a matter of its “position” vis-à-vis the “middle” of the associated spectrum. In Chapter 6, I argue that, read against this background, the claim that sensibility just is “as it were a kind of mean of the contrariety in perceptible qualities” is naturally interpreted as claiming that these “middles” are defined by sensibility itself, the form or essence of the primary sense organ. In this way, I suggest, the senses are “forms” or “standards” of perceptible qualities, in that particular qualities known by their means are the sorts of quality they are (e.g. dark or light colors, or low or high pitches, or cold or hot temperatures) thanks to their relationship to the form of the primary sense organ. Left to consider is Aristotle’s account of intelligence. I take it for granted that, just as Aristotle’s primary focus in discussing sensibility in De Anima II 5–12 is the perception of proper sensibles (colors, sounds, odors, etc.), the perception of which, he says, is free from error, or (as he also says) nearly so,24 so too his primary focus in discussing intelligence in De Anima III is “understanding” or “insight” (νόησις) into those objects regarding which “there is no falsehood” (DA III 6, 430a26–27). These objects are the topic of Chapter 7 (“Intelligibility”). I argue, first, that they are essences, and that (as such) they are indivisible, “unit,” and (therefore) kinds of “measure.” I then argue that they are a kind of operation or activity, in that they spell fulfillment, not only for the objects they belong to, but also for intelligence itself. In particular, I argue, these objects are 24

DA II 6, 418a15, III 3, 428b19, 21, 27–28, III 6, 430b29.

22

Introduction

achievements of intelligence, in the sense that they are only intelligible (in fulfillment) when and so far as they are objects of insight. The argument rests on three points: that there is nothing intelligible that is not without matter; that there is nothing without matter that is not being understood; and that there is nothing being understood that is not the same as the activity of understanding it. In making these points, I also try to bring out how each is relatively intuitive. The first point, I argue, is just the point that intelligibility involves a kind of clarity and distinctness attained only by “separating” – that is, distinguishing – a thing from other things with which (as found in the concrete) it is invariably “mixed.” Given this, I argue, the second point is simply the point that nothing is thus “separate” from other things except when and so far as it being understood. The third point, I argue, is just a consequence of the first two: for if what is being understood and the understanding of it were different, intelligible objects would not yet be intelligible, that is, “separate” from whatever they are not, even when being understood. Collecting these points, my conclusion is that the objects of intelligence are activities of intelligence, “insights” (νοήσεις), and that because intelligibility is a creature of intelligence, in that it only exists in fulfillment in operations of intelligence. In Chapter 8 (“Intelligence”), I turn finally to Aristotle’s account of intelligence: specifically, to how this account is supposed to reveal why it is the work of intelligence to understand essences. Following up the analogy with sensibility, I take for granted that intelligence is a kind of “measure,” “that with which primarily” (ᾧ πρώτως) we understand essences. Thus, what I am looking for in Aristotle’s account of its nature is an account of that measure. That account, I argue, must meet two conditions: it must be an account of something which characterizes intelligence precisely when it is “busy” understanding, and it must be something that is “common” (lit. ἕν τι εἴδει) to all essences. In Chapter 7, I will have argued that what intelligence and its objects have in common – the one when understanding, the other when being understood – is a kind of “separation”: that is, being “simple,” “isolated,” “unmixed,” or (what is the same) being “indivisible” and “unit.” Here I argue that, call it what you want – intelligibility, separation, simplicity, clarity, distinctness – it is this that makes intelligence (when understanding) the measure of intelligibility. That is, the reason that insight is the work of intelligence is that the clarity and distinctness which characterize its activity are (as it were) the very form of its objects: are what their intelligibility precisely consists in. Put another way, the “separating” whereby we make objects intelligible to us,

Introduction

23

rather than distorting those objects, makes them (for us) what (by nature) they are. Protagoras wrote that man is the measure of all things – that as things appear to each, so they are for each – and a leading theme of this book is that, for Aristotle, one problem we face in the theory of psuche¯ is steering clear of this doctrine. Perhaps, then, it is worth emphasizing how much of the doctrine Aristotle is willing to concede. He allows that the standards by which we measure reality are (so to speak) our very selves: some of them incorporated in our bodies, specifically our sense organs, the rest consisting in a state of mind, specifically the clarity and distinctness of the insights in which our minds find satisfaction or repose. He also allows that, for better or worse, these are the only measures we have; for him, too, there is no changing how we tell true from false, good from bad, beautiful from ugly, without changing our very selves.25 Indeed, he even allows that these measures measure truth, that they reveal to us “beings.” What he denies is just that we are all equally good measures, each and every one of us, just as you find us, young or old, healthy or sick, ignorant or wise, good or bad, and so on. Yes, man is the measure of all things – except not just any man, but Man himself, and particular men only, if and so far as they come up to the mark set by their nature. Such are those who “have lived among” (ἐνῳκήκασι) the facts they inquire into, and who “have been schooled in” (πεπαιδευμένοι) the canons specific to the disciplines which study those facts, to the point that those facts and those canons, having been “engrafted in” (συμφυῆναι) their very persons, are now “sovereign” (κύριος) in their intellectual economy, that is, function there as standards for telling relevant from irrelevant and true from false. It is such persons, in Aristotle’s view, who are “measures of all things,” according to the maxim, cuique in arte sua credendum. Such a view but reflects the idea, maintained by other Aristotelians, that it is “unmeaning in us to criticize or find fault with our own nature, which is nothing else than we ourselves,” that “our being, with its faculties, mind and body, is a fact not admitting of question,” that “all things [are] of necessity referred to it, not it to other things.”26 It is this idea, I submit, that constitutes the philosophical center of Aristotle’s theories of psuche¯, sensibility, and intelligence.

Cp. EE VII 2, 1237b28–29: “those who are bad and ill-natured are mistrustful of everyone; for they measure others by themselves (αὑτῷ γὰρ μετρεῖ τοὺς ἄλλους).” 26 Quotations from Newman 1889, 346. 25

part i QUESTIONS

1 Objectives

Does Aristotle mean to explain, in the De Anima, why it is in human nature to know beings? Early on he declares that his objective is to define psuche¯; later he criticizes previous efforts for failing to show “by being what” (διὰ τὸ τί εἶναι) it belongs to psuche¯ to know beings. If he means then to succeed where others before him have failed, he means his own account to reveal why it is of psuche¯ (at least of some psuche¯) to know beings (all beings). Such anyway are the question, argument, and thesis of this chapter, stripped down to their essentials. A little more fully, my contention will be that Aristotle means to show, in the De Anima, why it is an operation of sensibility and intelligence to perceive and to understand perceptible and intelligible beings.

1.1 to define and explain The topic of the inquiry introduced in the De Anima is psuche¯ and the object of that inquiry is twofold: We are seeking to contemplate and to discover (γνωρίζειν) its nature and substance, then all its attributes, some of which are held to be proprietary affections of psuche¯, others to belong because of it to animals too. (DA I 1, 402a7–10)

Aristotle’s object, or so it would seem, is nothing short of a science of psuche¯. For he is seeking, he says, to discover and contemplate, first its “nature and substance,” then “all its attributes,” i.e. why those attributes

27

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Questions

belong to that subject.1 And this is the work of Aristotelian science, to define and explain. If knowledge is an attribute of psuche¯, then one object of the inquiry introduced in this passage is to explain why it is an attribute of psuche¯. Indeed, if the cause of an attribute belonging to a subject ultimately lies in the nature of that subject, we may expect the cause of knowledge being an attribute of psuche¯ ultimately to lie in the nature of psuche¯.2 I admit it is unclear how much of this inquiry Aristotle means to take up in the De Anima itself. Certainly, he means there to define psuche¯; still, perhaps the task of explaining the attributes of psuche¯ is work for another day – for another part of the inquiry introduced at the outset, only part of which is taken up in the De Anima itself. I will not try to settle this question here, because my argument turns on a different point, which is that Aristotle expects a definition of psuche¯ to reveal the cause of its attributes. So far, I have relied on a very general idea: namely, that the cause of an attribute belonging to a subject ultimately lies in the nature of that subject. The application of this general idea to the De Anima finds further support in another passage, in which Aristotle scoffs that “definitions that do not result in knowing the attributes, nor even facilitate conjecture about them – it is clear that they are all of them dialectical and empty” (DA I 1, 402b26–403a2). This remark shows that, for Aristotle, definitions of subjects must at least bear on knowing their attributes. But the point I am after is confirmed, to my mind decisively, by the following passage, in which Aristotle begins to conclude his discussion of his predecessors: It is clear then from what has been said that knowledge does not belong to psuche¯ because of its being of the elements, nor is it well i.e. truly said that it is in motion. (DA I 5, 411a24–26)

For the association of “contemplation” with understanding why an attribute belongs to a subject, see APo. I 10, 76b3–4 (“scientific understanding contemplates per se attributes,” ἡ ἐπιστήμη θεωρεῖ τὰ ὑπάρχοντα καθ’ αὑτά), b11–15 (demonstrative science is “contemplative of per se attributes,” τῶν καθ’ αὑτὰ παθημάτων θεωρητική), I 14, 79a23–24 (“contemplating why is the decisive characteristic of scientific understanding,” κυριώτατον γὰρ τοῦ εἰδέναι τὸ διότι θεωρεῖν), II 13, 96b19–21 (one should, after grasping what the genus is, “contemplate the proprietary attributes,” τὰ ἴδια πάθη θεωρεῖν). On the De Anima’s explanatory ambitions see recently Corcilius 2017, IX–XI. 2 For this view of the relationship between attributes and subjects I have been helped by, and follow, Bronstein 2016, especially pp. 47–50. For the idea that knowledge is an attribute of psuche¯, something that “belongs to it by nature,” see DA I 2, 403b24–27. For the sense in which knowledge “belongs” to psuche¯, see below, Chapter 1, Section 4. (Note that the term “belongs” in Aristotle’s syllogistic is by design extremely flexible; on this point see esp. Mendell 1998, 170–176.) 1

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Here we have (in summary form) two criticisms, one to each of two overlapping families of views about the nature of psuche¯: namely, that psuche¯ is “something in motion” (lit. τῶν κινουμένων τι), and that it is (or is “an amalgam of” [ἐκ]) the elements or principles of everything there is (DA I 2, 403b30–31, 405b13–17). These criticisms are in a way complementary. Taking the second one first, the idea is that even waiving (so to speak) the question of whether, if psuche¯ were something in motion, that would explain why it is of psuche¯ to impart motion to living things, it is simply not true that psuche¯ is in motion. As the point is put earlier, it is impossible that motion should be even an attribute of psuche¯, let alone any part of what it is in its essence (DA I 3, 405b31–406a2). The first criticism, by contrast, is just the reverse. The idea is that even waiving (so to speak) the question of whether psuche¯ is an amalgam of elements, it is hardly because psuche¯ is an amalgam of elements that psuche¯ is what knowledge belongs to (lit. οὔτε τὸ γινώσκειν ὑπάρχει τῇ ψυχῇ διὰ τὸ ἐκ τῶν στοιχείων εἶναι). Note that in making this criticism Aristotle implies that a definition of psuche¯ must tell “why” psuche¯ is what knowledge belongs to. Indeed, I am inclined to put it more strongly: in making this criticism, he is virtually daring us to ask him in turn, “then by being what (διὰ τὸ τί εἶναι) is psuche¯ what knowledge belongs to?” In any case, he is hardly in a position to brush the question aside, on the grounds that it is unreasonable to demand an answer to it from a definition of psuche¯. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If the question is put fairly to other accounts of the nature of psuche¯, it is also put fairly to Aristotle’s own account of that nature. Subject to certain qualifications, then, which I come to in a moment, I provisionally conclude that Aristotle is seeking, in the De Anima, not just to define psuche¯, but to do so in a way that will reveal why psuche¯ is what knowledge belongs to. The argument rests in part on how Aristotle introduces his inquiry, in part on a criticism he makes of his predecessors.

1.2 to know beings (all beings) So far, I have taken it as read that, for Aristotle, knowledge is an attribute of psuche¯. But though this is true in the main, it requires clarification and also some qualification. That is the work of the rest of this chapter. I begin in this section with Aristotle’s initial formulations, in De Anima I, of the “fact” that knowledge is an attribute of psuche¯. I argue that, taken together, these formulations imply that the attribute in question is knowledge of “the world” – in Aristotle’s language, of “beings” (all beings). I then turn to various complications. Though some of these are anticipated in De Anima I, they are seldom insisted on there; I insist on them here because I want to make

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clear what it is (I am claiming) Aristotle means to accomplish as regards explaining knowledge, and that in terms that are at once plausible and tolerably precise. Third, I turn to clarify the sense in which Aristotle thinks of knowing, or for that matter any “vital activity” (ζωή, τὸ ζῆν), as an attribute of psuche¯. Though my own view is that, in the final analysis, what he has in mind is relatively straightforward, still, it is not immediately obvious what exactly he means when he says that psuche¯ is (e.g.) what knowledge belongs to, or what nourishes living things, or “that with which primarily” (ᾧ πρώτως) animals perceive. My contention will be that, for Aristotle, the sense in which knowing “belongs” to psuche¯ is the sense in which any “activity” (ἐνέργεια) belongs to the “power” (δύναμις) of which it is a natural “operation” or “use” (ἐνέργεια, χρῆσις). I conclude briefly by putting these points together to state my conclusions more precisely. Aristotle describes many of his predecessors as having arrived at their own views about the nature of psuche¯ from reflection on “knowledge and the perception of beings” (τὸ γινώσκειν καὶ τὸ αἰσθάνεσθαι τῶν ὄντων) (DA I 2, 404b8–9). In the course of describing and criticizing their views, he also characterizes this attribute as “knowing everything” (πάντα γινώσκειν), as “perceiving beings and gaining knowledge of each” (αἰσθάνεσθαί τε τῶν ὄντων καὶ ἕκαστον γνωρίζειν), and as a kind of “discriminating” (κρίνειν) (I 2, 405b15–16, I 5, 409b24–25, DA I 5, 411a4). Taken together, these characterizations bring out the quality and scope of the attribute Aristotle has in mind: it is “factual,” i.e. knowledge of beings, and “universal,” i.e. knowledge of each and of all beings. Put in other terms, the attribute Aristotle has in mind is knowledge of reality or the world – not just one department of reality or portion of the world, but all of it, each and every thing there is. It is plain enough that, for Aristotle too, knowledge so described, of this quality and scope, is an attribute of psuche¯. It is true that the passages I have relied on are drawn from discussions of views he largely disapproves of. But no one will contest that, for Aristotle too, knowledge (some or all of it) is knowledge of beings. And it is Aristotle who complains that views he is discussing are incapable of explaining knowledge of “all” beings: for example knowledge, not just of “elements,” but also of the beings they are elements of, or not just of substances, but also of quantity and quality and so on (DA I 5, 409b24–29, 410a13–21). Indeed, much later in the De Anima, in summarizing his own views, Aristotle says that psuche¯ is not the elements of everything there is, but (in a way) simply everything there is (lit. ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ ὄντα πώς ἐστι πάντα), defending this on the grounds that “beings are either perceptible or intelligible, and scientific understanding (ἐπιστήμη) is, in a way, the understandable ones (τὰ

Objectives

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ἐπιστητά), and sensibility the perceptible ones” (DA III 8, 431b21–23). For Aristotle too, then, pre-eminent among the attributes of psuche¯ is knowledge of all beings (DA I 2, 403b25).

1.3 kinds of psuche¯ , kinds of knowledge I have been arguing that the knowledge Aristotle thinks is an attribute of psuche¯ is both factual and universal. This statement needs qualification. First, it is in principle a question, in Aristotle’s view, whether all psuche¯ is “uniform” (ὁμοειδής): that is, whether psuche¯ is one and the same in every living creature, or rather comes in varieties, as do living things themselves (DA I 1, 402b1–2, cp. Plato, Phdr. 270 c–d, 271a). It is also a question, if psuche¯ does come in varieties, whether those varieties differ merely “in form” (εἴδει) or even “in kind” (γένει) (DA I 1, 402b2–3). But though these questions are raised in De Anima I 1, they are not settled “officially” until much later on. Thus we learn, for example, that in Aristotle’s considered view, psuche¯ does come in varieties, at least many of which differ merely “in form”: that is, though there is a single account of what they all are in common, still, each of them has, or is, its “own indivisible form,” so that there are also several accounts, one to each of these forms, of what in particular it is (DA II 3, 414b20–28, cp. I 1, 402b5–9). Or again, though it is not easy to say where the question is settled definitively, still there are indications that at least one of these varieties is in fact sui generis: that is, not subsumable under the account of what the rest are in common, being different from those others even “in kind” (γένει) (DA II 2, 413b24–27). But whatever we say about these details, some of which are controversial, the upshot is that we can no longer say, without further ado, that for Aristotle it belongs naturally to psuche¯ to know beings. For there is at least one kind of psuche¯, the kind characteristic of plants, which knowledge does not belong to, whether “naturally” or otherwise. For Aristotle, then, knowledge is not an attribute of all psuche¯, but only of such psuche¯ as is sentient or intelligent or both (cp. DA I 5, 410b16–18, 21–24). Second, in Aristotle’s view, it is likewise a question, at least given the history of the subject, whether knowledge is all uniform: that is, whether it is all of a piece, or rather it too comes in varieties, for example, perceptual and intellectual. This question too, though anticipated in De Anima I, is arguably not settled until De Anima III;3 at least the question comes in for 3

The passage from DA I 2 concerns Democritus and Anaxagoras on whether intelligence (νοῦς) and psuche¯ are the same. (In a context in which plants are simply not in the picture,

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extended discussion there, though Aristotle’s answer to it is not difficult to guess (DA I 2, 404a25–b6, III 3, 427a19–b24). But the fact that perceptual and intellectual knowledge are different kinds of knowledge has an important bearing on whether it belongs, even to such psuche¯ as knowledge does belong to, to know all beings. For though these two forms of knowledge appear together to exhaust the field, inasmuch as beings are either perceptible or intelligible (DA III 8, 431b22), still, not all beings are both perceptible and intelligible. For whether we say that perception is of “facts” (τὸ ὅτι) while understanding is of “causes” (τὸ διότι), or that perception is of particulars while understanding is of universals, or that perception is of what is material and mutable, while understanding is of what is immaterial and immutable, in any case it looks as though the result will be that not every being – perhaps not any being – is both perceptible and intelligible. But in that case, it will not belong to all psuche¯ that is “capable of knowledge” (γνωριστικός) to know all beings; rather, knowledge of all beings will only belong to such psuche¯ as is both sentient and intelligent (i.e. human psuche¯). These considerations make it unlikely that Aristotle requires, of a definition common to all psuche¯, that it reveal why psuche¯ is what knowledge belongs to. For such a definition will also apply to psuchai that knowledge does not belong to. The upshot is, not that Aristotle must give up on succeeding where his predecessors failed, but rather that the task he has set himself must be described more precisely. For there is one kind of psuche¯ – the kind that is both sentient and intelligent – to which it does belong to know all beings. The cause of this must ultimately lie in the nature of that kind of psuche¯. Earlier I argued (provisionally) that Aristotle is seeking, in the De Anima, to define psuche¯ in a way that will reveal why it is of psuche¯ to know beings. I now want to qualify this conclusion. Among the things Aristotle is seeking to do is to define human psuche¯ (DA II 3, 414b32–33). Success in that endeavor, as he himself measures it, will require him to reveal why it belongs to that kind of psuche¯ to know beings, i.e. to perceive and to understand perceptible and intelligible beings.

this is the question of whether intelligence belongs to all animals, which Aristotle hears as asking, in the language of III 3, whether understanding (τὸ νοεῖν) and judging (τὸ φρονεῖν) are a kind of perceiving (lit. ὥσπερ αἰσθάνεσθαί τι). Cp. Plato, Tht. 151e, where the question arises of whether “knowledge is no other than perception” [οὐκ ἄλλο τί ἐστιν ἐπιστήμη ἢ αἴσθησις].)

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1.4 subject and attribute (psuche¯ and knowledge) It remains to consider the sense in which knowing, or for that matter any vital activity, “belongs” to psuche¯. Taken just on its face, this appears to imply that psuche¯ is the subject of (say) knowledge, or of the imparting of movement, which appears in turn to imply that psuche¯ is what (literally) undergoes or performs these activities. Most commentators (myself included) find it difficult to believe that this is Aristotle’s view: namely, that though much (perhaps all) vital activity is also attributable to “living things” (τὰ ἔμψυχα), being a joint undertaking of living things themselves and of the psuche¯ that is in them, still, even such vital activity as is also attributable to living things is in the first instance performed, or undergone, or executed, by psuche¯ itself. Such a view invites us to conceive of psuche¯ as being, if not literally a body or movement, still, some body-like or movement-like power or energy, one which, taking hold of other bodies, and thereby making them living things, then utilizes those bodies in performing its own work. But this is a conception Aristotle mocks, describing it as at once “the stuff of comedy” and also “scientistic” (DA I 3, 406b15–22, 26–27). Moreover, this conception is excluded by Aristotle’s definition of psuche¯, according to which psuche¯ is neither a body, being rather the form and fulfillment of certain kinds of body, nor an activity or movement, being the sort of fulfillment that is like a state (lit. ὡς ἐπιστήμη), as opposed to a movement or activity (lit. ὡς θεωρεῖν) (DA II 1, 412a16–28, II 2, 414a13–19). It is true that Aristotle often predicates vital activities of psuche¯, or of its powers, not just when reporting the views of his predecessors, but in propria persona. He says, for example, that psuche¯ “moves the animal,” that it “knows” and “judges” and “reasons” and “supposes,” that it is “what nourishes,” or again that the several senses “perceive incidentally one another’s proprietary objects,” and that intelligence “understands everything” (DA I 3, 406b24–25, III 4, 429a10–11, 23, II 4, 416b21–22, III 1, 425a30–31, III 4, 429a18). Nonetheless, in one place he also explicitly corrects this, remarking that “it is probably better not to say that psuche¯ pities or learns or reasons, but that the human being [does] with psuche¯ (τῇ ψυχῇ)” (DA I 4, 408b13–15).4 Indeed, he elsewhere speaks in similar terms about “art” (τέχνη), in some places saying that it “does” or “makes” (ποιεῖ) things, in others that human beings do so “with” art (GC II 9, 335b32–33, SE 172a34–36, 173b22–23). Surely Aristotle does not 4

On this passage see now Carter 2018.

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think art is a body-like or movement-like power or energy, which first “occupies” and then “uses” human beings to perform its own work. These considerations make it tempting to suggest that when Aristotle speaks of vital activities as belonging to psuche¯, this is by a kind of metonymy, and that what these activities really belong to is living things.5 But there is reason to resist this suggestion. In the first place, it is hard to square with the idea that perhaps some vital activity is proprietary to psuche¯, i.e. does not also belong, because of psuche¯, to animals too (DA I 1, 402a9–10). Though to this one might reply that hard cases make bad law, there is a related and broader and more important point. To say that an attribute belongs to living things “because of” psuche¯ (διά + acc.), or “because [psuche¯] is such-and-such” (διὰ τὸ τοιοῦτον εἶναι), is to say of that attribute that its “connection” to psuche¯ is somehow prior to and explanatory of its connection to living things.6 Indeed, just this is also implied by Aristotle’s own definition of psuche¯ as the substance, form, and fulfillment of natural organic bodies (DA II 1, 412b4–6). For one upshot of that definition is that psuche¯ is the “essence” of living things (DA II 1, 412b10–11), which implies that it is the “cause” of their attributes, i.e. the reason “why” those attributes belong to them.7 But in that case it can hardly be a figure of speech when Aristotle speaks of (say) knowledge or the imparting of motion as “belonging to” psuche¯ itself. For his own account of the “nature” of psuche¯ as the essence (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι) and substance (οὐσία) of living things implies that the connection of these

5

Cp. Carter 2018, 52 and n.53. Cp. Carter 2018, 53: psuche¯ “plays the primary causal role in constituting the composite’s psychological affections.” My own idea is to focus, not on the constitution of psychological affections, but on the “middle term” and “cause” of the fact that undergoing those affections “belongs to” living things. (See further below.) 7 Though I have said that psuche¯ is the essence of living things, what Aristotle says it is the essence of is natural organic bodies (lit. τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι τῷ τοιῳδὶ σώματι, 412b11, picking up 412b5–6, ἐντελέχεια ἡ πρώτη σώματος φυσικοῦ ὀργανικοῦ). But these bodies are living things, not the bodies of living things, as is clear from the illustration which immediately follows (DA II 1, 412b11–17). There Aristotle says that if axes were natural bodies, psuche¯ would be the essence, not of the “body” of axes, but of axes, and that because their “essence” (τὸ πελέκει εἶναι) would be their ousia, which is what psuche¯ is; that is, psuche¯ is the ousia of such bodies as axes would be, were axes (not only tools but also) natural bodies. (The same point may be argued from the subsequent illustration [“for if the eye were an animal,” etc., DA II 1, 412b17–22], and also from 412b25–26 [“but it is not what has shed its psuche¯ that is potentially so as to live,” τὸ δυνάμει ὄν ὥστε ζῆν] – a passage which controls the interpretation of the expressions “having zo¯e¯,” “partaking of zo¯e¯,” and “having ze¯n potentially,” used earlier at 412a13, 15, 17, 20, 28.) On the larger issues broached here see e.g. Frey 2007 and 2015. 6

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attributes to psuche¯ is prior to and explanatory of their connection to living things. In view of these considerations, I would like to propose that the sense in which these (and indeed all) vital activities “belong” to psuche¯ is simply the sense in which any activity belongs to the “power” (δύναμις) of which it is an “operation” (ἐνέργεια) or “employment” (χρῆσις).8 It is true that Aristotle does not define psuche¯ as a “power” (δύναμις),9 but rather as a kind of “fulfillment” (ἐντελέχεια), specifically the “first” fulfillment of certain kinds of body (DA II 1, 412a9–11, 22–28). But this, though important, is not a difficulty; in Aristotle’s view, power and fulfillment are both said in many ways, and if psuche¯ is the “first” fulfillment of certain kinds of body, it is likewise a power for something those bodies “have” (ἔχει), albeit “potentially” (δυνάμει), viz. “vital activity” (ζωή) (DA II 5, 417a21–29, DA II 1, 412a27–28). My proposal, then, is that for Aristotle, vital activity “belongs” to psuche¯, not in the sense of being performed “by” (ὑπό) psuche¯, but in the sense of being an operation “of” psuche¯ – that is, an operation that psuche¯ is a power of performing. Just as seeing is an operation of the sense of sight, and healing is an operation of the art of medicine, and deliberation and decision are operations of practical wisdom, and contemplation, teaching, and proof are operations of “scientific understanding” (ἐπιστήμη), so too, I submit, “vital activity” (ζωή) is an employment or operation of psuche¯.10 The former doctrines hardly invite us to conceive of the sense of sight, or the art of medicine, or practical wisdom, or scientific understanding, as though they were bodylike or movement-like powers or energies. Neither does the latter invite us to conceive of psuche¯ in that way. Moreover, although (e.g.) healing the sick belongs, not only to the art of medicine, but also to physicians, the reason why it belongs to physicians – the reason why it is their work – is that it belongs to, is a natural employment of, their art, the art of medicine. See e.g. EE II 1, 1219b2–3, “each of them, zo¯e¯ and action, is use and activity (ἐνέργεια)”; EN I 7, 1098a13, “we say the function [of human beings] is a certain zo¯e¯, and this is an activity of psuche¯”; EN X 4, 1175a12, “zo¯e¯ is a sort of activity”; Met. Θ 8, 1050a34–b1, “where there is no other work in addition to the activity, the activity is present in them (e.g. seeing in what is seeing, contemplating in what is contemplating, and zo¯e¯ in psuche¯, which is why happiness [is present in psuche¯]; for it is a sort of zo¯e¯).” 9 When he says that psuche¯ is “defined by” certain powers, he does not mean that it is those powers, but that (as he also says) it is their “principle” (ἀρχή) (DA II 2, 413b11–13). 10 Cp. APo. I 10, 76b3–4, “scientific understanding contemplates per se attributes” (ἡ ἐπιστήμη θεωρεῖ τὰ ὑπάρχοντα καθ’ αὑτά), i.e. this is its natural operation or employment. (The comparison of psuche¯ to art is also developed, along different lines, in Menn 2002, 95 ff..) 8

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That is, healing is not an employment of the art of medicine because it is a work of physicians (and whatever is their work is therefore, for that reason, an employment of it). Rather it is the other way around: healing is a work of physicians because it is an employment of their art, the art of medicine. Similarly, although much (perhaps all) vital activity belongs also to living things, the reason it belongs to them is that it is an operation of psuche¯. That is, vital activity is not an operation of psuche¯ because it is the work of living things (and whatever is the work of living things is therefore, for that reason, an operation of psuche¯). Rather it is the other way around: vital activity is the work of living things because it is the operation of psuche¯ (and the operations of psuche¯ are the work of living things). On the current proposal, then, it comes out that, just as healing’s connection to the art of medicine is prior to and explanatory of its connection to physicians, so too the connection of vital activity (ζωή) to psuche¯ is prior to and explanatory of its connection to living things.11 To this it might be objected that the language of “employment” implies a subordination of psuche¯ to living things, as though psuche¯ were something living things “use,” a “tool” (ὄργανον) they employ in vital activity, whereas in fact, in Aristotle’s view, it is the other way around. After all, it is living things themselves, i.e. natural bodies of a kind that “have” or “have a share in” (ἔχει, μετέχει) vital activity, which bodies Aristotle characterizes as “tools” or “tool-like” (ὀργανικός) (DA II 1, 412a28–b5, cp. II 4, 415b18–20).12 This objection need not much concern us, for two reasons. First, the main point I have relied on is that psuche¯ stands to vital activity (ζωή) as powers stand to their “operations” or “activities” (ἐνέργειαι); this point remains, even if it should turn out that, in Aristotle’s considered view, vital activity (ζωή), though indeed an “operation” of psuche¯, is not properly speaking its “employment” or “use” 11

The force of the point may be illustrated from current debates about the nature of science. One position in this debate, a deflationary position, is that “science is what scientists do” (Pigliucci 2017, 197, chez Dupré 2018). This position rejects, as misconceived, the very attempt to discover the “nature” of science, such as would explain why scientists do what they do (e.g. write grants, run labs, teach students, hire postdocs, apply for patents, collaborate with government and industry, join professional associations, present their findings at conferences, publish them in journals, etc. etc.). On such a view, the so-called “nature” of science is rather like the titular deities of Aristophanes’ Clouds, in being always on the move, always changing shape, ever varying with the fluctuating practices as here and there and now and then are accorded the honorific “scientific.” One might take an analogous view about the relation of healing the sick to physicians, or of zo¯e¯ to living things; such a view would repudiate the idea that zo¯e¯ belongs in the first place to psuche¯, and only then and because of that to such creatures as have psuche¯. 12 See Menn 2002, 108 ff.

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(χρῆσις). But there is another point, which is that it is Aristotle himself who speaks of psuche¯ as an “instrument” of living things, as “that with which” they do what they do. He speaks this way, not only in the well-known passage from De Anima I 4 (408b13–15, cited above), but also elsewhere: notably, in De Anima II 2, where he not only says psuche¯ is “that with which primarily” we live and perceive, but uses the point to argue that psuche¯ is form and fulfillment (DA II 2, 414a4–6, 12–14). And he speaks in a similar vein about the parts or powers or kinds of psuche¯: he says, for example, that motion is perceived “with the sense of touch” (ἁφῇ) and “the sense of sight” (ὄψει), and that it is either “with the sense of sight” (ὄψει) or “with some other sense” (ἑτέρᾳ) that we perceive we are seeing, and that intelligence is “that with which” (ᾧ) psuche¯ reasons and takes as true (DA II 6, 418a19–20, III 2, 425b12–13, III 4, 429a23). When I say, then, that Aristotle thinks of vital activity (ζωή) as the “employment” or “use” of psuche¯, I may be understood as simply tracking this use of the instrumental dative. Finally, it might be objected that though the foregoing remarks apply well enough to vital activities that also belong to living things, they do not apply to the ones that are proprietary to psuche¯ (if such there be). The last word on this topic must ultimately await discussion of how Aristotle thinks about such activities and about the kind of psuche¯ to which they belong. But if I may anticipate, presumably the sort of activity Aristotle has in mind is a kind of “understanding” or “insight” (νόησις), and the kind of psuche¯ he thinks it belongs to is a kind of “intelligence” (νοῦς) – in particular, though this is controversial, the kind which he describes as “being, in its substance, activity” (DA III 5, 430a17–18). Thus, although Aristotle does speak of this activity as “belonging” to a kind of intelligence, still, he does not conceive of it as distinct from the intelligence it belongs to, but rather as itself being what that intelligence is, viz. itself a kind of “vital activity” (ζωή) (cp. Met. Λ 7, 1072b26–30, and also, for its relationship to human intellectual activity, EN X 7, 1177b26–28, 1178a5–7). This kind of “psuche¯” then, which is marked early on as seemingly sui generis (DA II 2, 413b24–27), will not, I take it, be the “primary” fulfillment of anything, but will instead simply be the operation or activity that in its own substance it is.

1.5 conclusions In this chapter I have tried to make the following points. First, Aristotle is seeking, in the De Anima, not just to define psuche¯, but to do so in such

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a way as will reveal “why” – “by being what” – it belongs by nature to psuche¯ to know. Second, knowledge in this context has a certain quality and scope: specifically, it is factual, being knowledge of beings, and universal, being knowledge of all beings. Third, knowledge is not (in Aristotle’s view) an attribute of all psuche¯, and fourth, it is only taken together that its two principal kinds, perceptual and intellectual, are universal in scope. Finally, knowing is an “attribute” of psuche¯ in the sense in which any activity “belongs” to the power of which it is a natural operation or use. The last three points combine to show that it is a mistake to require a definition common to all psuche¯ to reveal why it belongs to psuche¯ to know beings (all beings). For such a definition will also apply to psuchai which knowledge of all beings does not belong to. The consequence is that if Aristotle is to succeed where he thinks his predecessors have failed, he must say what it is about sentient and intelligent psuche¯ – that is to say, about human psuche¯ – that makes it an operation of it to perceive and to understand perceptible and intelligible beings. Though this perhaps goes without saying, it will not do just to say that knowledge of beings belongs naturally to human psuche¯ because that kind of psuche¯ is sentient and intelligent – any more than it would do just to say that the imparting of movement belongs naturally to some kinds of psuche¯ because those kinds of psuche¯ are “kinetic.” This would not do, not because it is false, but because what is wanted (surely) is an account of what makes those kinds of psuche¯ kinetic – if not that they are in motion (κινεῖται), then what? Similarly, I submit, what is wanted here is an account of what makes human psuche¯ sentient and intelligent: that is, some account of sensibility and intelligence themselves, of what each of them is, such as will reveal why it is of the one to perceive and the other to understand beings. In the terms with which I began, what is wanted is an account of what about “Mind” (i.e. sensibility and intelligence) makes it such as to “know” (i.e. perceive and understand) “the World” (i.e. beings – all beings).

2 Problems

In the last chapter I argued that among the things Aristotle means to do in the De Anima is to identify what it is about sensibility and intelligence that makes them such as to perceive and to understand beings. In this chapter I strengthen the case for one aspect of this point: namely, that the knowledge that especially wants explaining is knowledge of beings, as they are “in themselves” or “in their own right.” My argument, in a nutshell, is that prominent among Aristotle’s objections to the theories of his predecessors is that they fail to explain this. Most of them, in his view, effectively deny that it is in our nature to know beings; the rest of them render this fact unintelligible (unintelligible in principle).

2.1 two key issues: similarity and alteration Aristotle holds that often we cannot make progress in an area without being clear of certain difficulties, and that it is essential in this regard that we first identify those difficulties and develop them thoroughly (Met. B 1, 995a34–b1).1 The theory of psuche¯ is a case in point; it too presents difficulties “we must be clear of to make progress” (DA I 2, 403b21). This is the task set at the beginning of De Anima I 2 – to “develop the difficulties” – while “at the same time calling in for advice the opinions of any predecessor who declared something about it, that we may take what has been put well, and be on guard against anything that may have been put poorly” (DA I 2, 403b20–24).

1

On this topic see recently Crubellier and Laks 2009, Laks 2009, Rossi 2017.

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As I understand Aristotle’s view of these matters, just as “developing difficulties” (διαπορῆσαι) is at least conceptually distinct from resolving them, so too “being in the clear,” “well-provided” (εὐπορῆσαι) with ways of moving forward, is at least conceptually distinct from the “forward progress” (προελθεῖν εἰς τὸ πρόσθεν) this abundance permits. A case in point is his discussion of perception, which begins in De Anima II 5. It would be a mistake, I think, to read this chapter as presenting Aristotle’s “theory” of perceiving, i.e. his account of its “cause,” namely, “sensibility” (αἴσθησις). For he does not present his account of that until De Anima II 12, where he says that sensibility is “a kind of ratio” (λόγος τις) (DA II 12, 424a24–27). Indeed, he states this result only after discussing each of the five senses “in outline” (DA II 7– 11), which he does only after discussing the several “objects” of perception (proper, common, incidental) (DA II 6), which he does only after doing whatever it is he does in De Anima II 5. The point is not that the discussion in De Anima II 5 is not specific enough to be a discussion of causes, the idea being to speak “in common about all perception” (DA II 5, 416b32–33); the discussion in De Anima II 12 is likewise perfectly general, the idea being to speak “generally about every sense” (DA II 12, 424a17). The point is rather that De Anima II 5 precedes the similarly general discussion of the objects of perception in De Anima II 6, in violation of the order of procedure laid down in the previous chapter (DA II 4, 415a16–22). This makes it natural to read De Anima II 5 as a kind of preliminary to the investigation proper. It will be convenient to linger a bit longer over De Anima II 5. In this chapter, Aristotle concentrates on two issues in particular. The first is whether “perceiver” (τὸ αἰ σθητικόν) and “perceptible” or “perceived” (τὸ αἰ σθητόν) are like or unlike. The second is whether perceiving is a matter of “being affected” or “altered” or “moved.” These are the issues with which the chapter begins, and they are the issues with which it concludes (DA II 5, 416b32–417a2, 417b28–418a6). I want to emphasize that, however strange it may seem to us, these are indeed very important issues for Aristotle. Not only is this the impression created by De Anima II 5, but it is strengthened by his discussion of previous theories in De Anima I. I quote three passages in illustration: Those who define [psuche¯] by knowing make it either the element or an amalgam of (ἐκ) the elements; they all speak about the same as one another (except one); for they say like is known by like. Since psuche¯ knows all things, they have constructed it from all the principles. (DA I 2, 405b13–17)

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Left is to consider what is meant by saying [psuche¯] is an amalgam of the elements. For though they say that it is in order that it might perceive the things that are and know each, the consequences of this saying are necessarily many and impossible. For they lay it down that to know is like by like, as though laying it down that psuche¯ is the things; but these are not the only things there are – many different things are composed of these, or rather perhaps infinitely many. (DA I 5, 409b23– 29) But it is also absurd to say that like is unaffected by like, when they have laid it down that like is perceived by like and like is known by like, and that perceiving is a kind of being affected and moved, and likewise too both understanding and knowing (τὸ νοεῖν τε καὶ γινώσκειν). (DA I 5, 410a23–26)

The theories discussed in these passages are represented as founded on the idea that knowing, perceiving, understanding are “like by like,” and as positing that they are “being affected and moved” – the very issues with which Aristotle begins and ends his own discussion of perception in particular in De Anima II 5. I conclude that these issues are high on his list. This conclusion creates something of a problem, inasmuch as these issues do not even rate a place on most of our lists, and that by a comfortable margin. The first issue especially is formulated in terms so primitive that it is difficult to see how any even mildly sophisticated person could think it worth discussing at all. “After all,” as Protagoras is made to say in the Protagoras, “everything whatever is like everything whatever, in a way” (Plato, Prot. 331d). For us too, the archaic polarity of like and unlike seems too crude to be of use in just about any theory of just about anything. Much the same goes for the issue of whether perceiving is being altered or affected – not least because, in Aristotle’s thought-world, these notions are so closely allied with the polarity of like and unlike. A first task, then, is to try to appreciate what is at stake in these issues. This is the task that will occupy me in the rest of this chapter. My contention will be that what is at stake in these issues is a problem about whether knowledge is of bona fide beings: in particular, a problem associated with Protagoras and encapsulated in the dictum that “all appearances are true.” Note that so far, I have formulated the issues as having to do specifically with perception; this is in keeping with Aristotle’s treatment of them in De Anima II 5, from which I have found it convenient to begin. But the issues I in fact want to focus on are broader, taking in both intellectual and perceptual knowledge, as is in keeping with Aristotle’s own focus, both in the passages quoted above and in the passages I will be considering shortly. This apparent carelessness in specifying my topic is

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partly explained by the fact that, as we will see in a moment, Aristotle interprets his predecessors as by and large identifying intellectual and perceptual knowledge (in particular, as regarding what I will call “judging” [φρονεῖν] and “understanding” [νοεῖν] as a kind of perceiving); this makes it convenient for him, and so likewise for me, to lump things together which he himself sharply distinguishes. Another consideration is that, as we will see in the next chapter, the distinctions necessary to dispose of these broader difficulties are also necessary for thinking straight even about perception.

2.2 the shadow of protagoras (de anima iii 3) In thinking about what is at stake in the two issues I have identified, I want to begin with a passage from De Anima III 3; though the passage is difficult, it offers a clear and important lead. (I divide it into sections, somewhat artificially, for ease of reference.) [1] Since psuche¯ is marked off by two differences especially – movement in respect of place and understanding (νοεῖν) and judging (φρονεῖν) and perceiving – both understanding and judging are held to be like a kind of perceiving (for in both of these psuche¯ somehow discriminates and gets to know beings).2 [2] And the ancients, at any rate, say that judging and perceiving are the same – just as even Empedocles has said, “for in human beings cunning increases in relation to the present,” and elsewhere, “whence they are caused always to judge differently too,” and even Homer’s “for such is the mind” is after the same thing, for they all take understanding to be bodily, just like perceiving, and perceiving and judging to be like by like, just as we determined even in the discussion at the beginning ([3] though they ought also at the same time to have discussed deception, for animals are very at home there (lit. οἰκειότερον γὰρ τοῖς ζῴοις) and psuche¯ spends the better part of its time in this; that is why it is necessary, either, as some say, for all appearances to be true, or for deception to be touching the unlike, for this is contrary to “knowing is like by like”; though it is held that regarding contraries both deception and understanding are the same).3 (DA III 3, 427a17– b6)

In section [1] Aristotle implicitly raises the question of whether understanding and judging are simply perceiving (cp. Plato, Tht. 151e); though his own view is that they are not, the consensus of the ancients, for example, Empedocles and even Homer, merits attention. Next, after 2 3

I take the δέ at 427a20 as apodotic, following Corcilius 2017, 166–167, 223–224. “Regarding contraries both deception and understanding are the same”: that is, I take it, understanding one contrary is the same as understanding the other, and ditto for being deceived.

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illustrating this consensus, he offers a diagnosis, tracing it back to two theses: first, that understanding is bodily, and second, that both perceiving and judging are like by like (section [2]). Only then does he turn to criticism, chiding these thinkers for not also considering deception, which would have shown them that the consequence is that “all appearances are true” (section [3]). (What Aristotle says is that the consequence is either that all appearances are true or that deception is “touching the unlike.” But he immediately proceeds to speak against the second alternative, intimating thereby that, in fact, there is but one consequence, that all appearances are true.) The point I want to notice is that Aristotle connects analogs of our two issues – are perceiving and judging like by like? are they being altered or moved or affected (here: are they “bodily”)? – to yet another issue: whether all appearances are true. The point is important because Aristotle uses the formula “all appearances are true” for the doctrine of Protagoras, which identifies how things are with how they appear (e.g. Met. Γ 5, 1009a5–9, cp. DA I 2, 404a27–31). This suggests that, in Aristotle’s mind, what is at stake in our two issues is whether perceiving and judging really are activities wherein we lay hold of real beings. I now want to develop this suggestion by taking a closer look at his quotations of Empedocles and Homer.4

2.3 knowledge and similarity: homer et al. The quotation from Homer – “for such is the mind” (τοῖ ος γὰρ νόος ἐστίν) – is taken from a passage in the Odyssey, in which Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, is giving some advice to one of the suitors. He prefaces this advice with the following more general reflection on the human condition: Nothing feebler does earth nurture than man, of everything that breathes and creeps upon the earth. For while the gods give him greatness, and his knees are quick, he boasts that he will never suffer evil in time to come. But when the blessed gods bring him ruin, this too he endures, unwillingly, in silence. For such is the mind of men on earth, as is the day brought upon them by the father of gods and men. (18.130–137, tr. after Dimock and Murray)

The basic sentiment is plain enough: though human beings often carry on as if they were invincible – they talk big and act big, because (as they think)

4

A good entry into the literature on Aristotle’s use of these quotations is Lee 2005, 136–148.

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they are big – this is just to mistake, for their own personal greatness, what is really but a run of good luck. In other words, the so-called “virtue” or “greatness” (ἀρετή) of the high and mighty has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with the circumstances in which they are lucky enough to find themselves. In De Anima III 3, Aristotle appropriates this sentiment, interpreting it as a verdict on human intelligence; interpreted this way, the idea is that what passes for intelligence or understanding or good judgment or insight is not some abiding greatness of mind, some intellectual perfection or virtue, but rather just an accident of fleeting circumstances. To be sure, when Odysseus speaks of “mind” (νόος), he is not speaking specifically about intelligence and its manifestations in insight; he is speaking about character and its manifestations in conduct. But there is a precedent for Aristotle’s so using the passage in a fragment of Parmenides, which Aristotle not only knows but quotes – not in the De Anima, but in Metaphysics Γ 5, where he offers it as evidence that even Parmenides subscribes to the doctrine of Protagoras:5 For as on each occasion is the mix of much-bent limbs, such is the mind of men; for the very thing [it] judges is the same, the nature of the limbs, for each and all; for it is what there is more of that is thought (τὸ γὰρ πλέον ἐστὶ νόημα). (Met. Γ 5, 1009b22–25)

This fragment is not about conduct, but about “judging” (φρονέειν), which it claims but reflects, not our various and changeable god-given fortunes, but the various and changeable “nature” (φύσις) or “mix” (κρᾶσις) of our limbs. The Protagorean moral is contained in the idea that what is judged, though various and changeable, is also always true or correct. This, at any rate, is the moral Aristotle finds in the fragment, as is clear from the immediate sequel, in which he quotes other sayings which he thinks are of a piece: Also related is a saying of Anaxagoras to some of his friends, that things will be for them howsoever they suppose. And they say even Homer was plainly of this opinion, because he made Hector, knocked out by the blow, “to lie of other mind” (κεῖ σθαι ἀλλοφρονέοντα), as if even those out of their senses were judging, but not the same things (ὡς φρονοῦντας μὲν καὶ τοὺς παραφρονοῦντας ἀλλ’ οὐ ταὐτά). It is clear, then, that if both are good judgments (φρονήσεις), things are at once both so and not so. (Met. Γ 5, 1009b25–33, cp. DA I 2, 404a27–31)

5

For discussion of this fragment see e.g. Laks 1990, Dilcher 2006, Hussey 2006, and Bredlow 2011b.

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There is nothing farfetched, then, in the suggestion that Aristotle alludes to the Odyssey as expressing a view that deflates the pretensions of intelligence (νοῦς) or good judgment (φρόνησις). On the contrary, in this he is but following the precedent of Parmenides, who borrows these same lines to express roughly the same view: namely, that our judgments are not manifestations of some “excellence” or “wisdom,” but rather the mere projecting of a random and fluctuating piece of ourselves (lucky or unlucky as the case may be). There is a point in all this worth pausing to emphasize. I have been taking for granted (what is obvious) that the doctrine Aristotle is claiming to find in these passages is the Protagorean doctrine that all appearances are true. Essential to Aristotle’s understanding of this doctrine is that it allows that the same things appear differently to different people. (That is why, in his view, maintaining the doctrine is tantamount to denying the principle of non-contradiction: “if all opinions and appearances are true, all statements must be at the same time true and false, for many hold beliefs in which they conflict with one another . . . so that of necessity the same thing both is and is not” [Met. Γ 5, 1009a7– 12].) But in that case the idea that (say) judging is “like by like” can hardly be the idea that verdicts are determined by the qualities of the beings they are verdicts about;6 for in that case the same things would not appear differently to different people. No, the idea that judging is like by like is rather the idea that verdicts are determined by the qualities of the persons passing judgment. These qualities vary from person to person and over time, as do “the mix of much-bent limbs” and “the day brought upon them by the father of gods and men.” It is for this reason that above I speak of judging as “mere projecting.” I do so in order to emphasize that the idea that judge and judged are “alike,” at least in the hands of these authors, at least as Aristotle interprets them here, is the idea that what judges “see” is, not the beings right in front of them, which beings force them (so to speak) to see them as they are, but rather whatever those judges happen to be antecedently disposed to see. (In fact, this is just as we would expect on other grounds; the “likeness” of judge and judged is supposed to be explanatory of, and [therefore] antecedent to, the one’s judging the other.)

6

For a contrasting view see Caston 1996, for whom the idea that cognition is like-like “marries content to cause” (Caston 1996, 30). Thus interpreted, though the idea does have the result that “all appearances are true,” it does not have that result (at least that I can see) in a sense that would make it tantamount to a kind of Protagoreanism.

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2.4 knowledge and alteration: empedocles I now turn to Aristotle’s quotations of Empedocles. In fact, the two fragments quoted in De Anima III 3 are also quoted in Metaphysics Γ 5, as witness to the view that perceiving and judging are alterations. This is the text I will work from, in part because it is fuller, and in part because it will take us into the second of our two issues: whether perceiving and judging are, not like by like, but being moved or affected or altered.7 Here is the passage, with a little bit of context: On the whole it is because they take judgment to be perception, and this to be alteration, that they say that what appears to sensibility is of necessity true. For from these considerations both Empedocles and Democritus and (so to speak) all the rest have become liable for such opinions. For Empedocles says that on changing our state we change our judgment: “for in human beings cunning increases in relation to the present.” And elsewhere he says, “so far as they grow later to be different, so far are they caused always to judge differently too.” (Met. Γ 5, 1009b12–21)

I begin with a minor point, which is that although Aristotle leads with a remark about an activity, judging or perceiving, the first fragment he quotes appears to be about a disposition or state (“cunning” [μῆτις]) (DK B106). This is suggested, at any rate, by the vocabulary of “increase”: this is naturally heard as describing, not the progress of an episode of perceiving or judging, but rather the process of acquiring a state, which state then informs and is manifested in subsequent perceptions and judgments. For this reason, I separate the point made in this fragment, which I will take as being about a state, from the point Aristotle leads with, which I will take as being about an activity. Regarding the first point, though the basic sentiment is fairly straightforward – wisdom grows with experience – it is important to note that this is hardly a platitude. For though we can learn from experience, we need not do; even when older is wiser, it is not as though it must be wiser, simply because it is older – as though the mere fact that more has happened to us guarantees that we come out for it better judges. Some experiences leave us untouched, and others change us for the worse, making us cynical or close-minded. These are platitudes the 7

For a very different approach and upshot see Caston 1996. (Approach: while Caston reads Metaphysics Γ 5 through the lens of problems Aristotle is grappling with in the De Anima, I use Metaphysics Γ 5 to identify those problems. Upshot: while the task facing Caston’s Aristotle is to explain how we go wrong, the task facing mine is to explain why it is in our nature to go right.)

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fragment precisely rejects, maintaining instead that we “increase” in cunning “in relation to the present”: in relation, that is, to whatever comes our way. Moreover, this “increase” (so-called), though it does cause us to see things differently, does not cause us to see things better. This is clear from the second fragment: “So far as we grow later to be different, so far are we caused always to judge differently too” (DK B108). The verb translated “judge” here is φρονεῖ ν, which Aristotle reads as a success verb: “judgment” (φρόνησις) and “cunning” (μῆτις) are good judgment, and “judging” (φρονεῖ ν) is judging well, i.e. truly. Indeed, if the reason we judge differently is that we happen to have taken on a new “shape,” in step with whatever happens to have come our way, then to say that we thereby judge better would be tantamount to saying that we all live charmed lives: lives that (lucky chance!) shape us to see things ever more nearly straight on, ever less distorted, ever more just as they are, in and of themselves. Empedocles’ point in these fragments is just the reverse: though we do “grow” to see things differently, we do not thereby come to see better – in point of correctness, all our judgments are on a par, older and newer alike. This, at any rate, is what Aristotle takes Empedocles to be saying, and that plausibly enough. For suppose you held, as Aristotle does, that perception and true judgment, when not the result of good luck, are hard work, proceeding in line with, not just any state of ours, but certain good ones: for example, the healthy condition of our perceptual organs, or the virtues of character and practical wisdom, or the mastery of some art or science. Suppose you were then told that, in fact, what passes for “growth” in these states is “in relation to the present” – that though our judgment (the “state”) is constantly changing, the judgments which proceed from it are always correct. In that case you could be forgiven for thinking, as Aristotle seems to, that you are as good as being told that, as far as better and worse goes, all our judgments are on a par – or in other words, not exactly but close enough, that all appearances are true. My suggestion, then, is that it by some such reasoning as this that Aristotle is led to connect these fragments to the doctrine of Protagoras. If that is right, it remains to connect them to the specific point they are quoted to illustrate: namely, that judging and perceiving (the activities) are alterations. Though I suppose this might be done in several ways, I will try by appeal to the principle that “things we do we learn by doing.” If perceiving and judging are things we learn to do well – as Aristotle certainly thinks judging is, and as perceiving would be too, if judging just were perceiving – then the principle would entail that the states which inform our perceiving and judging are themselves acquired from previous

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perceptions and judgments. But in that case, if perceiving and judging were “being altered” (ἀλλοιοῦσθαι), then the same would be true of learning to perceive and learning to judge. That is, learning to do these things would be becoming, not better, but simply “other” (ἀλλοῖ ος); that is, it would be a matter, not of realizing more perfectly a state that was ours all along, though initially only potentially, but rather of simply exchanging one state for another. Thus, the point that Aristotle quotes the first fragment to illustrate is simply the ground of the view it expresses: namely, that what passes for “growth” or “increase” in wisdom is nothing more than a “change” of our “state.” To make the connection, we need only note that the states that now inform our perceiving and judging themselves arose from previous perceptions and judgments; if those previous perceptions and judgments were but alterations, making us, not better, but just different, the result would be that though we do “grow” to judge differently, we are not thereby in any way improved.

2.5 alien and impassible: anaxagoras contra mundum I have been trying to clarify why Aristotle thinks it important, in thinking about psuche¯, to address two issues: first, whether perceiving and judging are like by like, and second, whether they are being moved or affected or altered. I have argued that, in his mind, these issues are connected: both seem to imply that our perceptions and judgments are so colored by arbitrary, variable, idiosyncratic facts about us as to undermine the idea that we know anything as it is in itself or in truth. Such a view, Aristotle thinks, is tantamount to the doctrine, which he associates with Protagoras, that all appearances are true – a doctrine which effectively collapses the distinction between appearance and reality. These considerations suggest that, for Aristotle, one problem we face in the theory of psuche¯, so far as knowledge is concerned, is the problem of seeing how it is in our nature to know real truths about real beings. That is what is at stake in the two issues he thinks are so important. Left to consider is why Aristotle thinks these issues are difficult. After all, if it is a particular stance on these issues that is at odds with the fact that it is in our nature to know beings, getting clear of this problem seems easy enough: take the opposite stance and the problem will evaporate. In fact, Aristotle thinks, this line has been tried, but the result was not at all satisfactory. It was tried by Anaxagoras, whom he represents as standing out among his predecessors for being the only one to develop a theory of Intelligence on which Intelligence

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alone, of all the things that are, is absolutely “unmixed,” and therefore altogether “unlike” and “unaffected” by anything (DA I 2, 405b13–17).8 This, Aristotle seems to think, was a good idea; the trouble is that Anaxagoras, at least, was not able to do anything with it. Thus, he bluntly remarks: Anaxagoras alone says that Intelligence is impassive and has nothing in common with any of the others. But how it will know, if that is what it is like, and for what reason – this he did not say, nor is it evident from what he did say. (DA I 2, 405b19–24)

Aristotle’s point, as I understand it, is that it is easy enough just to say, of what perceives or understands, that it must stand entirely apart from the world that it knows, altogether unlike and unaffected by it. But it is hardly sufficient just to leave it at that. On the contrary, thus stated, the view makes it well-nigh unfathomable how or why such a thing knows a world which to it is entirely alien, and by whose vagaries and fortunes it is completely untouched. My suggestion, then, is that although Aristotle does hold that it is a particular stance on our issues which leads to the doctrine of Protagoras, he does not think we can get clear of the difficulties in this area by simply taking the opposite stance. That is hardly more than just stating a conclusion (cp. DA II 2, 413a16); what is wanted is a kind of proof, such as will exhibit the causes, and thereby make us see, not only that but why it is that in perceiving and judging we lay hold of reality. This is the shortcoming of Anaxagoras’ theory; far from making us understand why it is in our nature to know beings, the theory leaves this instead an inscrutable mystery.

8

As we have seen, Aristotle also associates Anaxagoras with Protagoras (Met. Γ 5, 1009b25–33); but elsewhere he indicates that in his view Anaxagoras expresses himself inconsistently (DA I 2, 404a25–b6).

3 Solutions

I have been arguing that, in Aristotle’s view, one problem we face in the theory of psuche¯ is to respect the fact that things appear as they are, without making this fact in principle unintelligible. This is a problem, not about intentionality or consciousness, but about cognitive success, about hitting the mark, about bona fide knowledge of bona fide beings. It is the problem at stake in the issues that, in addition to looming large in his discussion of previous theories of psuche¯, dominate his treatment of perception in De Anima II 5 (namely, whether perceiving is “like by like” and a kind of being moved or affected or altered). I now want to strengthen this result, returning to De Anima II 5. Though this chapter has been the subject of a number of excellent studies, in none of them is it read as addressed to the problem I have identified, about whether and how things appear as they are; most are written with an eye instead on a debate which has shaped so much of the recent literature, between “literalists,” who hold that perception is by way of physical changes in an animal’s perceptual organs, which literally take on the forms of perceptible bodies, becoming colored and noisy and so on, and “spiritualists,” who hold that perception is not by way of any physical changes in an animal’s perceptual organs, which instead take on these forms in a purely “spiritual” way, when the animal perceives them.1 1

The leading protagonists are Richard Sorabji and Myles Burnyeat (see Sorabji 1974, 1995, and 2001, Burnyeat 1992, 1996, 2001, 2002, and 2008). The best overview I know is Caston 2005. In the wake of Burnyeat 2002 there have been a number of studies focused specifically on De Anima II 5, e.g. Heinaman 2007, Lorenz 2007, Bowin 2011, Bowin 2012. The debate also makes itself felt in discussions of Aristotle’s “perceptual realism” (see e.g. Silverman 1989, Broadie 1993, Broackes 1999, Marmodoro 2014).

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I argue that we may steer clear of this debate, and that the chapter is better read as addressed to the difficulties in the way of explaining knowledge of beings. De Anima II 5 opens as follows: These points having been determined, let us speak in general about all perception. Perception falls under being moved and being affected, as was said (for it is held to be a kind of alteration). And some say also that like is affected by like (but this, how it is possible or impossible, we have said in our general discussion of affecting and being affected). (DA II 5, 416b32–417a2)

Right at the outset Aristotle flags our two issues: whether perceiving is being moved or affected, and whether being affected (and therefore perceiving) is like by like. Moreover, he flat-out affirms, in his own voice, that perceiving is being moved or affected, and at least implies that, for this very reason, in a way it is like by like. The main work of the chapter, I believe, is to develop the qualifications that must be put on these points if we are to steer clear of the difficulties we have been considering.2 Following Aristotle’s lead, I take the two issues separately, first looking at the way in which perceiving, precisely because it is a kind of being moved or affected, is like by like, but making no distinctions among different kinds of being moved or affected.3 I then try to describe more precisely the particular kind of being affected that, in Aristotle’s view, perceiving is.4

3.1 perception and similarity (de anima ii 5) Aristotle concludes De Anima II 5 with a statement of the way he thinks perceiver and perceived are alike: 2

Contrast e.g. Burnyeat 2002, 58, Polansky 2007, 223, for whom the idea that perceiving is a kind of being altered or affected is necessary, in Aristotle’s view, to safeguard objectivity. (The argument of the preceding chapter was that the idea threatens the point that perception is of beings. So too Menn 2002, 129–130. ) 3 The simplification is introduced at 417a14–16, then lifted at a21–26, with the results applied at b16–19 and recapitulated at 418a1–3. 4 It is often said that what Aristotle holds to be a kind of being moved or affected is not perceiving itself, but coming to perceive – so to say, not the activity of perceiving, but the “transition” from idleness to activity, sometimes described as the “actualization” of the power to perceive, as distinct from its “activity” (so e.g. Burnyeat 2002, Lorenz 2007, Bowin 2011, Bowin 2012, contrast Heinaman 2007, 160–166, Kosman 2013, 65, 71). I myself do not think Aristotle believes in such transitions, i.e. proceedings distinct from and culminating in perceiving (the activity) (see Sens. 6, 446b3–4: “there is no coming-tobe of them, but they are without coming to be”). For what it is worth, I think his believing in them is precluded by considerations of the sort developed in Physics V 2, where it is argued that there is no coming-to-be of motion (see Phys. V 2, 225b15–16, 225b33–226a6).

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So then, though it is affected when it is not like, upon having been affected, it has been likened and is such as it. (DA II 5, 418a5–6)

I begin with an important preliminary point, which is that Aristotle is here applying a perfectly general principle, one which (he thinks) holds of all being affected: not just of perceiving, but also (e.g.) of being heated or being healed. This is clear from how he prepares the point earlier in the chapter: Everything is affected and is moved by what is productive and is in activity. That is why there is a way in which [everything] is affected by like, though there is a way in which [everything is affected] by unlike, just as we said;5 for though it is the unlike that is affected, having been affected it is like. (DA II 5, 417a17–20)

The point is important, because it follows that, whatever Aristotle is saying at the end of the chapter, about perceivers and what they perceive, it is something he would also want to say (e.g.) about heaters and what they heat and about healers and what they heal. This result has two immediate consequences. First, even granting that Aristotle holds that (e.g.) seeing red involves being red (being red literally), he certainly does not hold that having been healed involves being a healer.6 But in that case the point he is making here cannot be the literalist thesis, that seeing red involves being red (being red literally); for the point he is making here also applies to having been healed, which does not involve being a healer. Second, even granting that Aristotle holds that seeing red does not involve being red (except in a purely spiritual way), he certainly does not hold that having been heated does not involve being hot (except in a purely spiritual way). But in that case the point he is making here cannot be the spiritualist thesis either; for the point he is making here also applies to having been heated, which is a matter of being hot, not in a purely spiritual way, but quite literally. For these reasons I set the debate between literalists and spiritualists to one side. For my present question is not about what all and in general Aristotle holds about perception, but rather about the specific point he is making here, in the concluding sentence of De Anima II 5.

5

The reference is to GC I 7, from which I take the examples of being heated and being healed. The fact that GC I 7 is essential background is well emphasized in Burnyeat 2002. 6 I use the perfect participle “having been healed” because what healers “do” (ποιεῖ) to patients, i.e. “make” them to be, is healthy, and health is a state. By contrast, I use the present participle “seeing” because what perceptible objects “do” to perceivers, i.e. “make” them to be, is perceiving, and perception is an activity. (I might also have used the perfect: “everything at once is hearing and has heard [ἅμα ἀκούει καὶ ἀκήκοε], and in general is perceiving and has perceived [αἰσθάνεται καὶ ᾔσθηται],” Sens. 6, 446b2–3.)

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I propose to approach this question along the following lines, continuing to bear in mind that the point is a general one, which holds not only of perceiving but also of having been heated and having been healed. I begin by observing that one such point is that having been affected by something is a matter of being, not everything you are, once its action upon you is complete, but just what the power exercised upon you was a power of making things be. For example, having been healed by a healer is having been affected by its power to heal, which is a power of making things healthy; since that is what healers are busy about, when they are busy “doing their thing,” that is what having been healed by one is a matter of being: it is a matter of being, not hungry, or tired, or in debt, but healthy. Again, having been heated by a heater is having been affected by its power to heat, which is a power of making things hot; since that is what heaters are busy about, when they are doing their thing, that is what having been heated by one is a matter of being: it is a matter of being hot. And so on quite generally: for Aristotle, having been affected by something is a matter of having become what the affecting agent is in the business of making things be. Having observed this, my second point is that this is a principle which Aristotle not only holds, but also might very well put by saying that things that have been affected, though at the outset unlike the things they are affected by, end up being “like” them or “such as” they are. This is because, for Aristotle, different kinds of agent are defined in reference to their respective powers, which are defined in reference to the activities they are powers of performing, which are defined in reference to the works they are activities of accomplishing (DA II 4, 415a18–22).7 It is precisely this, I submit, that is the philosophical meaning of the principle invoked and applied here: briefly put, when something has been affected by something, it is never just any old thing, affected in just any old way, by just any old thing, but always a particular kind of thing, affected in a particular kind of way, by a particular kind of thing8 – namely, by the kind of agent whose defining work is to affect things of that kind in precisely that way (e.g. to make cold things hot, or sick things well). I call this work “defining” loosely, in order to bring out that it is a proceeding in which the agent finds fulfillment in its being as agent, as (e.g.) heaters 7

For thoughtful discussion, particularly of respects in which the point needs taking with a grain of salt, see Broackes 1999, 78–80. 8 See e.g. DA I 3, 407b17–19, Phys. I 5, 188a31–34, Cael. IV 3, 310a20–31, GC I 7, 323b30.

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find fulfillment in making things hot, and healers in making things well.9 It is in this sense that, for Aristotle, anything that has been affected by something “has been likened to” and “is such as” the agent it is affected by: having been affected, it now is the very thing that the agent, in its own being as that kind of agent, finds fulfillment in making things be.10 A bit more prosaically, the principle that Aristotle is applying here is simply that (accidents apart) the way things interact is in line with their respective natures. My third point is that this principle, even in its more prosaic formulation, entails a significant result when applied to perception: not merely that perceivers are in the business of perceiving, but also that perceptible objects are in the business of being perceived. Just as it is not only that automobiles ride smoothly on pavement, but likewise vice versa – pavement does not just happen to afford automobiles a smooth ride, that is what it is for – so too, not only do perceivers perceive (e.g.) colors, but likewise vice versa, colors do not just happen to afford perceivers a “spectacle,” but that is what they are for. This is what the principle Aristotle applies here implies about perception: it implies that it belongs (e.g.) to colors by nature to be seen, just as it belongs to the sense of sight by nature to see colors. So much, then, for what Aristotle means when he concedes that, in a way, perceiving is like by like. Left is to consider whether the qualifications he puts on this point allow him to respect the fact that it is in the nature of sentient creatures to perceive beings. The idea that perceiving is like by like seemed to undermine this, by implying that bodies appear as they do, not because of how they are, but because of something in sentient creatures – the constantly fluctuating “nature” or “mix” of their “muchbent limbs.” Read against the background of this problem, the qualifications Aristotle puts on the idea look precisely designed to avoid this implication. For they underscore the fact that although sentient creatures are indeed like the objects they perceive, when they are perceiving, this is

Cp. EN IX 7, 1167b34–1168a9: “Every man loves his own work . . . The position of benefactors is similar, for what has been done well to is their work; this, then, they love . . . The reason is that for everyone being is to be chosen and loved, and we are by activity, for [we are] by living and doing, and the producer in activity in a way is his work; he loves his work, then, because he loves being too. And this is natural; for what he is potentially, this in activity is revealed by his work.” 10 Cp. GC II 6, 333b22–24 (criticizing Empedocles): “for it is not enough to say ‘because Love and Strife set them in motion,’ unless such-and-such motion was the very nature of Love, and such-and-such the very nature of Strife.” 9

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because for creatures to perceive those objects is for objects to reveal what they themselves are. That is, the perceptible forms of bodies do not appear as they do thanks merely to something in sentient creatures: in particular, thanks to some antecedent likeness which makes them appear to those creatures howsoever those creatures “want” them to appear. Rather, these forms appear as they do thanks in part to something of them: in particular, something whose own activity or work lies in revealing itself to sentient creatures.11

3.2 perception and alteration (de anima ii 5) I turn now to the issue of whether perceiving is being moved or affected or altered. As we have seen, Aristotle opens De Anima II 5 by flat-out affirming that it is. Having led with this, however, he later proceeds to qualify it, first distinguishing among different kinds of being moved or affected or altered, and then identifying the particular kind exemplified by perceiving. His last word on the issue is as follows: Since the difference between them is nameless, though it has been determined about them that they are different and how they are different, it is necessary to use “being affected” and “being altered” as the proper names. (DA II 5, 418a1–3)

This is the result I want to try to understand. My contention will be that it too is a result Aristotle requires, if he is to respect the fact that perception is of beings. I begin with a preliminary point and then turn to details, first discussing the distinctions Aristotle makes, briefly and I’m afraid somewhat dogmatically, and then drawing some conclusions. (I reserve detailed discussion of the text for an appendix.) The preliminary point is that although Aristotle makes distinctions among kinds of proceeding in which something is affected or altered, there is nothing to prevent a single proceeding from exemplifying several of these kinds. Just as one and the same human being may at once be a butcher and a baker, and one and the same road may at once be from Thebes to Athens and from Athens to Thebes, so too, the very proceeding in which (say) water is turned into air may at once be the destruction of 11

The point that “sensibility” (αἴσθησις) and its objects (lit. τὰ αἰσθητά) are in effect correlatives is delicate, because Aristotle also insists that there is an asymmetry between sensibility and its objects: they are not both “each what it is in relation to the other” (or, as he sometimes puts it, sensibility and its objects are not correlatives “per se” [Met. Δ 15, 1021a29 ff. , I 6, 1056b32–34]). I discuss this issue, as it arises more generally for the relation of measure and measured, in Chapter 5, Section 1.

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water and the generation of air, just as the very proceeding in which a palette of bricks is turned into a wall may at once be unstacking bricks and building a wall. The reason it is important to keep this in mind – in Aristotle’s language, that things one “in number” may be many “in being” – is that the distinctions Aristotle makes here will not otherwise make sense.12 Turning now to details: one way of being moved or affected is being changed for the worse. For example, a maul is moved or affected when its blade becomes notched or bent; this makes a maul less good at its appointed work, which is splitting wood. When a thing is affected in this way, we might say, the resulting affection is a downright affliction; in Aristotle’s language, it is “a kind of corruption” (φθορά τις), a changing “towards conditions of deprivation” (ἐπὶ τὰς στερητικὰς διαθέσεις), a losing of some perfection or perfections associated with its type (DA ΙΙ 5, 417b3, 15). Aristotle maintains that although perceiving is being affected, it is not being affected in this way. A second way of being moved or affected is being changed for the better: for example, a maul is thus moved or affected when its blade is repaired. Admittedly, this is being affected in a comparatively attenuated sense – attenuated, because the negative connotations often carried by the words in this field13 do not apply in such a case; in Aristotle’s language, being affected in this way is not a kind of corruption, but rather a kind of “preservation” or “deliverance” (σωτηρία) (DA II 5, 417b3). When things are being affected in this way, they are being maintained or restored or developed or improved, where (again) this is measured by standards relative to their type. So, when the blade of a maul is being repaired, or being enclosed in a sheath, the maul is being moved towards, or being kept from moving away from, perfection in its kind: in Aristotle’s language, the change is “towards its perfections and nature” (ἐπὶ τὰς ἕξεις και ̀ τὴν φύσιν) (DA II 5, 417b16). Aristotle maintains that perceiving, though it is being 12

For an example of difficulties obviated by this point, see e.g. Bowin 2012, 93–94. Bowin is trying to make sense of the idea that what is sometimes called “preservative affection” involves a special, preservative kind of assimilation of patient to agent, viz. one in which agent and patient are [1] not opposed and [2] bear the same predicate at the outset (one bearing it potentially, the other actually). The difficulty, he argues, is that while no kind of assimilation satisfies [1], every kind satisfies [2]. This is correct – it stems from the fact that every “preservation” (σωτηρία) is also a “corruption” (φθορά). But that fact does not show that “preservation” and “corruption” do not differ in being (so too in effect Heinaman 2007, 155–156). 13 Cp. Phys. IV 12, 221b3, IV 13, 222b16, 21, VI 5, 235b9–12, also Phys. VIII 7, 261a20, Top. VI 6, 145a3–10, Met. α 2, 994a22–24, 30–31, Z 8, 1033a19–23.

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affected, is not being affected in this way either. His reason is that unlike (e.g.) reasoners, who must learn to reason well, not only in practical matters, but in the sciences too, perceivers come into being (so to speak) ready to perceive, having developed the equipment with which they do so in the course of their generation (DA II 5, 417b16–18).14 A third way of being moved or affected is being used to perform one’s appointed work: for example, a mattress is thus moved or affected in providing comfortable support to a sleeping body. Admittedly, this is being affected in a still more attenuated sense: doing one’s job is not, in and of itself, changing either for the better or for the worse. Note that this is not to deny that doing one’s job is ever attended by deterioration or improvement. For example, I may teach a course better the second time around, having better mastered my material while teaching it the first time; again, the third time around might be terrible, because in teaching it the second time my material grew stale. Still, even so, my job in the classroom, the work I am trained and hired and paid to do, is not to learn my material, nor to grow bored with it, nor even just to keep it up, but rather to teach it. This, I take it, is the point Aristotle is making, when he claims that it is incorrect to say that builders are altered in building (DA II 5, 417b8–9); though they may in fact be being altered, whenever they are building, being altered is not their job: they are not hired to grow stronger or more skilled, nor again to grow tired or inattentive, but rather to build (cp. Plato, Rep. I, 341d).15 In Aristotle’s language, being affected in this way is fulfillment, inasmuch as it is being busy upon one’s defining work, for example, building or teaching or supporting a sleeping body (cf. DA II 5, 417b6–7, also II 4, 416b1–3). Aristotle maintains that this is the I have represented these first two ways of being affected as opposite to one another; this comports with Aristotle’s characterization of them as “corruption” (φθορά) and “preservation” (σωτηρία), respectively (DA II 5, 417b3). Compare Pol. V 8, 1307b27–30 (introducing discussion of the σωτηρία of regimes, both in general and separately by kinds): “if we have that through which regimes are corrupted, we also have that through which they are preserved; for contraries are productive of contraries and corruption (φθορά) is contrary to preservation (σωτηρία).” 15 It has been objected to me that being used is a kind of “preservation” (σωτηρία) – that (indeed) Aristotle himself effectively says as much, when he says that “whenever what has e¯piste¯me¯ comes to be contemplating, the progression is into itself, i.e. into fulfillment” (DA II 5, 417b5–7). As against this I would contend that while “preservation” (σωτηρία) as such is “towards the state” (ἐπὶ τὴν ἕξιν), coming to contemplate, by contrast, is “towards the operation” (εἰς τὸ ἐνεργεῖν). (Though it is true that “having” [τὸ ἔχειν] and “operating” [τὸ ἐνεργεῖν] are both “fulfillments” [ἐντελέχειαι], the fact remains that they are distinct fulfillments, as is shown by the fact that they may come apart, inasmuch as “what has” [τὸ ἔχον] need not “be operating” [ἐνεργεῖ].) 14

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kind of thing perceiving is, and that although perceiving is indeed called “being affected” – and rightly so, though only for want of a better term – still, perceiving is being affected in a very particular way. For it is not being changed for the worse, nor being changed for the better, but simply being busy upon the appointed work of perceivers. This contention, as I understand it, is about what we might call the “grammar” of perceiving; for it says nothing at all about how animals perceive, nor even about what they perceive (a topic taken up in the next chapter), let alone about the equipment with which they perceive (about what that equipment must be, if it is to be equipment for perceiving). Nevertheless, though the claim is in these respects purely formal, it is not for all that simply empty. On the contrary, it is just the claim Aristotle requires if he is going to resist the line of thought that carried his predecessors into Protagoreanism. These thinkers, starting from the idea that perceiving is manifestly a matter of being affected, and thinking that there is no being affected without being altered – without being made “other” or different16 – ended up by concluding, as perhaps they were bound to, that our perceptions are so shaped by our accumulated experiences as to make it untenable that perception is of beings as they are in their own right (as distinct from how they happen to appear, to creatures that happen to have had experiences like mine). Aristotle can resist this line of argument, observing that there are many ways of being affected, one of which is not at all a matter of being made “other”; this is the way of being affected which perceiving is, by its very “grammar,” with the result that perceiving is not in its essence a matter of being changed so as to perceive the same things differently next time. At the same time, in insisting that, for all that, perceiving is being affected in some way, Aristotle stops short of saying that perceivers are completely “impassive” (ἀπαθές), entirely unaffected by what they perceive; in this way, he leaves himself free to inquire how they perceive – an undertaking that would be pointless if the world they perceived had no effect on them whatever.

3.3 conclusions My object in this chapter was to present a reading of De Anima II 5 on which it is dedicated to making certain distinctions necessary for getting

16

Cp. Trendelenburg 1877, 250: “significat enim ἀλλοίωσις quasi alienationem, ita ut res in aliam rem abeat. Quam ἀλλοίωσιν Aristoteles ad res, quae sensibus percipiuntur, amandat, ab iis, quae ad animum pertinent, removens. Quae enim rei perfectio est, ea non alienatio.” (I owe the reference to Klaus Corcilius.)

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clear of certain difficulties. These difficulties, and Aristotle’s solution of them, are collected around two issues: whether perception is like by like and whether it is a kind of being altered or affected. In the last chapter, I argued that the difficulties raised by these issues are twofold: we must respect the fact that things appear as they are, without making that fact unintelligible in principle. Aristotle’s solution of these difficulties, baldly put, is that perceivers must be in a way like, in a way unlike, and in a way altered or affected by, in a way unaltered and unaffected by, the bodies they perceive. My main effort in this chapter has been to show in what sense and why Aristotle thinks perceivers must be all these things. They must be like the perceptible forms of bodies, in that, when being affected by those forms, they must be busy doing what those forms are making them do (namely, perceive them). Second, they must also be unlike the perceptible forms of bodies, in that they must not already be doing that work, even before being affected by those forms. Third, they must be affected by perceptible forms, in that perceiving those forms must be something they do “at the hands of” (ὑπό) those forms. Fourth, they must also remain unaffected by perceptible forms, in that perceiving them must not be a matter of being changed for the worse or being changed for the better. Fifth, and finally, the reason that perceivers must be all of these things is that it is only thus that the cognitive success we call perceiving comes out a fact that has causes.

3.4 appendix (de anima ii 5, 417a30–b16) Above I spoke dogmatically about what Aristotle has to say about being altered or affected in De Anima II 5. I now want to look at the text in detail, explaining how I read it and why.17 The crucial passage is 417a30–b16, but I begin with some context. Having introduced his topic, and raised and settled (depending how you count) one or more difficulties, Aristotle proceeds to do two things. First, he introduces a deliberate simplification: “first let us speak as if being affected and being moved and operating (ἐνεργεῖν) were the same,” and that, it seems, in order to throw into relief the point that things are affected (in every case) “by what is productive and in activity” (DA II 5, 417a14–20). Second, he insists on also making certain distinctions: But we must also make distinctions regarding power and fulfillment; for just now we were speaking about them unqualifiedly. For there is understanding something the

17

The account presented below is perhaps closest to Heinaman 2007.

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way we might say human beings understand, because human beings are [in the class of] things that understand and have understanding, and the way we already do say someone who has the art of grammar is understanding. But it is not in the same way that each of these is capable, but the one because his kind and his matter are thus-andso, the other because he is capable of contemplating at will, if nothing external prevents. And the one already contemplating [understands something], being in fulfillment and understanding this α in the authoritative sense. (DA II 5, 417a21–29)

Here Aristotle distinguishes between two ways of being something “potentially” (δυνάμει), and (correspondingly) two ways of being that “in fulfillment” (ἐντελεχείᾳ). The result is “the triple scheme,” according to which there are three ways of being one and the same thing: for example, three ways of “understanding something” (ἐπιστήμων τι). It will be convenient to personify these ways by ascribing them to different persons, whom I will call Ignorant, Idling, and Busy; to make things concrete, let us imagine these three as understanding (i.e. knowing the spelling of), each in his own way, the word “Theaetetus.” This brings us to the crucial passage, in which the foregoing distinctions are used to complicate the point that everything is affected “by what is productive and in activity.” The passage reads as follows: Now, both of the first two, understanding potentially, come to be understanding in activity, but the one [does so] being altered through learning and (many times) changing from the contrary state,18 while the other, from having the art of arithmetic or grammar, but not operating (ἐνεργεῖν), to operating, in another way. (Though even being affected is not simple, but one is a kind of destruction by its contrary, the other more a preservation, by what is in fulfillment, of what is potentially and is like in the way that capacity is related to fulfillment.)19 For what has understanding comes to be contemplating, which either is not being altered (for the progression is into itself i.e. into fulfillment) or [is] a different kind of alteration. That is why it is wrong to say, of what has good judgment (τὸ φρονοῦν), whenever it is judging (φρονῇ), that it is being altered, just as it is wrong even of builders whenever they are building. So, to lead what has insight and good judgment (τὸ νοοῦν καὶ φρονοῦν), from being potentially, into fulfillment, is not ὁ μὲν διὰ μαθήσεως ἀλλοιωθεὶς καὶ πολλάκις ἐξ ἐναντίας μεταβαλὼν ἕξεως. I take the point to be that often pupils begin their lessons, not merely ignorant, but positively mistaken (e.g. in thinking that the first syllable of “Theaetetus” is spelled with an η). Thus “many times” (though not always) – that is, in the case of such pupils (though not all pupils) – learning is changing from “the contrary state” (i.e. error, as distinct from mere ignorance). The alternative is to take the point to be that to learn is to change, many times, from the contrary state; but I do not know what this could mean, if not that learning is flip-flopping back and forth, repeatedly, between understanding and “the contrary state” (either ignorance or error) – which is very implausible. 19 I enclose this bit in parentheses because I believe the bit that follows the parentheses explains the bit that precedes them. More on this below. 18

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teaching, but ought by right have a different name;20 but that which, from being potentially, learns and seizes understanding, by what is in fulfillment and is a teacher – one must say either that even it is not being affected, or that there are two types of alteration, the change towards privative conditions and the change towards its states and its nature. (DA II 5, 417a30–b16)21

This passage begins and ends with a distinction regarding Ignorant and Idling. The first sentence tells us that there is a difference in how each comes to be understanding “in activity” (417a30–b2). Ignorant does it by learning, a proceeding wherein he is altered: that is, wherein he becomes what he previously was not, acquires a state he previously lacked, a power of doing what he previously could not do (e.g. spell “Theaetetus”). Idling, by contrast, does not do it by learning, but “in a different way”: that is, whatever we say about the proceeding whereby Idling is brought to employ the understanding he already has, it is not a proceeding wherein he is altered: that is, wherein he becomes what he previously was not, acquires a state he previously lacked, a power of doing what previously he could not do (e.g. spell “Theaetetus”). We are told the same thing in the last sentence, which offers a chiastic reprise of the very same distinction.22 So, first comes a statement about Idling: namely, that the proceeding whereby he is brought to fulfillment is not teaching; then comes a description of Ignorant, implying that the proceeding whereby he is brought to fulfillment is teaching. Yes Aristotle does add, to this description of Ignorant, an additional refinement not present in the first sentence: namely, that either one must not even say that Ignorant is being affected, or else there are two types of alteration.23 But this does not affect the point I am now making, which is that the passage as a whole is structured by the initial distinction between Ignorant and Idling – “the” distinction, in fact, which Aristotle is after in this passage, as is shown by the fact, as he immediately goes on to say, that perceivers are like Idling, not Ignorant (DA II 5, 417b16–19).

Here I think τὸ φρονοῦν and τὸ νοοῦν must designate what has good judgment or insight (τὸ ἔχον φρόνησιν or νοῦν), as opposed to what is exercising it (τὸ ἐνεργοῦν). (This use of the present participle was prepared for at 417a25, where we were told that “we already do say” [ἤδη λέγομεν] that someone who has the art of grammar is “understanding” [ἐπιστήμονα].) 21 Following Ross 1961 on 417a30–31 and in omitting ὥσπερ εἴρηται at 417b14. On the difficulties surrounding 417a30–31, see Burnyeat 2002, 83–87. 22 Despite meticulous attention to many points of detail, this is a point that seems lost in much of the literature on the passage (e.g. Burnyeat 2001, Lorenz 2007, Bowin 2011, Bowin 2012). An exception is Heinaman 2007, 173–174. 23 That this additional refinement is specifically about Ignorant is well observed in Bowin 2011, 143. 20

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I emphasize this point for what it implies about the intervening remarks: namely, that the portion of them that supplies the basis for the additional refinement is simply irrelevant to the initial, controlling distinction between Ignorant and Idling. I quote those remarks again, adding numerals for ease of reference: Though [1] even being affected is not simple, but one is a kind of destruction by its contrary, the other more a preservation, by what is in fulfillment, of what is potentially and is alike in the way that capacity is related to fulfillment. For [2] what has understanding comes to be contemplating, which either is not being altered (for the progression is into itself and into fulfillment) or a different kind of alteration. That is why [3] it is wrong to say of what has good judgment, whenever it is judging, that it is being altered, just as it is wrong even of builders whenever they are building. (417b2–9)

[1] οὐκ ἔστι δ’ ἁπλοῦν οὐδὲ τὸ πάσχειν, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν φθορά τις ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐναντίου, τὸ δὲ σωτηρία μᾶλλον ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐντελεχείᾳ ὄντος τοῦ δυνάμει ὄντος καὶ ὁμοίου οὕτως ὡς δύναμις ἔχει πρὸς ἐντελέχειαν· [2] θεωροῦν γὰρ γίνεται τὸ ἔχον τὴν ἐπιστήμην, ὅπερ ἢ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀλλοιοῦσθαι (εἰς αὑτὸ γὰρ ἡ ἐπίδοσις καὶ εἰς ἐντελέχειαν) ἢ ἕτερον γένος ἀλλοιώσεως. [3] διὸ οὐ καλῶς ἔχει λέγειν τὸ φρονοῦν, ὅταν φρονῇ, ἀλλοιοῦσθαι, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ τὸν οἰκοδόμον ὅταν οἰκοδομῇ. How are points [1] –[3] related? Working backwards, [3] is evidently subordinate to [2] (“that is why it is wrong,” διὸ οὐ καλῶς ἔχει etc.). What then of [2] (“for what has understanding,” θεωροῦν γὰρ γίνεται etc.)? My own view is that [2] is subordinate, not to [1] (“even being affected is not simple,” οὐκ ἔστι δ’ ἁπλοῦν οὐδὲ τὸ πάσχειν etc.), but to the immediately preceding point, viz. the initial distinction between the ways in which Ignorant and Idling come to be understanding in activity (417a32–b1). For while [1] is a perfectly general point about being affected, [2] is a point specifically about Idling: namely, that what happens to him either is not alteration or is a different kind of alteration (in other words, whether it be this or whether it be that, what happens to Idling is in any case different from what happens to Ignorant). But in that case the distinction made in [1], between two kinds of being affected – one “a kind of destruction,” the other “more a preservation” – has nothing to do with the initial distinction regarding Ignorant and Idling.24 No, the distinction

24

It is often said that perceiving is a kind of “preservation” (σωτηρία), on the grounds that, however perceivers are affected by perceptible objects, they certainly do not therein lose their sensibility (so e.g. Bowin 2011, 151–152, following Burnyeat 2001, 63). But this is

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made in [1] provides the basis for the additional refinement to the description of Ignorant.25 We may wonder why Aristotle bothers to add this refinement, especially if (as on the present telling) it has no bearing on his views about perception. The reason, I submit, is that it does bear on his views about understanding or insight. For in relation to the problems considered in the previous chapter, it is important for Aristotle that learning not be “alienation,” i.e. a proceeding wherein one becomes “other” (ἄλλος) or “ruined,” but one in which one becomes better – as it will be if learning is not a kind of “corruption” (φθορά), a movement towards privative conditions, but more a “preservation” (σωτηρία), a movement towards one’s perfections and nature. To conclude, the crucial passage begins and ends with a point about Ignorant and Idling, about the different ways in which each is affected. This is the primary point Aristotle is after in the passage, and the reason he is after it is clear: it is because in his view perceiving is being affected in something like the way in which Idling is being affected (viz. when he is busy) (DA II 5, 417b16–19). That said, the passage also makes another, secondary point, irrelevant to perception, though relevant to learning: namely, that though in a way Ignorant is affected and altered, he is not therein moved away from his “perfections and nature,” i.e. is not therein “made other” or (worse) damaged or ruined. All told, then, the passage distinguishes three types of proceeding: being changed for the worse (a kind of “corruption” [φθορά]); being changed for the better (more a “preservation” [σωτηρία]); and (for lack of a better word) being employed upon one’s appointed work. These three types are absolutely distinct, not in number, but in being: it is one thing to be changed for the worse, another to be changed for the better, a third to be “in use” or “operating” (ἐνεργοῦν).

not sufficient to show that perceiving is a kind of preservation (see above, nn.12, 15). Besides, the preservation of sensibility does not lie in perceiving – as though perceiving were “keeping the razor sharp” – but in nutrition (DA II 4, 416b17–25). 25 The wording of this refinement is admittedly confusing: its first disjunct is evocative of point [1] (“even it is not being affected” evokes “being affected is not simple”), while its second disjunct is evocative of point [2] (“there are two types of alteration” evokes “or a different kind of alteration”). But the fact remains that the refinement cannot be based in point [2]; the refinement is about Ignorant, point [2] about Idling.

part ii ANGLES

4 Affinities

I was wanting to ask what it is about human beings, according to the De Anima, that makes us such as to know the world, i.e. to perceive and to understand beings. So far, I have argued that the question is a fair one, because it is Aristotle himself who demands that a definition of (sentient and intelligent) psuche¯ reveal “by being what” it belongs to (that kind of) psuche¯ to know beings (all beings). Left is to identify and interpret his answer to this question. My guiding hypothesis will be that the nub of his answer lies in his saying that intelligence is “form of forms” and sensibility “form of perceptibles” (DA III 8, 432a2–3). This saying is admittedly enigmatic. Regarding intelligence and its objects, it appears to imply, first, that there is a “form of forms” (something that makes them all be forms, i.e. makes them intelligible), and second, that that form is intelligence itself. And ditto regarding sensibility and its objects. Taking these points together, the result would appear to be that every intelligible being is intelligent and that every perceptible being sentient – which is simply absurd. Rather than tackle this problem directly, I want to step back and try to find a footing for the ideas that appear to give rise to it. I begin in this chapter with the first idea, that there is a kind of affinity between sensibility and its objects and between intelligence and its objects: that is to say, an antecedent “likeness” (ὁμοιότης) or “community” (κοινωνία) in form. In the next chapter I try to do the same for the second idea, that the forms in question are none other than sensibility and intelligence themselves.

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4.1 preliminary observations Aristotle represents many of his predecessors as arriving at their views about psuche¯ from reflection on the fact that it is of psuche¯ to know beings. On this representation, it is this fact, together with the principle that knowledge is “of like by like,” that led them to the view that psuche¯ is an amalgam of the elements of beings. For if knowledge is of like by like, then psuche¯ must be like what can be known, while if what can be known is all beings, then psuche¯ must be “like” every being – which it would be if it were composed of all the same elements (DA I 2, 404b8–10, 17–18, 405b13–17, I 5, 409b26–28). I want to make four points about this representation. These points set the agenda for the rest of this chapter. First, although Aristotle objects to the view that psuche¯ is an amalgam of elements, in fact he accepts the considerations (albeit in qualified form) from which he represents that view as derived. This is shown, for example, by his objecting that the view does not go far enough, and by his maintaining instead, not that psuche¯ is composed of the elements of all beings, but that it (in a way) is all beings (DA I 5, 409b24–29, III 8, 431b21). Second, the principle that knowledge is of like by like is an explanatory principle; it purports to explain knowledge by appeal to a likeness – an antecedent likeness – between its subjects and objects. This is plain. Third, as we will see, analogous principles have been offered to explain analogous facts. For example, why are some things dear to others (e.g. children to parents)? Or nourished by them (e.g. animals by meat)? Why do things move where they do (e.g. fire up)? Why are some things affected by others (e.g. human beings by wine)? The reason, according to the principles in question, is that children and parents, animals and meat, fire and up, human beings and wine, are, somehow, and antecedently to the interactions or relationships in question, “alike.” Fourth, as we will also see, not only have such explanations been offered, but they too are explanations which (again, duly qualified) Aristotle accepts. No doubt we may expect the qualifications Aristotle places on these principles to vary from case to case, in ways dictated by the particulars of the phenomena in question. Still, we might wonder whether those qualifications are all of a piece: whether there is some mistake, or family of mistakes, they all correct – some point, or family of points, they all enforce. This is the question I pursue in what follows, considering in turn the principles that friendship, nutrition, movement, and affection are “like-like.” My thesis will be that there is a point which the qualifications placed on these principles are intended to enforce: namely, that the

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antecedent “likeness” that makes a thing dear to something, or move to it, or be nourished or affected by it, is not just any likeness, such as obtains “as it happened” (ὡς ἔτυχεν), incidentally or by chance, but rather a likeness in form – that is to say, in point of something in the very nature of both parties involved, which something makes them both be what by nature they are (e.g. friend and friend, feeder and food, agent and patient, and so on). Put another way, my thesis is that the point Aristotle is enforcing is simply the rule that things interact, not any old thing, with any old thing, in any old way, but “because of their community” (διὰ τὴν κοινωνίαν), i.e. each with such others in such ways as accord with their respective natures.1 Making this point will take time and may in places seem tedious. Still, I do it for a reason, which is to try to make plausible that, in setting out to identify the forms that (in Aristotle’s view) sensibility and intelligence have in common with their objects, antecedently to their use in knowing those objects, in perceiving or understanding them, I am not setting out on a wild goose chase. That there are such forms falls out of the rule, given the fact that it is of psuche¯ to know beings.

4.2 friendship (φιλία) Aristotle introduces the principle that like is “dear” (φίλον) to like into his own discussions of friendship, mostly in order to set it aside, on the grounds that it is “overly general,” derived from considerations which are “higher,” “rather natural-scientific,” and “extraneous to” the subject at hand (EE VII 1, 1235a4–31, EN VIII 1, 1155a32–b10).2 Still he does eventually revisit the principle, in order to clarify its relationship to his own theory (EE VII 5, EN VIII 8, 1159b1–24). My present interest in these discussions is for what they reveal about how he thinks this principle must be understood, if it is going to be an acceptable statement of why friends are dear to one another. One essential element of Aristotle’s own theory of friendship is the idea that friendships are not all created equal. In Aristotle’s view, people are “endearing” (φιλητόν) for different reasons: because they are useful,

1

See DA I 3, 407b17–19, also Phys. I 5, 188a31–34, Cael. IV 3, 310a20–31, GC I 7 323b30, GA II 6, 743a21–23, EN VI 1, 1139a8–11. 2 Though Aristotle’s treatments of friendship in the EE and the EN differ in many interesting ways, this does not affect the points I make here, and I draw freely on both texts. I am grateful to Allison Murphy, from whom I have learned a great deal about all this.

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because they are pleasant, or because they are good. Corresponding to these differences are different kinds of friendship. These kinds are not all on a level, not even in point of being friendships. Friendships based in goodness are friendships “primarily” (πρώτως), “properly” (κυρίως), “unqualifiedly” (ἁπλῶς) – as I will put it, they are friendships (period), without qualification, sans phrase or tout court (ΕΕ VII 2, 1236b21, 26, EN VIII 4, 1157a30–33, b5). Characteristic of these relationships is that it is our friends themselves who are dear to us; in Aristotle’s language, they are dear “in their own right” (καθ’ αὑτούς), “because of themselves” (δι’ αὑτούς), “because they are a certain kind of person” (τῷ ποιούς τινας εἶναι), “for their own sake” (ἐκείνων ἕνεκα), “insofar as they are the very persons they are” (ᾗ εἰσὶν οἵπερ εἰσίν) (EN VIII 3, 1156a10–19, EE VII 2, 1236b27–32). The reason is that the quality that makes such friends endearing (e.g. virtue) belongs to them “in their own right”; that is, it belongs to them by nature, not in the sense that they are born with it, but in the sense that it is a perfection of their nature as human beings.3 By contrast, friendships based in utility or pleasure, though indeed friendships in a way, are not friendships (period), without qualification, sans phrase or tout court; in Aristotle’s language, they are friendships “incidentally” (κατὰ συμβεβηκός), in a way “derived from” (ἀπό), “in relation to” (πρός), or “after a likeness with” (καθ’ ὁμοιότητα or τῷ ὡμοιῶσθαι) friendship tout court (ΕΕ VII 2, 1236b21, 26, EN VIII 4, 1157a30–33, b5). Characteristic of these relationships is that our friends are not dear to us “in their own right,” “for their own sake,” “insofar as they are who they are.” The reason is that the qualities that make such friends endearing – for example, their connections or their penchant for gossip – do not belong to them “in their own right”; that is, they are not perfections of their nature as human beings. Such friends, Aristotle says, are dear “incidentally,” and in a way derived from” (etc.) friendship tout court. This is because the reason they are friends, in the measure that they are friends, is that they are (incidentally) what true friends are (period), viz. one another’s good (see esp. EN VIII 4, 1157a30–33, also EN VIII 5, 1157b33–34).

3

Though I cannot pursue this here, something similar is true of the friendship, for example, between parents and children (EN VIII 12, 1161b18, 27–31, 1162a4–7, cp. EE VII 3, 1238b15–31). These latter relationships, though not based in virtue, are based in a kind of goodness, inasmuch as living itself is good (EN IX 9, 1170a19–21, cp. EN IX 7, 1168a5–6). (For the idea that friendship tout court is not limited to the perfectly virtuous, see Cooper 1999, 317–320.)

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The contrast between this way of thinking and the principle that friendship is “like to like” is considerable. To start with, the principle says that friends are endearing to one another for always the same reason, because they are alike. In so doing, it puts all friendships on a level – makes all of them “equally” friendships – no matter how superficial or shortlived. Yes, the principle does allow that some friendships run deeper and last longer than others; still it implies that, when friendships do last long or run deep, that is only by the by – is not especially connected to or typical of friendship as such, is not characteristic of friendship par excellence. Indeed, the principle implies that friendship is not as such something precious, a virtue, a perfection of human nature; it implies this by making the cause of friendship something found in even the most casual and fleeting attachments. In short, one may be forgiven for hearing the principle as essentially debunking of friendship: as making friendship out to be a kind of fetish – an unintelligent, unaccountable attraction to whomever we happen to resemble, for as long as we happen to resemble them. These problems notwithstanding, Aristotle does find something in the principle worth salvaging; indeed, he allows that, in a way, in every case, like is dear to like, i.e. because it is like. We may anticipate that this rescueoperation is going to require some “spin.” My interest in this spin is for what it reveals about how Aristotle thinks about the causes of friendship. What I hope to bring out is that he thinks that in all friendships – albeit in different ways and to varying degrees – friends are dear to one another because of an antecedent likeness in form. This likeness explains their mutual affection, because it is sharing a form that makes friends useful, pleasant, or good for one another. Here the key text is Eudemian Ethics VII 5. (I note in advance that Aristotle’s points in this text are often elusive and also that it is somewhat tiresome drawing them out. The process is of value, if it is, not for what it reveals about friendship, but as exhibiting an instance of a broader pattern in Aristotle’s thinking.) The task of Eudemian Ethics VII 5 is to revisit the principle that like is dear to like, and also the competing principle that contrary is dear to contrary – he will salvage it too! – in light of Aristotle’s own theory. The principles are taken in turn, beginning with like-like. The gist is clear enough: in a way, being attracted to what is “like” just is being attracted to what is pleasant or good. But though the accompanying illustrations are tolerably concrete, the idea itself, baldly stated, is rather obscure: The like reduces to the pleasant and to the good. Both because the good is simple, whereas the bad is multiform, and also because the good man is always alike and

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does not change in character, whereas the wicked and foolish are nothing like in the evening what they were in the morning. (That is why the wicked, unless they strike a deal, are not friends to themselves but at odds; and friendship that is not steadfast is not friendship.) So in this way the like is dear, because the good is like. But also in accord with the pleasant; for the same things are pleasant to those who are alike and each is by nature pleasant to itself. That is why their voices and characters and society are most pleasant to one another, even for the other animals; and in this way it is possible even for the wicked to love one another: “bad is welded to bad by pleasure.” (EE VII 5, 1239b10–22)

The “reduction” of like to good is here effected by the association of good with simple (ἁπλοῦν) and unchanging or steadfast (ὅμοιον ἀεί, βέβαιον). Underlying both associations is the idea that goodness is “determinate” (ὡρισμένον) (cp. EN IX 9, 1170a21–22). This emerges from the contrast with bad, wicked, and foolish: the bad (we are told) is “multiform” (πολύμορφον), the wicked and foolish “nothing like in the evening what they were in the morning”4 – that is, they are all this without straying thereby from their badness, wickedness, or folly. We might wonder how these qualities can tolerate such variety and change in the objects they belong to. The reason, presumably, is that “having” these “qualities,” from the perspective taken in this passage, is simply not having their positive counterparts – a feat which may be pulled off any number of ways.5 Goodness, by contrast, though different for different things, is in each case something positive, definite, fixed, such as does not tolerate this sort of variety and change. This is important; it highlights an essential point: namely, that if true friends are dear because they are alike, the likeness that causes their mutual affection is not any old likeness, such as might vary or contain multitudes, but something simple, something positive, something determinate and good. This something (e.g. virtue) belongs to both parties both in fact and by nature: “in fact,” in that it is something they both have, and “by nature,” in that it is a perfection of their nature as human beings. Such friends are dear to one another because they are one another’s good; they are one another’s good because they are alike in some definite quality which is a good of them both.

Cp. Plato, Lysis 214c–d: the wicked “are never even like their own selves, but are capricious and unstable.” 5 Cp. EN II 6, 1106b28–35: “While there are many ways of going wrong – for the bad is of the unlimited, as the Pythagoreans conjectured, but the good is of the limited – there is one way of going right. That is why the one is easy, the other difficult (easy to miss the mark, difficult to hit) . . . ‘for though men are good in one way (ἁπλῶς), they are bad in all kinds of ways (παντοδαπῶς).’” 4

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I turn now to the “reduction” of being like to being pleasant, which is made to rest on two points: that the same things are pleasant to those who are alike and that “each is by nature pleasant to itself” (EE VII 5, 1239b17– 18). The first point is straightforward enough: if you and I are alike in a quality which makes pastries pleasing to me, it is small wonder if pastries are also pleasing to you. Note though that this by itself is no reason to expect me to be pleasing to you. For that we require also the second point: “each is by nature pleasant to itself.” For in that case a quality which makes me pleasing to me – to draw it out, a quality which makes the pastry-lover in me pleasing to the pastry-lover in me – will also be a quality of yours, in which case small wonder if that quality makes me pleasing to you too. The point to notice in this exercise is that, even here, the cause of our mutual affection is a definite quality with a nature all its own. It is true that this quality, though it belongs to both of us in fact, belongs to neither of us by nature (unless it is a part or perfection of human nature to love pastries). That is why friendships based in a shared love of pastries are not friendships (period), sans phrase or tout court; it is why what is dear to me is not you, but (so to speak) the pastry-lover in you. But even so the fact remains: in the qualified way in which we are dear to one another, our mutual affection is due to some definite quality or form (in our example, to a love of pastries). It remains to consider briefly Aristotle’s handling of the opposite principle, that contrary is dear to contrary. Though initially Aristotle fits this to friendships based in utility (EE VII 5, 1239b22–29), he ends up arguing that, there too, friends are dear “because of the good”: But in a way even love of contraries is of the good. For [contraries] desire one another because of the mean; for they desire one other as tallies, because in this way from both there arises one mean. Further [love] is of the contrary incidentally, but in itself of the mean; for contraries desire not one another but the mean. For if having got too cold they are heated, they are restored to the mean, and if having got too hot they are cooled, and likewise in other cases; but if not, they are always longing (lit. ἀεὶ ἐν ἐπιθυμίᾳ), not in the mean. (But the man in the mean enjoys without longing things pleasant by nature, while the rest enjoy everything that drives them out of their natural state . . . That is why they sometimes enjoy the unlike, e.g. the stiff the witty and the sharp the easy-going; for they are restored to the mean by one another.) It is incidentally, then, as we said, that it is contraries that are dear, and on account of the good. (EE VII 5, 1239b29–39, 1240a1–4, cp. EN VIII 8, 1159b19–23)

This passage attempts to reduce love of contraries to love of the good (and thereby to love of what is like). We begin with an attraction which, in Aristotelian terms, is prima facie unaccountable (unaccountable, because self-destructive [cp. Phys. I 9, 192a19–20]); this attraction is then made

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intelligible by the suggestion that what both parties are really seeking is “restoration to the mean,” i.e. the good of them both. This good, though it belongs to neither party in fact, belongs to both parties by nature; this circumstance is invoked to explain why “opposites attract.”6 To sum up and conclude: Aristotle allows the principle that friends are dear to one another because they are alike – provided that this principle is understood in a very particular way.7 For as stated the principle leaves it unclear whether the likeness that makes friends dear to one another is just any likeness that chances to hold between them, or rather something simple and determinate, some definite standard or mark, some good, in fact, which one way or another – whether in fact or by nature or both in fact and by nature – belongs to them both. In leaving this unclear, the principle also threatens to obscure why friends of any kind are dear to one another. In friendships based in goodness, where friends are dear to one another sans phrase or tout court, the cause of their mutual affection is some definite nature or quality belonging to both friends both in fact and by nature. In friendships of pleasure, where friends are dear to one another only incidentally, here too the cause of their mutual affection (such as it is) is some definite nature or quality (e.g. arrogance), again belonging to both friends – in fact, not by nature – and making them dear to one another, incidentally, insofar as and for so long as they happen to be possessed of that quality. Finally, in friendships of utility, where the rule is “opposites attract” – even here the reason friends are dear to one another (to the extent that they are) lies in some definite nature or form, which again belongs to both friends (by nature, not in fact), and which makes them incidentally dear to one another, insofar and for so long as they stand in a situation of mutual need. The result is that in all friendships friends are dear to one another thanks to an antecedent likeness in some quality or form. This form is what makes them dear to one another, by making them (as the case may be) useful, pleasant, or good.

Aristotle does say that most enjoy what drives them out of “their natural state” (τῆς φύσει ἕξεως). But since the state they are thereby restored to is the mean, the “natural” state, here, must be a state “natural” to them insofar as they are not “in the mean.” (Cp. EN VII 14, 1154b12–14: “The melancholic in nature are constantly in need of cure; for their body is ever in torment thanks to the mix [διὰ τὴν κρᾶσιν], and they are always under the influence of violent desire; but pleasure drives out pain, both the contrary pleasure and any chance pleasure, if it be strong.” Here the state “natural” to the melancholic – i.e. natural to them qua melancholic – is melancholy.) 7 Cp. Plato Tim. 29d–30a, Laws IV, 716c–d, in which the same principle is similarly reinterpreted. 6

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4.3 nutrition (τροφή) I have been trying to bring out the importance of form in Aristotle’s appropriation of the principle that like is dear to like. I now turn to nutrition and the principle that like is nourished by like. This too, appropriately qualified, is a principle Aristotle accepts (DA II 4, 416b6–7). What are these qualifications? What lies behind them? For Aristotle, nutrition is the special prerogative of living things, closely allied with reproduction and “increase” or (perhaps better) “growth” (αὔξησις) (DA II 4, 416b9). For the increase characteristic of living things is not simply a matter of getting bigger, which might continue indefinitely; there is a “limit” (πέρας) to a living thing’s size, and so too to its increase, namely, its psuche¯, i.e. its substance and form (DA II 4, 416a9–14). Increase, then, for living things, is an activity of growth, i.e. development, which has as its end the perfect realization of their nature or form. Closely connected with this are both nutrition, whereby a living thing preserves itself, and reproduction, whereby it lives on, “not itself but such as itself” (οὐκ αὐτὸ ἀλλ’ οἷον αὐτό), partaking thereby (so far as it is able) in the eternal and the divine (DA II 4, 415a23–b7). These activities – growth, nutrition, reproduction – are all united by a common goal, which is to achieve, maintain, and perpetuate a thing’s distinctive form of being; they also all have the same principle or cause, psuche¯. It will be convenient then to consider these activities together. The main qualification Aristotle puts on the principle that these activities are “like-like” is that things are nourished by, or grow by the addition of, or reproduce out of, what at the outset is like them only potentially, though in the end it is like them in fulfillment. For example, speaking specifically of nutrition, he says, “though qua undigested, contraries are nourished by contraries, qua digested, like [is nourished] by like” (DA II 4, 416b6–7). The distinction between nutriment in its digested and undigested forms is a distinction between nutriment that is potentially and in fulfillment such as the living thing itself; in insisting on this distinction, Aristotle is taking care of the point that nutrition involves a certain transformation – not on the part of living things, but on the part of the nutriment by which they are nourished (DA II 4, 416a34–b3).8 In particular, he is taking care of the point that nutrition involves a transformation of nutriment into something of the living thing itself.

8

I leave aside the question of whether and in what sense Aristotle thinks nutriment in its final form, e.g. blood, is or is not part of a living creature itself (on this topic see e.g. Frey 2007 and 2015).

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This point requires, not only that nutriment is so transformed, but also and more pointedly that it is thereby moved in the direction of its fulfillment: for nutriment, Aristotle says, is “relative to living things” (πρὸς ἔμψυχόν), and that “not incidentally,” but in its own right or as such (DA II 4, 416b11). The reason it is important for Aristotle to take care of this point is that it is part and parcel of what it is for nutrition to be the phenomenon it is (DA II 4, 416a34–b3, GC I 5, 321b35–322a4). Similar remarks apply to growth and reproduction.9 For example, in Generation and Corruption II 6, Aristotle criticizes Empedocles’ view that the elements of which bodies are ultimately composed are immutable: Nor would there even be growth, according to Empedocles, except by addition. For fire grows by fire, “and whereas earth increases its own frame, aether, aether.” And these are added. But it seems not to be in this way that growing things grow. (GC II 6, 333a35–b3)

Here we have increase, by addition of like to like, but without transformation; the result, in Aristotle’s view, is not properly speaking growth at all. Again, turning now to generation, he continues: And more difficult by far is to account for natural generation. For everything that comes to be by nature comes to be always or for the most part, and things that come to be outside what is always and for the most part do so by chance and by luck. What then is the cause of man from man, either always or for the most part, and of fire from fire, not olive? Or is it that if they are put together thus we get bone? For by what he says, it is not when they come together as it happened that anything comes to be, but [when they come together] in a certain proportion (λόγος). What then is the cause of these things? Surely not fire, at any rate, or earth. Nor indeed even Love and Strife; for the one is cause of association, the other of dissociation. The cause is the substance of each, not “only mixing and separating of things mixed,” as he says. And chance is the “name put on these,” not proportion (λόγος).10 For it is possible for things to be mixed as it happened. So, it is being thus that is cause of natural beings, and this is the nature of each, about which he says nothing. Therefore he says nothing about nature. Moreover this is also the well and good. But he praises only the mix. (GC II 6, 333b3–20)

9

For differences among nutrition, growth, and generation, see GC I 5, 322a4–16 (growth and generation), 322a20–28 (growth and nutrition), DA II 4, 416b9–17 (nutrition, growth, and generation). 10 The reference is to DK B 8, which is quoted correctly – with “nature” (φύσις) in place of “proportion” (λόγος) – at Met. Δ 4, 1015a1–3. For the collocation of “nature” (so-called) and “mix,” see too the fragment of Parmenides (DK B16) quoted at Met. Γ 5, 1009b22– 25: “For as on each occasion is the mix (κρᾶσιν) of much-bent limbs, such is the mind of men.”

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Prominent in this passage, and made salient by its resonance with themes prominent in Aristotle’s thinking about friendship, is the emphasis on definiteness, substance, proportion, nature, and goodness. It is true that, here, Aristotle is not criticizing the specific idea that generation is “like from like”; as noted, his topic is difficulties that follow from positing immutable elements. Still, he regards that idea as of a piece with the specific view he is criticizing here; this is clear from his account of it in another passage, describing the view of Anaxagoras: [Beings] come to be from beings, i.e. things already present, though imperceptible to us because of the smallness of their bulk. That’s why they say that everything has been mixed in everything, because they saw everything coming to be from everything. But things [they say] appear differently and are addressed [as] different from one another from being predominant thanks to their great number in the mix of indefinitely many. For nothing, they say, is purely and entirely pale or dark or sweet or bone or flesh, but what each has most of, this is held to be the nature of the thing. (Phys. I 4, 187a36–b7)

The view described here reduces coming to be to separation out of a “mix”; in essence this is also the view of Empedocles (see Phys. I 4, 187a20–23), with the difference that, for Anaxagoras, the natures (socalled) of the beings that result were contained in the mix all along. But the two views are of a piece in denying that coming to be involves any genuine transformation of the materials it begins from. The result is that what passes for “nature” is no nature at all, being nothing more than the chance predominance of one, or proportion among all, of their elementary ingredients. The reason this predominance or proportion is no nature is that, being random and fluctuating, it lacks the definiteness, stability, and goodness that are the hallmarks of nature, form, and substance. Collecting these points, the upshot is that any satisfactory explanation of nutrition, growth, and reproduction must respect the fact that these processes transform their materials or instruments into something of some definite nature or form: indeed, not just any nature or form, but the very substance and good, not just of living creatures themselves, but also of those materials or instruments. Aristotle concedes that, in a way, this fact may be explained by the principles that nutrition, growth, and reproduction are “like from like,” provided we specify that the likeness in question is in some definite form belonging to both parties by nature, a form realized fully in fact only when these processes are completed. These qualifications are important, because they are a condition on these processes even being the processes they are, namely, nutrition, growth, and reproduction. Where there is no real transformation, but “only mixing

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and separating of things mixed,” there is no real nutrition, no real growth, no real generation – indeed, no real nature or form at all, but only “chance” (τυχή). This, in Aristotle’s view, is the real problem with attempts to explain these phenomena by appeal to the principles that nutrition, growth, and reproduction are “like from like.” Yes, duly qualified, such principles do reveal why living things are nourished (etc.) from particular kinds of thing; it is because of some definite form, common both to the living creature itself and to its nutriment (etc.), not incidentally, but in their own right or as such. This form, which belongs in fulfillment to living creatures themselves, belongs potentially to the nutriment by which they are nourished and grow, as it belongs potentially to the materials out of which they reproduce. Nevertheless, these same principles, as wielded by Aristotle’s predecessors, without these qualifications, threaten not only to obscure the cause of nutrition, growth, and reproduction – namely, psuche¯ – but also to deny, by implication, that these processes actually are the processes they are: namely, activities of living things wherein they achieve, maintain, or perpetuate their distinctive form of being.

4.4 movement (φορά) I now turn to the principle that natural movement is “like to like.” Aristotle discusses this principle in De Caelo IV 3, in the course of developing his theory of heaviness and lightness. The theory is designed to explain why some bodies naturally move up, others down, others both (some kinds of wood, for example, move down in air but up in water). The theory explains the natural movement of composite bodies in terms of the simple bodies of which they are composed, whose natural movement in turn is explained as being towards their own place or form (Cael. IV 4, 311a29–33, IV 3, 310a31–b1). This identification of place with form is admittedly difficult; Aristotle negotiates this difficulty by first identifying a body’s place with the “boundary” (ὅρος) or “limit” (πέρας) of its surround, then associating the very idea of a boundary or limit with form, and finally maintaining that the simple bodies are of a nature to be in the places to which they naturally move. The result is that the movement of these bodies, each to its own place, is movement in the direction of its own fulfillment, precisely insofar as it is the kind of body it is, i.e. heavy or light (either “absolutely” [ἁπλῶς] or “relatively” [πρὸς ἄλλο]) (Cael. IV 3, 310a31–b1, 311a3–6, 4, 312a12–21, cp. Phys. VIII 4, 255b14–17).

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Aristotle claims that precisely this result is captured by the principle that movement is “like to like,” but only provided it is understood in a particular way: And it is rather in this way that one should take what the ancients said, that like moves to like. For this does not hold in every way; for if one were to transport the earth to where the moon is now, each of its parts will not move to it, but to wherever [they move] even now. On the whole, then, while this holds of necessity for [bodies that are] alike and undifferentiated [and moved] by the same movement, so that whither some one part is of a nature to move, thither the whole [will move] too, still, it is because place is the boundary of the container, and because the extremity and the middle contain everything that moves up and down, and because this in a way turns out to be the form of the contained, that moving to its own place is moving to its like. (Cael. IV 3, 310b1–11)

This passage qualifies and corrects the principle that natural movement is “like to like.” It concedes that on the whole it is true, even necessary, that bodies that are simple and alike and moved by the same movement will congregate in the same place, so that particular masses of such bodies will naturally travel to the place in fact occupied by “the whole.” Nonetheless it insists that it would be a mistake to think that particular masses of such bodies move naturally to whatever place happens to be occupied by the wholes they are like – as though, were the bulk of the earth somehow forcibly transported to the place of the moon, such portions as remain would naturally move there. Movement up and down is not “of just anything, to just anywhere, by just anything”; it is rather the movement of what is potentially light or heavy, by its buoyancy or weight, toward its own place, viz. up or down, towards “the extremity” or “the middle”: that is, towards what is, in a way, its very own form (Cael. IV 3, 310a31– b1). In short, the reason heavy bodies move up and light bodies move down is not that that is where like bodies happen to have congregated, but rather that, for such bodies, being up or down is the fulfillment of their very own being. That is why “to ask why fire moves up and earth down is the same as to ask why the healable, if it is moved and changed insofar as it is healable, arrives at health and not pallor” (Cael. IV 3, 310b16–19). The reason is that fire is light and earth is heavy and “this is what it is to be light and heavy, the one being defined by up, the other by down” (Phys. VIII 4, 255b15–17, cp. Cael. IV 1, 308a29–31). We see, then, that Aristotle’s correction of the principle that natural movement is “like to like” serves to clarify that bodies are moved naturally, not just anywhere that happens to be occupied by their like, but towards the place that belongs to them “by nature,” which place is (in

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a way) their very form, inasmuch as being there constitutes fulfillment for them as the kinds of body they are. As handled by his predecessors, the principle threatens to obscure the real cause of natural movement, namely, the nature or form of the preponderant element in the makeup of the bodies in question; it also threatens to deny, by implication, that the phenomena in question actually are the phenomena they are: namely, natural movement, whereby bodies complete their “coming to be” and finally are, fully and completely, what they are in their own nature (Cael. IV 3, 311a1–3).

4.5 affection (πάσχειν) Lastly, I turn to the principle that being affected is like by like. This too, appropriately qualified, is a principle Aristotle accepts. Qualified how, and why? Aristotle discusses this principle in Generation and Corruption I 7. He introduces the principle as expressing one of two seemingly contradictory theories of qualitative interaction. On the one hand is the view that it is “the unlike” or “differences” that “are such as to affect and be affected by one another”; this, Aristotle says, is the view of most of his predecessors, which they maintained on the grounds that where things are like one another, neither is more liable to affect than be affected (GC I 7, 323b3– 7). On the other hand is the view that it is things that are “the same” and alike that affect and are affected by one another; this, Aristotle says, is the view of Democritus, which he maintained on the grounds that there is no room for things that are different to be affected by one another (GC I 7, 323b11–15). Aristotle’s own view is that in a way both are right: each side has laid hold of a piece of a phenomenon that needs to be considered as a whole (GC I 7, 323b15–18). Things that affect and are affected by one another are alike and the same in “kind” or “genus” (γένει), but unlike and different in “form” or “species” (εἴδει) (GC I 7, 323b29–324a9). Now, despite siding with both parties, it is clear that Aristotle’s heart is with the majority; for him, the reason things are affected by what is like them in genus is that they are affected by contraries (or intermediates between contraries) and these are always in the same genus (GC I 7, 324a1–3). Nor is this partiality difficult to explain. The reason Aristotle thinks things are affected by contraries is that, for him, being affected is a kind of “corruption” (φθορά) – a falling away from one’s nature – and it is only insofar as things are contrary to one another that they “drive one another out of their own nature” (GC I 7, 323b28–29). Indeed, precisely

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this latter point lies behind his correction of the view that unlike is affected by unlike; for it is not just anything that affects or is affected by just anything, nor things that are unlike in just any way or every way, “except perhaps incidentally,” but things that are unlike in a very specific and definite way, viz. by exhibiting contrariety (GC I 7, 323b24–29). It is this that requires agent and patient to be “alike,” again not just in any old way, but in particular in genus (GC I 7, 324a2–9). That said, it would be a mistake to think that this is the full story; there is another piece of the phenomenon not yet in view which still needs considering. For being affected is not just a kind of corruption; in being affected, things are not only driven out of their own nature, they are also brought into another nature, contrary to the one they leave behind, and this is not corruption but rather its opposite, “coming to be” (γένεσις) (GC I 7, 324a9–14). This is the piece seized upon by those who said being affected is like by like, as Aristotle explains in the following passage: And indeed it makes sense that those who do not say the same things both nevertheless make contact with the reality (ἅπτεσθαι τῆς φύσεως). For we say sometimes that the subject is affected (e.g. the man is healed and warmed and cooled and the rest in the same way), but other times that the cold is warmed and the sick healed; and both are true . . . For there is a way in which he is affected as matter and a way in which [he is affected] as contrary. So, while those looking to the former thought that agent and patient must have something the same, those looking to the other thought the contrary. (GC I 7, 324a14–b4)

Here Aristotle says that those who thought agent and patient must be alike had their eye on the way in which “the subject” is affected, namely, “as matter.” But this is to focus, not on the way in which (say) the man being affected is ceasing to be something (e.g. sick), but on the way in which he is coming to be something (e.g. healthy): “when the agent is present, what is affected is becoming something, though when the states are present it is no longer becoming but then is” (GC I 7, 324b16–17). And the reason that this focus, on the man as becoming something, is a focus on him “as matter” is that it is a focus on him, not as contrary to what is affecting him, but as capable of being such as it is: “for matter is equally so to speak the same [matter] of either of the things opposed, just as though it were a genus” (GC I 7, 324b6–7). In this way and for this reason, Aristotle thinks, agent and patient must be alike: inasmuch as the two not only cease to be unlike, but also come to be like, patients must be at the outset both like and unlike the agents they are affected by (like them potentially, unlike them in fulfillment). For “in general the agent likens the patient to itself. For agent and patient are contrary to one another, and coming to be

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is into the contrary, so that the patient must of necessity change into the agent, since it is thus that coming to be will be into the contrary” (GC I 7, 324a10–14).11 In short, Aristotle sees the same merits and deficiencies in the principle that being affected is like by like that he sees in the other principles we have been considering. This is most explicit in his correction of the opposite principle, that things are affected by what is unlike; there he says that things are not affected by what is unlike them in just any or every way, but by what is unlike them in a definite and determinate way, viz. by what is their contrary. But the same correction is in order for the principle that things are affected by their like; they are not affected by what is like them in just any or every way, but rather by what is like them in genus: that is, by something like them in some definite form, which something will make them be (what they are already capable of being) of that form too.

4.6 conclusion I have been considering Aristotle’s views on a variety of questions: To what are things dear? By what are they nourished? Where do they move to? By what are they affected? These questions, though seemingly unrelated, are connected in having all been given, by some thinker or other, a single answer: what they are like, and that because they are like. Moved by the thought that, subject to certain qualifications, which we may expect to vary with the particular questions being considered, Aristotle accepts this answer, I have wanted to see these qualifications together, in the hope of catching their common drift. It is my hope that the foregoing discussion has brought out that there is such a drift: namely, that the likeness that makes a thing dear to something and so on is not just any likeness, such as might obtain between them “as it happened,” “incidentally” or “by chance,” but rather one that holds of them both “in themselves” or “by nature.” This point, I have argued, is important to Aristotle for two closely connected reasons. The first has to do with the reality of the phenomenon in question: that is, with whether anything, not “incidentally” but “in its own right,” really is dear – not dear “in a way” (τι), but dear (period) (ἁπλῶς) – or really is nourished or affected, or really does move naturally, to or by or towards anything (again, not incidentally, but in its own right or as such). For Aristotle, 11

See also Chapter 3, Section 1.

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the answer to this question is decidedly “yes”; indeed, were it otherwise, nothing would be dear or nourished or affected or moved at all – not even incidentally (cp. Phys. II 6, 198a5–9). The second reason the point is important has to do with the “cause” of the phenomenon in question: that is, with whether things are dear (etc.) merely “as it happened,” that is by chance, or rather there is some definite reason or cause of things being dear to one another and so on. For Aristotle, there most assuredly is some such reason or cause, and in each case it is something simple, determinate, uniform, some unchanging form or good which belongs to both parties to the phenomenon in question. This form, though it may belong to one party only potentially, belongs to both parties “by nature,” in themselves or in their own right. Only thus will these phenomena be facts that have causes.

5 Measures

I was asking what it is about human beings that makes us such as to know the world. My hypothesis was that the key to understanding Aristotle’s answer to this question lies in the idea that our cognitive powers – sensibility and intelligence – are forms of their respective objects (DA III 8, 432a2–3). But since this idea is (to say the least) enigmatic, I thought it would be well to begin by trying to establish it on a broader footing. In the last chapter I considered one part of this idea: namely, that there is a kind of affinity, an antecedent “community” or “likeness,” between sensibility and its objects and between intelligence and its objects. I suggested that this part of the idea is but the expression of a general rule: namely, that things interact, not any old thing, with any old thing, in any old way, but each with such others and in such ways as accord with their respective natures. But though this is something, it is not the whole story. Still left to consider is the more particular idea that, in the case of cognition or knowledge, the “forms” in which these affinities are based are sensibility and intelligence themselves. My object in this chapter is to find a footing for this more particular idea. I will approach this task via Aristotle’s notion of “measure” (μέτρον). I am drawn to this approach by the consideration that Aristotle thinks of sensibility and intelligence as “principles” of knowledge (lit. that “with which primarily” [ᾧ πρώτως] we perceive and understand), and that he thinks of such principles as “measures,” and that he thinks of measures and their objects as always “akin” (συγγενές).1 What I hope to show is 1

For psuche¯ as principle of vital activity, see DA I 4, 408b13–15, II 2, 414a12–13, II 4, 415b13–14, 21–28, 416b20–22; for sensibility and intelligence as principles of perception

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that, for Aristotle, measures are not only akin but also conceptually prior to the objects known by them, in that what it is for those objects to be the particular sorts of object they are is for them to be related in particular ways to those measures. Put another way, measures enter into the very idea of the objects known by them; they are “units” or “standards” in relation to which particular sorts of those objects are defined. In this way, I will suggest, measures are “forms of the forms” of the objects they measure (cp. DA III 8, 432a2–3). By this I mean that “forms” (εἴδη) of a “kind” (γένος) are the particular sorts of form that they are thanks to their relation(s) to some measure(s). Ultimately, I will want to say the same about sensibility and intelligence: that each enters into the very idea of the objects known by its means.2 But my thesis in this chapter is that this is how Aristotle thinks about measures quite generally: namely, as “units” or “standards” which are part and parcel of the very idea of the objects known by their means.

5.1 measures of quantity The notion of “measure,” in Aristotle’s view, applies in the first instance, or strictly speaking, to principles of the knowledge of quantity – to “that with which” we know “how many” (πόσα) or “how much” (πόσον) something is. But by extension, he says, the notion is also applied to principles of the knowledge of quality – to “that with which” we know “of what sort” (ποῖον) something is (Met. I 1, 1053b4–8, picking up 1052b18–20, cp. 1052b33–35, 1053a18–21). I begin in this section with measures of quantity. How does Aristotle think of these measures? How do they function in the knowledge of quantity? How are they related to the quantities they measure?3 For Aristotle, it is characteristic of quantities to be divisible into parts: for example, numbers into units, lengths into lengths, areas into areas, times into times, and so on (Met. Δ 13, cp. Cat. 6). Measures then define

and understanding, see DA II 6, 418a19–20, III 2, 425b12–13, III 4, 429a23; for principles of cognition as measures, and for measures and their objects as always “akin,” see Met. I 1, 1052b25, 1053a24–25. 2 As noted earlier, the details will be rather different for the case of sensibility of intelligence, in ways dictated by the nature of the case. 3 For a recent and different approach to this topic, taking its bearings from modern theories of measurement, see now Sattler 2017. For better or worse, I myself have relied more on (my understanding of) portions of Plato’s Philebus and Statesman. Also helpful in getting my bearings have been Suppes 2016 (cited by Sattler 2017), Coope 2011, and Castelli 2018.

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certain kinds of these parts: in particular, kinds into which quantities are divisible without remainder.4 Note that this is not to say that every quantity is thus divisible into parts of a single kind; for example, Aristotle treats spoken language as a kind of quantity, but says that the parts into which it is divided are syllables long and short (Cat. 6, 4b32–35). But even allowing for this, still, if quantities are divisible into parts, and measures define certain kinds of these parts, it looks as though measuring the quantity of something will be determining how many parts (so defined) it is divisible into: for example, how many dozens of eggs, or yards of wool, or long and short syllables. Assuming, then, that knowledge of quantity is knowledge of how much, and that this is known when a quantity has been measured, it looks as though knowledge of quantities involves knowledge of numbers: namely, numbers of parts they are divisible into (e.g. three dozens of eggs, or 100 yards of wool, or two long syllables and one short one). In that case we may provisionally say that one way measures function in the knowledge of quantity is by defining the units that the numbers involved in knowledge of how much are numbers of. This much, I think, is relatively straightforward. There are other more complicated matters I have deliberately avoided going into. For example, the parts into which quantities are divisible are often possessed of a kind of order: in some cases, relative position, in other cases, some other kind of order (Cat. 6). Does knowledge of “quantity as such” (τὸ ποσὸν ᾗ ποσόν) involve knowledge of that order? Again: Aristotle says that quantity as such is known “either by number or by one” (Met. I 1, 1052b20–21). What does he mean? Is the idea just that though sometimes we count by ones, other times we count by some number (e.g. eggs by the dozen)? Or is it rather that quantities are known, not only by the ones we count by, but also by the numbers we count to (cp. Phys. IV 12, 220b20–21)? Or are these suggestions not so different, inasmuch as we may also count by the numbers we count to, (e.g.) because twelve makes a dozen? I leave these questions open because I do not think they matter for the points I want to insist on, which are three. First, knowledge of quantity involves knowledge of numbers; for knowledge of quantity (how much) is knowing how many parts of some kind(s) of part a thing is divisible into (in the limit, if it is not so divisible, its quantity is one, for example, one

4

Cp. Phys. IV 12, 221a1–4: “[Time] measures motion by defining (ὁρίσαι) a motion which will measure entirely (καταμετρήσει) the whole, just as the cubit [measures] length by defining a magnitude which will measure out (ἀναμετρήσει) the whole.” Cp. Phys. VI 7, 237b28–33, 238a12–16.

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dozen or one cubit).5 Second, measures of quantity are, not any one of the parts a thing is divisible into (e.g. one of the dozens in three dozen, or of the cubits in four cubits), but rather kinds which subsume those parts and define the numbers involved in knowledge of how much – that is, which define what those numbers are so many of (e.g. dozens or cubits). Finally, and this is the main point, it follows from this that some measure or measures will be part and parcel of the very idea of every particular quantity. For if knowing how much is knowing how many, then being so much will be being so many – that is, so many parts of a kind defined by some measure (e.g. so many inches or ounces or pints). Though my own view is that this last point is perfectly straightforward, there is an objection that it will be clarifying to have raised and set aside. The objection is that it gets Aristotle’s view of the relation between measure and measured exactly backwards. For though Aristotle does hold that measure and measured are a kind of correlatives, he insists that they are correlatives of a peculiar type.6 What is peculiar about this type, by contrast with correlatives like double and half, master and slave, agent and patient, and so on, is a kind of asymmetry. Specifically, it is not true, of both members of each pair, that each “is what it is in relation to the other” – or, as Aristotle sometimes puts it, correlatives of this type are not correlatives “per se” (Met. Δ 15, 1021a29 ff. , I 6, 1056b32–34).7 To illustrate, Aristotle maintains that the sense of sight, geometry, and the inch are each what they are – that is, a particular sense, a particular science, and a particular unit or measure – “of” or “in relation to” their respective objects, namely color, shape, and length. But he also maintains that the converse is not true: that is, color, shape, and length are not each what they are – that is, particular kinds of quality or quantity – “of” or “in relation to” the sense of sight, the science of geometry, and the inch. For Aristotle, then, though color enters into the very idea of the sense of sight, as shape enters into the very idea of geometry, and length into the very idea 5

Aristotle allows that quantities may be known more or less exactly. He maintains that they are known most exactly when it is known the number of “least” parts they are divisible into. He also allows that, for continuous quantities, this “least” must be relative, for example, to sensibility (Met. I 1, 1052b35–1053a8). (I leave aside such complications as may arise from his interesting remarks about the measure of speed at Met. I 1, 1053a8–12.) 6 Other examples include scientific understanding and its objects (ἐπιστήμη and τὰ ἐπιστητά) and sensibility and its objects (αἴσθησις and τὰ αἰσθητά). 7 Aristotle also says, of scientific understanding and its objects (ἐπιστήμη and τὰ ἐπιστητά), and of sensibility and its objects (αἴσθησις and τὰ αἰσθητά), that they are not “simultaneous by nature” (Cat. 7, 7b23–8a12). But here he appears to be after a different point, as seems confirmed by Met. I 6, 1057a7–12.

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of the inch, the converse is not true; the sense of sight does not enter into the very idea of color, nor the science of geometry into that of shape, nor the inch into that of length. And this seems to flat-out contradict the point I was just making, which was that measures of quantity enter into the very idea of the quantities they measure. The answer to this objection is that when I say that measures are “part and parcel of” or “enter into” the very idea of the quantities they measure, my point is not that they are conceptually prior to the kind of quantities they measure: for example, the inch to length, or the ounce to weight, or the pint to volume. My point is rather that they are thus prior to certain particular quantities of those kinds: for example, the inch to one inch, two inches, three inches, and so on, and similarly for the ounce and the pint.8 This point, it seems to me, is incontestable in point of fact. It is also perfectly compatible with the doctrine that measures are posterior, conceptually, to the kinds that subsume the particular quantities they measure. The relevance of this distinction – between kinds of quantity (e.g. length, volume) and particular quantities of those kinds (e.g. three inches or four pints) – can be shown from Aristotle’s use of it in Metaphysics I 6. This chapter is given to certain difficulties arising from the point that many “is opposed” (ἀντίκειται) both to one and to few. Aristotle’s solution of these difficulties may be thought of as coming in two stages. Stage one lies in distinguishing between two senses of “many” – between “many” in the sense of “lots” (lit. πλῆθος ἔχον ὑπεροχήν), as in “I have many things to do today,” and “many” in the sense of “a number” (lit. ὡς ἀριθμός), i.e. more than one – and in observing that while in the former sense many is opposite to few, in the latter sense it is opposite to one (Met. I 6, 1056b14– 20). But though this would appear to be the end of it, there is an apparent problem with this solution. The problem is that although Aristotle had earlier said that one is contrary to many, he also maintains that one is (not contrary but) correlative to many, on the grounds that one stands to number as measure to measured (Met. I 3, 1054a20–29, I 6, 1056b32– 1057a1). Aristotle anticipates this problem, and side-steps it, by insisting on a further distinction, this time between “plurality” (πλῆθος) and “number” (ἀριθμός). For plurality, Aristotle says, is not number, but rather the “quasi-genus” (οἷον γένος) of number; for numbers, he says, are “pluralities measured by one” (Met. I 6, 1057a2–4). His reason is that what makes something a plurality (as distinct from some particular plurality, i.e. a number) is not the fact that it is measured, but the fact that it is 8

This is the qualification anticipated above, Chapter 3, Section 1, n.11.

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divided (or divisible) (Met. I 3, 1054a21–22, I 6, 1057a12–17). In any case, having made this distinction, Aristotle may and does continue to insist that though one and number are correlatives, one and many are contraries (Met. I 6, 1057a2–7, 12–17). So then, here we see Aristotle not only distinguishing between plurality itself (a quasi-genus) and particular pluralities (i.e. numbers), but also making it clear that the measure of plurality (i.e. one), though of course prior to every particular plurality (i.e. every number), is not thus prior to plurality itself (the quasi-genus of every particular plurality, i.e. of every number). The same will hold generally of all measures vis-a-vis the particular quantities they measure. Those measures will be prior, not to the kinds of quantity subsuming the particular quantities they measure, but rather to each of those particular quantities. For example, the inch will be prior, not to the kind of quantity subsuming all particular lengths (viz. length), but rather to certain particular lengths (e.g. two inches, three inches, and so on). There is another objection worth mentioning. I have claimed that, for Aristotle, measures of quantity enter into the very idea of the particular quantities they measure. This implies, for example, that were there no such thing as “the inch,” I mean no such unit of length, then neither would there be certain particular lengths, I mean one inch or two inches or three inches and so on. But though in a way this seems perfectly straightforward, in another way it seems paradoxical in the extreme. For suppose we continue in this vein and ask how it would be if there were no units of length – no inch, no meter, no stade, no units of length at all. In such a case, although there very well might be length, at least for all I have said, still, it looks as though there would not be any particular lengths, for the simple reason that there would not be anything it is to be any particular length – I mean so many inches, or meters, or stades, and so on. For ex hypothesi there would not be any units of length. I admit this result is not easy to get the mind around. Still, it is at least not obvious that we should therefore be shy of imputing it to Aristotle. For Aristotle, as we have seen, measures are principles of knowledge, that “with which primarily” we know how many or how much. Given that, it would hardly be surprising if, in his view, the fact that there are measures stands or falls with there being knowledge, which in turn stands or falls with there being certain forms of life. What is more, it is just this (more or less) that he practically says, when he says that were there no psuche¯, there would be no time, though (for all he has said) there might well be motion, albeit none that is “numerable” (ἢ ἠριθμημένον ἢ ἀριθμητόν) (Phys. IV 14, 223a21–29). Here Aristotle says, to put it schematically, “no mind, no

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number, though maybe motion.” And this is no far cry from saying “no unit, no number, though maybe plurality.” So, without pretending to have shown how to think the unthinkable, I do not think it is an objection to the claim I have been making – again, that for Aristotle, measures enter into the very idea of the particular quantities they measure – that its consequences would be paradoxical were the unthinkable true.

5.2 measures of quality I admit that in places I have been cutting things fine – if not finer than they allow, finer than I would rather. I have done so in order to protect the point, which I regard as fundamental, that measures of quantity are conceptually prior to the particular quantities they measure. These particular quantities are (again) not kinds (γένη) of quantity, for example, length, area, volume. Nor (obviously) are they token quantities: for example, the token lengths of this yardstick and that one. No, the particular quantities that measures of quantity are conceptually prior to are particular quantities of some kind of quantity, for example, three feet, or two acres, or four gallons, and so on. It is the analog of this point that I will be looking for in the idea that, in an admittedly extended sense of the term “measures,” there are measures of quality.9 To keep things manageable I restrict my attention to perceptible qualities, in particular to those proprietary to a single sense, for example, color, temperature, pitch, and so on. The point I will draw attention to and emphasize is that, for Aristotle, not only do these qualities lie on spectra, bounded on either side by contrary extremes, but also and crucially those spectra have “middles” (μέσα): that is, they are “divided” in two, so that particular qualities “lie” (if not smack-dab in the middle) then “closer to” one contrary than the other. (For example, some colors are dark, others light, as some temperatures are cold, others hot, and some pitches are low, others high, and some flavors are bitter, others sweet, and so on.) I will further suggest, for the present defeasibly, that these “divisions” or “middles” are themselves defined in reference to sensibility. The result would be to make the senses themselves kinds of “measure” or “standard,” inasmuch as it would make them

9

In thinking about this topic I have been rescued from many errors and rabbit holes by David O’Connor and Daniel Sutherland. Though I do not make use of it directly, I was also helped in getting oriented by some of Andrew Barker’s masterful work on Greek music theory (e.g. Barker 1977, 1981, 1985, 2002, and 2007).

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conceptually prior to, enter into the very idea of, the particular qualities known by their means. In the next chapter I try to make good on this suggestion. A preliminary point before I begin, which is that Aristotle does not say much about so-called “measures” of quality. [1] He does indicate that it is at least something of a stretch to call them “measures,” the term being extended to them from its “most proper” (κυριώτατα) application to units of quantity (Met. I 1, 1052b18–25, 33–35, 1053a18–20, 1053b4–6). That said, however, if Aristotle thinks there are problems in the way of making this stretch, he does not say what they are or how they are to be negotiated. [2] Though Aristotle does say, explicitly, that sensibility is a measure, he also goes on to qualify this, adding that it (sensibility) “is rather measured than measure” (μετροῦνται μᾶλλον ἢ μετροῦσιν, Met. I 1, 1053a31–33, cp. I 6, 1057a9–12). The net effect is to make the take-away not obvious.10 [3] Aristotle also gives some examples of qualitative “units” (and so “measures”): for example, in colors “white” (τὸ λευκόν), or in “tunes” (μέλη) the semitone, or in articulate sounds the vowel, or in rectilinear shapes the triangle (Met. I 2, 1053b28–1054a4). But these examples are introduced in service of a larger point: namely, that in no case is it the nature of the “unit” or “measure” in some genus simply to be “one” (Met. I 2, 1053b25–28, 1054a9–13). Though Aristotle insists on this larger point, it is not clear that he would likewise insist on these examples. The result is that to interpret his idea that there are “measures” of quality is to some degree to speculate. In what follows I try to be conservative, limiting myself to points I think are at once essential and plausible. A first and I hope obvious point is that just as measures of quantity are “that with which primarily” (ᾧ πρώτως) we know “how many” (πόσα) or “how much” (πόσον) something is, so too “measures” of quality (so called) must be “that with which primarily” we know “of what sort” (ποῖον) something is.11 Note that Aristotle insists that measure and measured are always “akin” (συγγενές) or the same in genus (Met. I 1, 10

The point of the qualification, in my view, is simply that we learn about our nature as sentient creatures from reflection on the nature of perceptible objects, thereby using those objects to “measure,” i.e. discover the nature of, sensibility itself (cp. DA II 4, 415a16–22). This seems borne out by the accompanying illustration: “But with us it is as if, someone else measuring us, we got to know (ἐγνωρίσαμεν) how big we are by his applying the cubitmeasure to so-and-so much of us” (Met. I 1, 1053a33–35). 11 This point, though it now strikes me as obvious, was brought home to me by Pantelis Golitsis.

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1053a24–25, cp. 1052b18, also I 2, 1053b28–1054a9).12 One thing this implies is that objects known by some measure, being “akin” to that measure, are likewise “akin” to one another: for example, are all colors, or all temperatures, or all pitches, or what have you. But another thing it implies, or at any rate suggests, is that the primary use of a “measure” of quality will lie, not in telling which genus of quality a quality belongs to, but in telling “what sort” of quality of that genus it is. Certainly, the primary use of a measure of quantity is not to tell which genus of quantity some object has (or is), for example, volume or length; rather it is to tell “how much” of that kind of quantity it has (or is), for example, so many pints or so many inches. Similarly, I submit, the primary use of measures of quality is not to tell which genus of quality some object has (or is), for example, color or temperature, but to tell “what sort” of that kind of quality it has (or is), for example, very dark or rather cold. If that is right, then “measures” of quality will be that “with which primarily” we know “what sort” of quality, of some genus of quality, some object has (or is). A second point, I think also straightforward, is that Aristotle thinks of perceptible qualities as lying on spectra bounded by contrary extremes. Indeed, Aristotle says, apparently speaking quite generally, that objects belong to the same genus just in case they come to be from one another (Met. I 3, 1054b28–31, I 4, 1055a6–7). That is, when objects differ, not “in kind” (γένει) but “in form” (εἴδει), there is a “route” or “path” (ὁδός) from being such as the one (e.g. dark) to being such as the other (e.g. light): that is, it is possible to change from dark to light. Where there is no such path – no turning (say) from dark to cold – then things dark and things cold, though of course they still differ, do not (as such) differ “in form,” but rather in some other more profound way (e.g. “in genus”) (Met. I 4, 1055a6–9, cp. I 3, 1054b28–29).13 Now, this association of genus with change has 12

This is admittedly difficult to make out in particular cases: for example, the case of numbers being measured by one, or of motion by time or by distance, or of “things” (πράγματα) by “understanding” (ἐπιστήμη) or “sensibility” (αἴσθησις) (Met. I 1, 1053a28– 30, Phys. IV 12, 220b14–32, Met. I 1, 1053a31–32). I pass over these difficulties here. (The first two cases are not so difficult: numbers are ones (plural) (Met. I 1, 1053a27–30, I 6, 1056b20–21), and measuring the quantity of a motion by distance or time is telling how many of some kind of part it is divisible into, as defined by the distance or time covered or taken by that kind of part. The third case is difficult, but it is too close to the idea I am trying to make sense of to pursue further at this juncture.) 13 There are complications, regarding which I cannot improve upon Ross: “It is impossible to make consistent Aristotle’s various statements in these chapters about difference. In Chapter 3, difference in genus was freely recognized, and in its extreme form, viz.

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consequences. One consequence is that there is a limit to how different particular qualities of a genus can be; Aristotle’s name for this limit is “contrariety,” and he calls qualities which are that different “contraries.”14 Another is that there is an “order” to the qualities of a genus of quality. Some qualities, though different, are not that different – are not “entirely” or “perfectly” different. Aristotle calls such qualities “intermediates,” and he ties this notion to the order of change. A quality is “intermediate” between two others, he says, if you cannot change from being such as the one to being such as the other without first becoming such as it (Met. I 7, 1057a21–22). (For example, the pitch D will be intermediate between the pitch C and the pitch E if you can’t change a string’s pitch from E to C (or vice versa) without passing through D.) Taking these consequences together, the result is that there is an order among qualities of a genus of quality; that is, they lie on a spectrum, bounded at both ends by contrary extremes, in an order inherited by and reflected in the order of change.15 (Though this point, taken generally, as applying to qualities of any genus of quality, will [at a minimum] require some managing, still, its application to perceptible qualities in particular – I mean the ones that are proprietary to a single sense, for example, colors, sounds, temperatures, etc. – is I take it straightforward.) A third point, less obvious but crucial, is that these spectra are “divided,” so that particular qualities lie (if not smack-dab in the middle) then on one side or the other, being “closer to” or “more like” one contrary difference of category (1054b29, 35). So too in this chapter [sc. I 4] (1055a6). Yet here [sc. 1055a26–27] he says that there is no such thing as difference between a thing and something else outside its genus. Two explanations might be offered. [1] Aristotle may mean that if X and Y are in different genera they should not be said to have a difference, but the genera should. If this had been his meaning, however, he would probably have taken the trouble to state it clearly. [2] It may be that while he uses διαφέρειν, διαάφορον in a sense almost (not quite, cf. 1054b25) as wide as their everyday sense, he uses διαφορά in the technical sense which it bears in his logic, viz. = a differentiation of a genus. This seems more likely.” (Ross 1924, 291, ad 1055a26–27). 14 The point turns on the idea that there is a limit to “how far” any one change can take you, which turns on the idea that change is from contraries “as extremes”; the result will be, first, that there is likewise a limit to how different the differentiae of a genus can be, and second, that this limit – “perfectly” or “completely” (τελείως) – is contrariety. These points are made in Met. I 4, 1055a8–17. 15 I have simplified somewhat, speaking as though there were only one contrariety to each genus (if there were several, there would be several such orders, one to each contrariety). In fact, I think the assumption that to each genus there is but one primary contrariety is tacit in Metaphysics Iota, though the only place I have found it explicitly affirmed is Physics I 6, 189a13–14.

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than the other.16 It is true that for us this point is difficult. Let it be that, in everyday life, or for specialized purposes, it is common or useful to divide in this way: for example, to pronounce some colors dark, others light, or some temperatures cold, others hot, or some pitches low, others high, and so on – I mean, not just as compared to this or that other color, temperature, or pitch, but (so to speak) in their own right, full-stop, sans phrase or tout court (in Aristotle’s language, ἁπλῶς). Such pronouncements, though in their way unexceptional, are pretty obviously relative to our interests or sensibilities; as such there is no place for them, or so you might think, in “the scientific catalog” of the properties of these qualities. It is important then to emphasize that for Aristotle it is different. The difference is implied by the doctrine that intermediate qualities are “somehow composites of” (σύνθετά πως ἐξ) the contraries they are intermediate between (Met. I 7, 1057b26–34). For however exactly this difficult doctrine is to be interpreted, one thing it implies is that it is not arbitrary, accidental, irrelevant-to-the-essence-of a particular color whether it is “more dark than light” – that is, whether it is a dark color or light one – or of a particular temperature whether it is more cold than hot, or of a particular pitch whether it is more low than high, and so on. The doctrine implies this, because if intermediate qualities of a genus are “composed” of the contraries they are intermediate between, then they must differ from one another specifically in some other way – and if not in the “ingredients” they are “made from” (namely, the contraries they are intermediate between), then in the “recipe” or “ratio” (λόγος) specifying “how” they are “composed” of those contraries (cp. Sens. 3, 439b27–440a7, picked up at 440a13–16 and then again at 440b14–24). These “recipes” or “ratios,” then, differentiate particular qualities of some genus of quality from other qualities of the same genus – in which case they can hardly be irrelevant to the essences of those qualities. The result is that a color that is “composed of” dark and light (say) “in the ratio 3 : 2” will be “more” dark than it is light; and this, if it means anything, means (surely) that this color will be a dark color – not just “as compared with” or “in relation to” some other color (πρὸς ἕτερον), or even every other color, but (so to speak) in its very own nature, full-stop, without qualification (ἁπλῶς). Similarly, temperatures “composed of” more cold than hot will be cold temperatures (cold ἁπλῶς), as pitches “composed of” more low than high will be low, and flavors “composed of” more bitter than sweet will be bitter, and so on. All this is tantamount to saying that the spectra that these qualities lie on are “divided” 16

Note that these middles need not be point-like (cp. GC II 7, 334b27: “the middle is broad and not indivisible”).

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into “sides” (dark and light, cold and hot, low and high, bitter and sweet, and so on). And the result is that each particular quality will lie, and that by its very nature, if not square in the middle, then on one side of the spectrum or the other: for example, will be a dark color (anyhow more dark than light), or a cold temperature (more cold than hot), or a low pitch, or a bitter flavor, and so on. I pause to observe that if we differ from Aristotle on this point, the difference presumably lies, not in our thinking it obvious that such “divisions” are made “relative to us” (πρὸς ἡμᾶς), but rather in our thinking it obvious that they must therefore be irrelevant to the natures of the qualities in question, I mean as they are “in themselves” or “out there in the world.” Certainly Aristotle does not think of life, sensibility, and intelligence as relatively late arrivals on the stage of the world, as necessary by-products of chance combinations of other more primeval forces.17 Nor does he think of their “works” as but “amusing trifles” (παιδιάς τινας), “insubstantial images” (εἴδωλ’ ἄττα), “hardly real at all” (ἀληθείας οὐ σφόδρα μετεχούσας) (Plato, Laws X, 889d, tr. after Saunders). For him, then, there is no prima facie antagonism between the idea that certain qualities belong to the very fabric of the universe and the idea that aspects of their nature are relative to sensibility. The result is to leave him free to allow that the distinctions we make, between dark colors and light ones, cold temperatures and hot ones, low pitches and high ones, and so on, are at once reflective of the very natures of those qualities and relative to our nature as sentient creatures. But this is to get slightly ahead of myself. I had been making the point that, for Aristotle, not only do qualities lie on spectra bounded by contrary extremes, but also these spectra have “middles”: that is, they are “divided” into “sides,” so that it is in the nature of each quality to lie (if not square in the middle) then on one side or the other. Where I have gotten slightly ahead is in suggesting that, for Aristotle, the principle on which these “divisions” are made – by which these “middles” are defined – is sensibility itself. Strictly speaking that is a further point; for it is one thing to say that a spectrum is so divided, has such a middle, another to say how that division or middle is defined. In the next chapter I offer positive support for this further point; for now I am content to leave it a hypothesis.18 Aristotle’s rejection of the “Priority of Inanimates” is a theme in Broadie 1993, though see too the searching and balanced discussion in Broackes 1999. 18 I note that to me the alternatives look hopeless. [1] That qualities are defined by the “ratios” in which they are “composed” of contraries? Since contraries are not quantities (are not divisible into parts), it is nonsense to say that anything is “composed of” them in literal “ratios.” [2] That qualities are defined by the “ratios,” not in which they are 17

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I conclude briefly by drawing attention to a consequence of this hypothesis, which I will try to substantiate in the next chapter. We have it so far that perceptible qualities will be “of a particular sort” (ποιόν) – for example, dark or light (dark or light ἁπλῶς), or cold or hot, or low or high – just in case they are dark or light, or cold or hot, or low or high, “in relation to a middle” (πρὸς τὸ μέσον), i.e. the middle of a spectrum. Suppose now that those “middles” were themselves defined in relation to the senses: for example, the middle of the spectrum of dark and light in relation to the sense of sight, of cold and hot in relation to the sense of touch, of low and high in relation to the sense of hearing, and so on. The consequence would be to make the senses themselves essential points of reference vis-à-vis the qualities known by their means; that is, it would make them analogous to measures of quantity vis-à-vis the quantities known by their means, inasmuch as, like those measures, the senses too would be kinds of standard such as would be conceptually prior to, enter into the very idea of – not (e.g.) color, temperature, pitch but – dark colors, cold temperatures, low pitches. In short, the consequence would be to make each sense, at least in this respect, as it were a kind of “measure” of the particular qualities known by its means (cp. Met. Ι 1, 1053a31–32).

composed of contraries, but in which bodies they characterize are composed of bodies characterized by contraries (cp. Sens. 3, 440a31-b25)? But in many cases bodies characterized by contraries are simply impossible, I mean even in theory. (For example, Aristotle maintains that every body is to some extent moist, on the grounds that perfectly dry bodies would “fall to pieces,” seeing as “what holds together” is the moist, which ex hypothesi “was taken out completely” [GC II 8, 334b31-335a3]. We could press: how big are those “pieces”? If they were of any size at all, they too would have parts, in which case we could ask what holds them together – for [again] that is the work of the moist, whereas the “pieces” we are now asking about are ex hypothesi perfectly dry. The upshot is to make perfectly dry bodies a theoretical impossibility.) [3] That qualities are defined by the “distances” or “intervals” (διαστήματα) separating them from the contraries they are intermediate between? In many cases this borders on the absurd. (Take for example pitch. Aristotle correlates pitch with the speed of some associated movement; a sound is low or high, he says, “because” [διά] that movement is slow or fast [DA II 8, 420a26-b4]. Well: is a movement “slow” or “fast” if and because the “interval” separating its speed from one contrary [e.g. Fast] is greater or less than that separating it from the other contrary [e.g. Slow]?)

part iii PROPOSALS

6 Sensibility

I set out wanting to put a question to Aristotle: what are sensibility and intelligence, such that it “belongs to them naturally” (ὑπάρχει κατὰ φύσιν) to perceive and to understand perceptible and intelligible beings? I have argued that this question is fairly put to Aristotle, and have proposed that the core of his answer to it is that sensibility and intelligence are “forms” of their respective objects (DA III 8, 432a2–3). But since this proposal is liable to make readers stare, I thought it best to approach it indirectly, relating it to other motifs in Aristotle’s thinking. In Chapter 4, I considered one part of the proposal: namely, that there is an “affinity” or “likeness” between sensibility and its objects and between intelligence and its objects. I argued that this much is but an instance of a more general rule: namely, that things interact, not any old thing, with any old thing, in any old way, but with such others and in such ways as accord with their respective natures. In Chapter 5, I considered another part of the proposal: namely, that the “forms” in which these affinities are based are none other than sensibility and intelligence themselves. This too I approached indirectly, via Aristotle’s notion of “measure” (μέτρον). I argued that, for Aristotle, measures enter into the very idea of the objects known by their means, as kinds of “standard” in relation to which those objects are the particular sorts of object they are. As applied to sensibility, the expectation would be that the senses enter into the very idea of the qualities known by their means, as kinds of standard in relation to which they are the particular sorts of quality they are: for example, dark colors or light ones, cold temperatures or hot ones, low pitches or high ones, bitter flavors or sweet ones, and so on. In this chapter, I argue that this expectation is confirmed. 99

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There exist in the literature a number of interpretations of Aristotle’s theory of perception, with special attention (e.g.) to how he thinks perceiving works, or to what therein determines the content of a perception, or to what makes a perception qualify as a perception, and so on.1 Though I find much in these interpretations with which to agree and disagree, I do not here endorse, criticize, or position myself against them. The reason is that I take myself to be asking a different question: not how the senses or sense organs do their job, but rather “by being what” (τί ὄν) that job is theirs to begin with. (To illustrate, it is one thing to ask how a particular tool, for example, a compass or straightedge, is manipulated in the course of doing its work, and why manipulating it that way constitutes doing that work; it is another thing to ask for an account of the form or essence of that tool, such as will explain why that work is its work in the first place. The question I am asking is akin to this latter question.)

6.1 preliminaries I begin with a few preliminary points, by way of further shoring up the idea that sensibility is the “measure” of perceptible forms. The fact is that Aristotle uses the vocabulary of “measure” but once in the De Anima (DA III 11, 434a9, μετρεῖν). Does he then think of sensibility as a kind of measure? About this I want to make three points. First, Aristotle certainly does think of sensibility as (in some sense) an “instrument” of sensory knowledge – as that “with” which animals perceive. (Note that here I use the word “instrument” simply to track this use of the instrumental dative [as distinct from the Greek word “instrument” or “tool,” ὄργανον].) Psuche¯, Aristotle says, is the substance and form of certain kinds of body, viz. those that are at once “natural” and “organic” (DA II 1, 412b4–6). These bodies, then, are kinds of “instrument”: that is, they are “that with which” (ᾧ) living things “live” (ζῆν). But it is not only these bodies that are instruments; their essence, that is, their psuche¯, is also a kind of instrument – indeed, it is the “primary” instrument, “that with which primarily” (ᾧ πρώτως) living things live (DA II 2, 414a4–14). Now, what is special about the psuche¯ of animals, distinguishing it from the psuche¯ of plants, is sensibility; it is sensibility that makes animal psuche¯ an instrument, not merely of 1

Recent examples include Johansen 2002, Bolton 2005, Caston 2005, Corcilius 2014, and Caston n.d., also (on particular senses) e.g. Bos 2010 (touch), Johnstone 2012 (smell), Johnstone 2013 (hearing), and Kalderon 2015 (vision).

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nutrition, growth, and reproduction, but also of perceiving. For Aristotle, then, sensibility is an “instrument” of sensory knowledge; specifically, it is that “with which primarily” living things perceive.2 Second, Aristotle thinks of perceiving, at least in its most basic forms, as a kind of “discriminating” (κρίνειν).3 This discriminating is not a matter of simply distinguishing between perceptible forms: of “comparing,” so to speak, colors, or sounds, or odors, to one another, and thereby telling that they are different. After all, perceiving these forms is not simply a matter of telling them apart – as though, for example, when presented with just one color, there is not properly speaking any seeing to do, because there is no other color in my field of vision, from which the first might be told apart.4 No, perceiving perceptible forms is a matter of telling “of what sort” they are. For example, tasting something’s flavor is a matter of its tasting, for example, bitter or sweet, or very bitter or very sweet, or slightly bitter or slightly sweet, and ditto for seeing its color (pale or dark), hearing its sound (high or low in pitch), feeling its temperature (hot or cold), and so on. Third, perceiving proper sensibles is not, I take it, a matter of simply “discerning” their forms, where this is understood as a kind of brute “receiving,” not resolvable by analysis into any kind of comparing.5 It is true that something like a brute receiving is suggested by the image of a ring impressing its seal on some wax (DA II 12, 424a19–24); at first blush, the image suggests that the contribution of the perceiver is purely “negative,” a matter of “staying out of the way,” of “not interfering” – for example, by bearing already some device of its own, such as might impede

Other passages in which Aristotle speaks of sensibility or psuche¯ as things “with which” we do things include Met. I 1, 1053a31–32, “and we say that scientific understanding (ἐπισήμη) and sensibility (αἴσθησις) are measures for the same reason, because we get to know something with them (ὅτι γνωρίζομέν τι αὐταῖς)”; Meteor. IV 4, 382a19–20, “using the sense of touch as a mean,” ὡς μεσότητι χρώμενοι τῇ ἁφῇ; DA I 4, 408b14–15, “for it is better perhaps not to say that psuche¯ pities or learns or reasons, but that human beings do with their psuche¯ (τῇ ψυχῇ)”; DA II 6, 418a19–20, “for a motion is perceptible with the sense of touch and with the sense of sight”; III 2, 425b12–13, “since we perceive that we are seeing and hearing, it is necessary to perceive that [one] is seeing either with the sense of sight or with a different sense (ἢ τῇ ὄψει . . . ἢ ἑτέρᾳ).” 3 See Ebert 1983. To the passages discussed there one might add Top. II 4, 111a16–18 (I owe the reference to Bynum 1987, 170). 4 Contrast Ebert 1983, 192: “discerning is discriminating something from a background.” For the point that, in Aristotle, perceptual “discrimination” (κρίνειν) need not involve perceiving several features at once (nor therefore distinguishing them one from the other), see now Perälä 2018, 262–263. 5 So too e.g. Barker 1981, 248, De Haas 2005, 331–337. 2

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its receiving the insignia of the ring.6 Though I return to this below, for now I observe that Aristotle’s use of the image is not, in fact, to make a point about the contribution of perceiver, but to make a point about the contribution of the perceived; for what he says is that the ring imparts to the wax just its seal, without any of the iron or gold of which it is made (DA II 12, 424a19–20). Besides there is a further point. The idea that knowledge, in general, and thus perceiving, in particular, involves a kind of “comparing” is explicit in another image, which Aristotle uses against some of his predecessors’ accounts of the nature or essence of psuche¯, specifically the idea that psuche¯ is an amalgam of the elements of all beings: But if we must make psuche¯ out of the elements, there is no need to make it from all of them; for one part of a contrariety is enough to discriminate (κρίνειν) both itself and its opposite (τὸ ἀντικείμενον). For by the straight we know both itself and the curved; for the straightedge is judge (κριτής) of both, though the curved [is judge] of neither itself nor the straight. (DA I 5, 411a2–7)

In this passage, Aristotle takes as his illustration the discrimination of linear shape. Here, he says, the “judge” (κρίτης) is the straightedge (ὁ κανών). The straightedge, in fact, is an instrument for telling linear shape; we use it to tell, not “how long” a line is, but “what sort” that is, what shape it is, for example, straight or curved. Now, what makes the straightedge a judge of linear shape is (surely) not a brute “receptivity,” to shapes “impressed” on it (!!) by other lines. No, what makes the straightedge a judge of linear shape is its own shape, specifically the shape of its edge. The straightedge, then, though not the “primary” measure of linear shape – that honor presumably belongs to its form, namely straight – is a measure of linear shape, and that because its essence or form, which resides primarily in its edge, is a kind of “unit” or “standard” in relation to which linear shapes are defined. For particular linear shapes are the particular sorts of shape they are – for example, straight or curved – according to whether and how they differ from straight. To sum up and conclude: My first point was that sensibility is an “instrument” of sensory knowledge: if the perceptual organ is that “with” which living things perceive, sensibility is that “with” which they do so “primarily.” My second point was that perceiving is “discriminating” perceptible forms, that is, telling “of what sort” they are (e.g. 6

Contrast e.g. Johansen 2002, 176: “The normal state of the senses is a passive state of receptivity, comparable to the wax. We can therefore normally trust our sense impressions to represent the world as it is without interference.”

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dark or light, hot or cold, bitter or sweet, and so on). My third and final point was that this discriminating is not a primitive, unanalyzable “receiving” of those forms, but rather telling their relation to a kind of “unit” or “standard,” that is, “the” standard in reference to which their being the particular sorts of quality they are – for example, dark colors or light ones, bitter flavors or sweet ones – in turn, is defined. Taken together, these points are sufficient warrant for the hypothesis that perceiving, at least in its most basic forms, is a kind of “measuring,” and that sensibility is a kind of measure. This hypothesis makes it natural to expect that Aristotle will think of the task of “defining” sensibility, and thereby “explaining” perceiving – that is, saying “why” it “belongs to,” is an operation or work of, sensibility – as the task of identifying or describing the kind of standard which the measure of perceptible forms is (e.g. a kind of “ratio” (λόγος), specifically a kind of “mean” (μεσότης), of perceptible contraries).

6.2 sensibility as form (de anima ii 12) Aristotle’s account of the nature of sensibility is presented in summary form in De Anima II 12. Though the account contains a number of elements whose interpretation is controversial, the element I want to focus on – and I think this much is not controversial – is the idea that sensibility is a form, specifically “a kind of ratio” (λόγος τις). The chapter begins with a statement of Aristotle’s “official results”:7 In general regarding every sense one must grasp that sensibility is what is receptive of perceptible forms without matter (e.g. as wax receives the seal of a ring without its iron or gold, and takes the golden or brazen seal, but not as gold or bronze, similarly too each sense is affected by what has color or flavor or sound, not as each of these is called, but rather as thus-and-so and in line with the ratio),8 while sense organ is what such a power is in primarily. So, while [sensibility and sense organ] are the same, their being is different; for though what is perceiving would be a magnitude, still, being for sentient

7

The next bit notices two further facts explained by these results, while the remainder is given to a difficulty occasioned by Aristotle’s explanation of the second of those facts. 8 “. . . not as each of these is called, but rather as thus-and-so and in line with the ratio,” οὐχ ᾗ ἕκαστον ἐκείνων λέγεται, ἀλλ’ ᾗ τοιονδί, καὶ κατὰ τὸν λόγον. I take ἕκαστον (“each”) to refer back to each of “what has color or flavor or sound,” because I think that sits better both with the preceding illustration and with the larger point (for a different view, see e.g. Caston 2005, 306 n.31). Similarly, I take “the ratio” to be the ratio of perceptible contraries associated with the color or flavor or sound the sense is affected by.

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[creatures], i.e. sensibility, is not a magnitude (τό γε αἰσθητικῷ εἶναι οὐδ’ ἡ αἴσθησις μέγεθός ἐστιν), but rather a kind of ratio and power of that. (DA II 12, 424a17–28)

The first part of this passage makes or implies at least three points. One has to do with the objects of sensibility: they are certain forms, in particular, the perceptible ones, for example, colors or flavors. A second has to do with the activity or operation of sensibility: it is a “receiving,” or “taking,” or “being affected by” these forms, and that in a particular way, namely, “without matter.” A third point – passing over the illustration in parentheses – contrasts sensibility and sense organ: the latter is, not sensibility itself, but what sensibility “is in primarily.” I observe that so far there is no mention of the idea I want to focus on, which is that sensibility itself is a form, specifically a kind of ratio. That is, reserved for the second part of the passage, which draws and explains a conclusion. But the idea that sensibility is a form is implicit already in the first part of the passage, in the contrast it makes between sensibility and sense organ; this is clear from how closely that contrast mirrors earlier statements about the relationship between psuche¯ and body quite generally. I quote two passages in illustration: And one must consider the point as applied to the parts too. For if the eye were an animal, vision would be its psuche¯; for this is the substance of eyes, the [substance] in accord with their logos (and the eye is matter of vision), upon the departure of which it would no longer be an eye, except in name, just like a stone or drawing. So then one must grasp the point applied to the part as applied to the whole living body. For there is an analogy: as part stands to part, so sensibility as a whole to the whole sentient body as such. (DA II 1, 412b17–25) But since that with which we live and perceive is said two ways, just like that with which we understand (and we mean, in the one case scientific understanding (ἐπιστήμη), in the other psuche¯, for we say that we understand by each of these, and likewise too we are healthy by health and by some part of the body or even the whole), and [since] of these, both understanding and health are shape and a sort of form and logos and (as it were) activity of the receptive, the one of what is such as to understand, the other of what is such as to be healthy (for the activity of what is productive is held to belong in what is being affected and disposed), and [since] psuche¯ is that by which we live and perceive and reason primarily, the result would be that [psuche¯] is a sort of logos and form, not material and subject. (DA II 2, 414a4–14)

These passages make tolerably clear that, in saying that sense organ is what sensibility “is in primarily,” Aristotle is saying that sensibility is a form of a certain magnitude or body (if not the entire animal, at least not

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primarily, then its sense organ).9 Similarly, they likewise make clear that, in saying that sensibility is not itself a magnitude, but “a kind of ratio and power” of a magnitude, Aristotle is implying that sensibility is “the” form of that body or magnitude, its very substance and fulfillment. I emphasize this point – that sensibility is the form of the sense organ – not because I expect it to be especially controversial, but because I do not want it to be lost in difficulties surrounding other points made in this passage: in particular, the point that sensibility is “receptive” of “forms without matter.”10 For while the latter point describes sensibility in terms of the work it is a power of performing, the point I have been emphasizing describes it differently: not in terms of what it “does,” but in terms of what it “is.”11 The distinction may be illustrated from some remarks Aristotle makes in the De Sensu.12 One of the things Aristotle does in the De Sensu, by way of setting and clarifying his agenda, is to contrast the topics he means to address, and the questions he means to ask about them, with topics and questions he has said enough about already back in the De Anima. One such topic is sensibility, about which he has already said “what it is”; another is perceiving, about which he has already said “why” it is an “attribute” of animals (Sens. 1, 436b8–10).13 A third such topic is 9

Compare Met. H 4, 1044b15–20, which says that although what undergoes sleep is (in a way) both the animal and the heart, the latter is what undergoes sleep “primarily,” and that although the condition we call sleep is (in a way) both a certain immobility of the animal as a whole and a kind of “seizure” (κατάληψις) of the heart, the latter is what sleep is “primarily” (cp. Somn. 3, 458a28–29). Similarly, I take it, although sensibility is “in” (in a way) both the animal and its sense organ, it is the latter that sensibility is in “primarily.” 10 Note that Aristotle later says the same about the sense organ too, that is, that it is receptive of forms without matter (DA III 2, 425b23–24). This should not cause difficulty. Just as “that with which” we understand is “primarily” a certain state (scientific understanding, ἐπιστήμη), but also what is receptive of that state, as “that with which” we are healthy is “primarily” a certain state (health), but also what is receptive of that state, so too “that with which” we perceive is “primarily” a certain form (sensibility), but also what that form “is in primarily” (the sense organ) (cp. DA II 2, 414a4–14, quoted just above). 11 So too Barker 1981, 248, and Silverman 1989, 274. 12 The distinction is an important theme in Broackes 1999, 60 ff., where it is brought to bear on Aristotle’s account of perceptible forms (so too Ward 1988, 228 and [if I follow] Silverman 1989). For a similar use of these passages from the De Sensu, see Ganson 1997, 275–276. 13 “Regarding sensibility and perceiving, what it is and why this affection belongs to animals, has been said before in the works about psuche¯,” περὶ μὲν αἰσθήσεως καὶ τοῦ αἰσθάνεσθαι, τί ἐστι καὶ διὰ τί συμβαίνει τοῖς ζῴοις τοῦτο τὸ πάθος, εἴρηται πρότερον ἐν τοῖς περὶ ψυχῆς. I read this passage as mentioning two topics, “sensibility” (αἴσθησις) and “perceiving” (τὸ αἰσθάνεσθαι), and then two questions, “what it is” (τί ἐστι) and “why this affection belongs to animals” (διὰ τί συμβαίνει τοῖς ζῴοις τοῦτο τὸ πάθος), one to each topic. (It cannot be that both questions are distributed to both topics; the second question is about an affection

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the “power” of each of the senses, by contrast with the elemental composition of the peripheral sense organs – the latter still remains to be discussed (Sens. 2, 437a18–20); a fourth is the proper sensibles, about which he has already said what each of them “does,” as opposed to what each of them “is” (literally, “being what” each of them does what it does, viz. make itself perceived) (τί ἕκαστον αὐτῶν ὂν ποιήσει τὴν αἴσθησιν καὶ τὴν ἐνέργειαν, Sens. 2, 439a10–12, 16–17). Aristotle does, then, recognize a distinction, between what something “does” (τί τὸ ἔργον, τί τὸ ἐνεργεῖν) and “being what” (τί ὄν) it does that. Moreover, the fact that he expressly excludes sensibility from his agenda in the De Sensu, because on that topic he has already said, in the De Anima, all that needs saying, strongly suggests that among the questions he takes the De Anima to have settled is the question, being what does it belong to sensibility to perceive?14

(πάθος) and sensibility is not an affection (πάθος). The other alternative would be to take the first καί as epexegetical, so that the passage mentions but one topic, viz. αἴσθησις i.e. τὸ αἰσθάνεσθαι.) 14 Cp. Aristotle’s account of nutritive psuche¯ in DA II 4, which describes “the first psuche¯” in terms of its work, which is to preserve and reproduce itself as it is in its substance (DA II 4, 416b17–25). At this, we might wonder: “being what” is this kind of psuche¯ such as to do that? Though Aristotle does not ask this explicitly, the reason, I take it, is that the answer is clear. For it can hardly be a surprise, psuche¯ being what it is – the substance and form of living things – that the work of the first psuche¯ should be to preserve and produce that (cp. DA II 4, 415a26–29) . To get at the point another way: why is so much of De Anima II 4 devoted to the topic of nutriment? The answer may seem obvious: it is that nutriment is the “correlative object” (τὸ ἀντικείμενον) of nutrition (DA II 4, 415a22). Having just said that the correct order of procedure is to work from such objects, to their activities, and from there to their powers, it is only natural that Aristotle would devote a considerable portion of his discussion of nutritive psuche¯ to the “object” of its characteristic work. But there are at least two considerations that tell against this. First, it is not at all obvious that nutrition is the characteristic work of the first psuche¯ in the series; for Aristotle says that though this kind of psuche¯ has its “beginning” (ἀρχή) in the power of nutrition, its “end” (τέλος) is reproduction, so that, though we, in fact, call it “nutritive,” it would be better to call it “reproductive,” that being its “final” characteristic work (see DA II 4, 416b17–25) (though on this point see now Coates and Lennox 2020, 459). Second, if we ask what the discussion of nutriment actually contributes to Aristotle’s account of the first psuche¯ in the series, the answer would appear to be the result that nutriment is not, in fact, the object of nutrition, but one of its “instruments”; for while “what is nourished” (τὸ τρεφόμενον) is a “living body” (τὸ ἔ μψυχον σῶμα), nutriment itself is neither principal nor object, neither “nourisher” (τὸ τρέφον) nor “nourished” (τὸ τρεφόμενον), being rather and merely that “with” which the latter is nourished, and (indeed) that only secondarily (DA II 4, 416b9– 11, 20–23, 25–27). Thus, it would appear that the object of the activities of the first kind of psuche¯ is none other than a living creature (for this point see now Coates and Lennox 2020, esp. 436–444). No wonder, then, psuche¯ being what it is, that its principal office should be to grow, maintain, and produce living creatures, each as it is in its substance or form, which substance and form is just what psuche¯ itself is.

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In any case, my own view is that Aristotle does think he has settled, in the De Anima, not only the “work” of sensibility, but also its “nature”: not only what it “does,” but also what it “is,” that is, “by being what” it belongs to it to do that. The work of sensibility is to perceive perceptible forms, that is, to “receive” those forms “without matter”; the nature of sensibility is a kind of ratio “in” a certain magnitude or body. In short, it is because sensibility is a kind of ratio (etc.) that its work is to perceive. This is the idea I want to try to make sense of in what follows.

6.3 receiving forms without matter Though it is not properly speaking on my agenda, I suppose I must say something about the doctrine I have been trying to de-emphasize, namely that the work of sensibility is to receive forms without matter. I pause briefly then to say what I take this to mean. A first and obvious point is that the idea of receiving forms “without” matter is presumably to be understood by contrast with the idea of receiving them “with” matter: for example, receiving the insignia of a ring along with some of the iron or gold of which it is made. There is good reason for Aristotle to insist that perceiving is not anything like that. For this is among the things that distinguishes his own theory from those proposed by his predecessors. On most of those theories, at least as Aristotle understands them, perception occurs by way of an influx of particles or “effluences” (ἀπορραί) coming off the bodies we perceive, which effluences enter perceivers through certain “passages” or “pores” (πόροι) in their perceptual organs.15 On Aristotle’s own theory, by contrast, though perceptible bodies do impart something to the perceivers that perceive them, what they impart is not any kind of body, but rather a kind of motion, imparted through a medium that, being in contact with both perceiver and perceived, brings them indirectly into contact with one another (DA II 11, 423b1–8, cp. DA III 13, 435a17–19).16 In fact, Aristotle regards this idea – that perceiving is not by way of bodily effluences, but by a kind of indirect “contact” (ἁφή) – as distinctive, not only of his theory of perception, but of his Sens. 2, 438a4 (Empedocles on vision), 3, 440a15–17 (“the ancients,” οἱ ἀρχαῖοι), 5, 443a21–26, b1–2 (Heraclitus on the sense of smell), Div. 2, 464a5–6, 11 (Democritus), also GC I 8, 324b26–32. 16 Presumably, perceiver and perceived are thus brought into “contact” when the organ sensibility is in primarily is “reached” by those movements (cp. DA I 4, 408b15–18, on which, see now Carter 2018). 15

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theory of action and passion quite generally. For in his view, the leading idea of virtually every previous theory is that a body’s susceptibility to being affected depends on its being actually “divided” (σχιζόμενον), that is, run through with “passages” or “pores”; on these theories, what a body is most properly affected by turns out to be, not the bodies with which it is in contact, but rather the effluences coming off such bodies, which then enter it through said passages or pores.17 Aristotle’s own view, by contrast, is that bodies are affected by contact, whether direct or indirect, and that what makes them liable to being so affected is their already being, albeit potentially, the very thing that, upon having been affected, they will be in fulfillment. On this theory, a body is most properly affected, not by the penetrating effluences of bodies in its environs, but rather by those bodies themselves, insofar as they are “of a nature” (πέφυκεν) to make other bodies, which already are such as they are, though only potentially, to be that in fulfillment (GC I 9, 326b31–33, 327a2–3). For Aristotle, then, the theory of effluences is a bad theory of perception because it is a bad theory of being affected quite generally; far from making perception and action and passion intelligible, it does away with them altogether.18 It is true that, understood this way, to say that perceiving is receiving “forms without matter” is not yet to say anything about what is special about perceiving, by contrast with the myriad other kinds of proceeding in which forms are received.19 For example, it is not yet to say that perceiving 17

These theories are discussed in GC I 8, where Aristotle’s primary criticism is that they are pointless. If bodies cannot be affected except by being “infiltrated” through certain passages or pores – if mere contact with the affecting body is not enough – the result will be that no body is really affected at all (affection is “through and through” (πάντῃ), and no body is all passage or pore). But, if bodies can be affected by contact, then their susceptibility to affection does not depend on their being actually divided after all (GC I 8, 326b21–24). 18 See Chapter 4, Section 5. Another reason the idea is important is this. Aristotle’s own theory, in allowing for affection via mediated contact, allows that bodies can be affected by things with which they are not in contact immediately: for example, it allows that patients can be affected by physicians, via the administration of medicine, or that stone may be affected by sculptors, by way of hammer and chisel. This is important for the theory of perceiving, because it allows that perceivers can be affected by, that is, perceive, distal objects. 19 See Caston 2005, 301–302: “If the signet ring example is just an illustration of [the kind of likening of patient to agent involved in ordinary accidental changes], we lose the contrast Aristotle is trying to draw between receiving forms with the matter and without the matter.” Perhaps we may say that the contrast he is trying to draw is not between perceiving and other ways of being affected, but between perceiving as it is, in fact, and as it would be on the theories of his predecessors.

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is receiving particular kinds of form, namely the perceptible ones, nor that it is being affected in only an attenuated sense. But though this is true, it is not particularly problematic. Aristotle has already said, in De Anima II 5, that perceiving is being affected in only an attenuated sense; when he goes on to say, in De Anima II 12, that it is receiving forms without matter, he makes explicit that it is receiving, not any and every form, but specifically the perceptible ones.20 What is more, as I have explained, it is important for Aristotle to say that perceiving is receiving forms without matter. This distinguishes his own view from the view heretofore predominant, which effectively does away with the phenomena it is ostensibly about.21

6.4 sensibility as “ratio” I had been observing that among the things Aristotle says about sensibility is that it is a form, specifically a kind of ratio, and also that, in saying that sense organ is what this ratio “is in primarily,” Aristotle intimates that sensibility is, not just any form, but the very substance and fulfillment of the bodies whose form it is. I emphasized these points because my

I take it that the point Aristotle makes later, that plants are affected “along with their matter” (DA II 12, 424b1–3), is restricted to how plants are affected by perceptible forms (e.g. by colors or odors or flavors). Read this way, the claim is that plants are not affected by such forms by mere contact, but by being mixed with something of the bodies whose forms they are. (This interpretation gives point to the immediate sequel, which raises a difficulty about whether non-animals could be affected by perceptible forms as such [DA II 12, 424b3–18]. For the restricted efficacy of perceptible forms, see e.g. Broadie 1993, also Johansen 1998, 128–147, but also the measured discussion in Broackes 1999, 107– 110.) I leave aside the effects of odor on air, which Aristotle would presumably explain as due to a kind of mixing; an explanation of this sort is anticipated at DA II 10, 422a11–14 (on the effects of flavor on water): “if we lived in water, we would perceive the sweet thrown in, but our perception would not be through the intervening water, but due to [the sweet] having been mixed with the moist.” I also leave aside the very good question about tangible forms – if non-animals are not affected by tangible qualities, by what are they affected or altered? – which Aristotle raises but does not answer. (The answer, I suspect, will turn on the doctrine that these qualities are said in many ways, only some of which are relative to the sense of touch: see e.g. PA II 2, 648a36–649b8, esp. 648b11–15, 649a5–11, a34–b8 [I owe the reference and point to Jessica Gelber], also Meteor. IV 4, 382a11–21 [on hard and soft, quoted and discussed below, Chapter 6, Section 6].) 21 It is true that when Aristotle later says, about plants, that they are affected by perceptible forms “with” matter (DA II 12, 424b1–3), he appears to be speaking of the matter of plants, not that of the bodies by whose perceptible forms they are thus affected. But I do not see why this should cause difficulty. On the reading proposed above, being affected by something’s form along with its matter is tantamount to a kind of mixing, whereas things are not properly mixed, in Aristotle’s view, unless the matter of both is therein affected (GC I 10, 328a18–33). 20

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suggestion is that, for Aristotle, they explain why perception “belongs to,” is the work of, sensibility. In developing this suggestion, I begin with some preliminary clarifications of what Aristotle means when he says that sensibility is a kind of ratio. Aristotle’s express intention in making this statement is to say something general about each of the five senses (DA II 12, 424b17). Thus, when he says that sensibility is a kind of ratio, what he means is that this is something all the senses are in common: that is, each is a kind of ratio – in particular, a kind of ratio of the specific contraries characteristic of the kind of quality that sense is a power of perceiving. The sense of sight, for example, is a kind of ratio of the contraries dark and light, and the sense of touch is a kind of ratio of the contraries cold and hot, or perhaps dry and moist, or hard and soft, or whatever contraries define the field of the tangible.22 Similarly, when Aristotle says that “sense organ” is what sensibility “is in primarily,” he is making a claim about what sense organs have in common. What they have in common is being what some particular sense is in primarily: the sense of sight in the organ of sight, the sense of touch in the organ of touch, and so on. Putting these points together, to say that sensibility is a kind of ratio is just to say, of each of the senses, that it is a kind of ratio, which, in turn, is to say the same about the substance and form of each of the sense organs (namely, that it is a ratio, of perceptible contraries, in the sense organ). I have been deliberately vague about specifying which organs these are, because though it is clear enough that they differ “in being” – one is the organ of sight, another the organ of touch, and so on – it is not at all clear that they differ also “in number.” For Aristotle is explicit that, at least here, the term “sense organ” designates what a sense “is in primarily,” and his considered view is that the “origin” (ἀρχή) of each sense is the same, being located in the animal’s interior.23 Indeed, though it is clear enough that the senses themselves differ “in being” – for example, sight is a kind of ratio of dark and light, while taste is a kind of ratio of bitter and sweet – it is not at all clear that even they differ also “in number.” Or rather, it is clear that they do not differ in number, but are rather “a single mean” (μία μέσοτης), “though its being is many” (τὸ δ’ εἶναι αὐτῇ πλείω) (DA III 7, 431a14–20).24 Aristotle says it is not entirely clear what is the “subject” of the sense of touch (lit. τί τὸ ἓν τὸ ὑποκείμενον, ὥσπερ ἀκοῇ ψόφος) (DA II 11, 422b32–33). 23 Somn. 2, 455b34–456a2, Iuv. 3, 469a5–7, 14–16, PA II 1, 647a24–27, II 10, 656a27–28. For the claim that this holds of each of the five senses, see the careful and thorough discussion in Johansen 1997, 67–95. 24 This doctrine should not occasion surprise, given Aristotle’s view that the several senses have the same origin. Once it is acknowledged, of a certain ratio or form, that it is “many 22

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That said, even granting that Aristotle’s considered view of the senses themselves, as of the bodies they are in primarily, is that they are “one” – in number, not in being – it does not follow that this is the point he is making when he says that sensibility is a kind of ratio, or that sense organ is what sensibility is in primarily. For, in saying these things he is speaking generally about every sense. In any case, the point that interests me here is that each sense is a kind of ratio, as distinct from the point that the ratios which each is are not “separate in magnitude” (are not “many in number, but only in being”). For this further point, though important in its own right – it is important, for example, in Aristotle’s account of cross-modal “binding,” and in his account of animal locomotion25 – is largely irrelevant to the suggestion I am trying to develop here, namely that it is because sensibility is a kind of ratio that its work is to perceive. I say “largely” irrelevant, because the point does imply that we should not expect these ratios to reside in the peripheral sense organs. This is important for its bearing on the attempt to make good on the idea that each sense is a kind of ratio. Take, for example, the sense of sight. Aristotle says that if we must match each sense organ to an element, then the peripheral organ of sight – “the part of the eye employed in vision” (τοῦ ὄμματος τὸ ὁρατικόν) – must be made of water, and that because it must be transparent (Sens. 2, 438b2–11, 17–20). Now, if this part of the eye were what sight resides in primarily, the result would be that transparency is a kind of ratio of dark and light – a result I would not want to have to defend.26 But if the eye is not what the sense of sight is in primarily, then the fact that the business part of the eye is transparent would not imply that transparency is a kind of ratio of dark and light. For that would only follow if transparency were the sense of sight, as it would be if the sense of sight were the form of that part of the eye, as it would be if that part of the eye was what the sense of sight is in primarily. But it is not clear that this is Aristotle’s view.27 On the contrary, his reason for saying that this part of the eye must be transparent is, not that the eye would otherwise not be receptive of color (i.e. see), but rather that it would otherwise not be receptive of light (i.e. be see-through, i.e. transparent) (Sens. 2, 438b10–11). in being,” to say that it is a “single” mean is presumably just to say that it belongs to a single magnitude or body. 25 On the first, see especially Gregoric 2007; on the second, Corcilius and Gregoric 2013. 26 Though there is a relationship, in Aristotle’s view, between transparency and color, that is not to say that transparency is a particular ratio, specifically a kind of mean, of dark and light. (For more on transparency and color, see Broackes 1999, 59–69.) 27 The case is made, in my view decisively, in Johansen 1998, 67–95.

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None of this is to say, what would be astonishing, that it is going to be easy for Aristotle to make good on the idea that each sense is a kind of ratio. I have already averted to the difficulty, which he himself acknowledges, of determining which contrariety defines the field of touch. And it is only to be expected, facts being what they are, that he is going to have difficulties regarding the other senses too. But I hope that what I have said serves to obviate a natural objection to the idea that Aristotle does, in fact, hold that each sense is a kind of ratio (namely, that though the eye is transparent, it is not obvious that transparency is a kind of ratio of dark and light). In any case, it is abundantly clear that Aristotle does hold that each sense is a kind of ratio, and (indeed) specifically a kind of mean. This is clear from his saying, for example, in explaining why “excesses corrupt the sense organs,” that they “undo the ratio – and this was what sensibility is” (τοῦτο δ’ ἦν ἡ αἴσθησις), or that the cause of plants not perceiving is their “not having a mean,” or that “sensibility is as it were a kind of mean of the contrariety in the perceived,” or that “it is for this reason that it discriminates perceptibles,” or that “air made the pupil thus and so, and this another, and similarly hearing, but this last is one, i.e. a single mean, though its being is many” (DA II 12, 424a28–32, b1, II 11, 424a4–6, III 7, 431a14–20).

6.5 sensibility as “measure” So far, I have been focusing just on the idea that sensibility is “a kind of ratio” (λόγος τις). I have argued that it means that each sense is a kind of ratio, and ditto (therefore) the substance and form of the organ which each sense is primarily in.28 I now want to focus on the idea that sensibility is not just any ratio, but “as it were a kind of mean” (οἷον μεσότης τις) (DA II 11, 424a4–5). In the last chapter, I argued that Aristotle thinks of the spectra that perceptible qualities lie on as divided in two, so that each particular quality lies, if not square in the middle, then “closer to” (more like) one contrary than the other. I also hypothesized that, in his view, the principle on which these divisions are made – the standard in reference to which these middles are defined – is sensibility. Here, I argue that it is just this Aristotle is

28

Note that though I continue to speak about particular senses, and the ratios or means that they are, and the organs those means are primarily “in,” as though they were many – this in part because it is convenient, and in part simply in deference to the fact that they are many, that is, in “being” – I do not thereby retreat from the point that, in Aristotle’s view, they are not many in “number.”

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saying when he says that sensibility is “as it were a kind of mean” of the contrariety in perceptible qualities. The result is to make sensibility a standard in relation to which particular perceptible qualities are the sorts of qualities they are: for example, dark or light, cold or hot, low or high, and so on. My first argument for this proposal rests on three points. First, it is an attribute of perceptible qualities, something that “belongs” to them “by nature,” to appear the way they are (cp. DA II 6, 418a15, III 3, 428b18– 19, 21, 27–28, III 6, 430b29). For example, it belongs to such colors as are dark to look dark, and to such temperatures as are cold to feel cold, and ditto for pitch, flavor, and so on. For Aristotle, these are “facts” the theory of perception is supposed to “explain” – if you like, “theorems” the science of perception is supposed to “prove.” Second, the “causes” of such “facts” must ultimately lie in the nature of the perceptible qualities themselves. For in general, for Aristotle, the cause of an attribute belonging to a subject ultimately lies in the essence of that subject (e.g. the cause of its belonging to semicircles to contain a right angle ultimately lies in the nature of semicircles). In particular, then, if it belongs to dark colors to look dark, or to cold temperatures to feel cold, or to low pitches to sound low, the cause of its belonging to those qualities to appear in those ways must ultimately lie in the nature of those qualities. Third, and finally, it is Aristotle’s view that the cause of its belonging to those qualities to appear in those ways lies in the relationship of those qualities to the nature of sensibility. For example, the reason it belongs to dark colors to look dark and to light colors to look light, and to cold temperatures to feel cold and to hot temperatures to feel hot, is that those colors and temperatures are related in particular ways to the sense of sight and the sense of touch. This last point is implicit, I think, in the following passage from De Anima II 11: Tangible are the differentiae of body as body; I mean the differentiae that define the elements, hot cold dry moist, which we have discussed before in our writings on the elements. Their organ is the haptic one, i.e. the part the sense of touch is in primarily, which is potentially such. For all perceiving is a kind of being affected, so that what is affecting, being like it in activity, makes it such, being [that] potentially. That’s why we do not perceive what is similarly hot and cold, or hard and soft, but the excesses, seeing as sensibility is as it were a kind of mean of the contrariety in perceptible [qualities]. And it is for this reason that it discriminates perceptible [qualities] (καὶ διὰ τοῦτο κρίνει τὰ αἰσθητά). For the mean is discriminative (τὸ γὰρ μέσον κριτικόν); for in relation to each of them it plays the part of the other extreme. And just as what is going to perceive light and dark must be neither of them in activity,

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but both potentially (and so too in the case of the rest), so too in the case of touch [what is going to perceive hot and cold must be] neither hot nor cold. (DA II 11, 423b27–424a10)

Here, Aristotle is explaining why it is that we only perceive “the excesses.”29 What he means by “the excesses” is fixed by the contrast with what is “similarly” (ὁμοίως) both of two contraries: for example, with what is as cold as it is hot, or as soft as it is hard – in short, with qualities that do not lie on either side of the associated spectrum, which are not “nearer to” (“more” or “more like”) one contrary than the other, but which rather lie smack-dab in the middle.30 “The excesses,” then, by contrast, are qualities that do lie on one side or the other of a spectrum: for example, temperatures that lie on the colder or hotter side of the temperature spectrum, or colors that lie on the darker or lighter side of the color spectrum. Aristotle’s explanation of why we perceive these qualities is that “sensibility is as it were a kind of mean of the contrariety in perceptible qualities,” so that, vis-à-vis these “excesses,” it (sensibility) “becomes” or “plays the part of” (γίνεται) the other extreme.31 Note that this is not only an explanation of why qualities that appear a certain way appear the way It would be a mistake, I think, to exaggerate the “anesthesia” Aristotle is envisaging here; though I cannot, by placing my hand on my forehead, take my own temperature, presumably Aristotle would not insist that I cannot feel my forehead at all. Later he will say, apropos a perfectly general difficulty, that “perceiving by sight is not one,” and that “it is with sight that we discern (κρίνομεν) both darkness and light, though not in the same way” (sc. as we discern color) (DA III 2, 425b20–22). Presumably, he would likewise say that we do perceive what is “similarly” hot and cold, and that with the sense of touch, “though not in the same way” that is, as we perceive “the excesses.” 30 What is “similarly” hot and cold is often interpreted to mean “as hot and cold as is the organ of touch” (so, e.g. Barker 1981, 248, Caston 2000, 145, Shields 2016, 47). Against this is the subsequent remark, “seeing as sensibility is as it were a kind of mean of the contrarieties in perceptible qualities” (424a4–5). This remark explains why “what is similarly hot and cold” (τὸ ὁμοίως θερμὸν καὶ ψυχρόν) is as hot and cold as is the organ of touch. This would not admit of explaining if “similarly” meant “similarly to the organ of touch.” 31 “Plays the part of” (γίνεται): for the point can hardly be that “the excesses” (e.g. cold or dark) make the mean become, that is, literally change to, the other extreme (e.g. the contrary hot or the contrary light) (cp. DA I 5, 411a2–7). (For a similar treatment of γίνεται in Plato, illustrated with parallels taken from other authors, see Frede 1988.) Contrast e.g. Tracy 1969, 207, Bynum 1987, 169, Ward 1988, 224, Silverman 1989, 275, Johansen 2002, 180–184. Johansen’s discussion is of interest for its use of GA V 1, 780a3–14, which he takes to show that perceiving often involves “adjusting the mean,” that is, sensibility itself actually changing. Against this, I would note briefly the following points: the passage concerns the eye (not the central sense organ); it concerns conditions having to do with the quantity of liquid in the eye (as distinct from its quality, for example, too dark or too light); and what is impacted thereby is seeing colors of certain “intensities” or in certain kinds of illumination (i.e. as opposed to of certain hues) (cp. Barker 1981, 256–259). 29

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they do: for example, of why temperatures that feel cold feel cold (namely, because they are cold as compared with the organ of touch). It is also an explanation of why qualities that are a certain way appear the way they are: for example, of why temperatures that are cold feel cold. For why is it just these temperatures – namely “the excesses,” specifically the ones that lie on the colder side of the spectrum (in Aristotle’s language, the ones that are cold ἁπλῶς, period, sans phrase or tout court) – that feel cold? The reason is that the sense of touch is “as it were a kind of mean” of the contrariety in temperatures. This point, about the very nature of the sense of touch, explains why temperatures that are cold feel cold; it explains this, by explaining why temperatures that are cold (period) are cold (as compared with the organ of touch). The reason is that being cold (period) just is being cold (as compared with the organ of touch).32 And the reason for that is that the sense of touch is “as it were a kind of mean” of the contrarieties in tangible qualities. In sum, then, not only does it belong to perceptible qualities to appear the way they are, but the connection between being those qualities and appearing that way is not immediate. There is a reason why it belongs to those qualities to appear the way they are. The reason, in Aristotle’s view, is that those qualities stand in a certain relationship to the perceptual organ, whose substance and form is sensibility itself. Given this, and given too that the causes of attributes are essences, it follows that, for Aristotle, this relationship to sensibility enters into the very idea of those perceptible qualities – into what it is for them to be the particular sorts of qualities they are (e.g. cold or hot temperatures, dark or light colors, low or high pitches, and so on). We had it already that each particular quality lies, if not square in “the middle,” then on one or the other “side” of a spectrum of qualities bounded by contrary extremes. To this, we have now added an account of what it is to lie on one side of a spectrum: it is to be cold or hot or soft or hard or dark or light as compared with the perceptual organ, whose substance and form is sensibility itself, which form is, in its very nature or essence, “as it were a kind of mean of the contrariety in perceptible qualities.” For it is this point, about the nature of each sense, that explains why the relationship of perceptible quality to perceptual organ 32

See too perhaps De Haas 2005, 331–337: the logos or mean Aristotle says the sense of touch is “determines what is sensed as hot or cold, and thereby serves as a mean by which to divide the range to which the incoming sensible form belongs, so as to determine whether it is, e.g., hotter or colder than the organ’s disposition.” (I say “perhaps,” because I am unsure whether “determine” here is meant strictly epistemologically or also metaphysically.)

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has anything to do with its belonging to particular qualities to appear the way they are. The upshot is to make sensibility itself “the measure” (as it were) of perceptible qualities; it is “the measure” of those qualities, inasmuch as the character of those qualities – where they lie on a spectrum – is defined in terms of their relation to it. The same result may perhaps be got another way. In the passage quoted above, Aristotle says that sensibility “discriminates” (κρίνει) perceptible qualities because (διά) it is a kind of mean (DA II 11, 424a5–7). The explanation turns on a supposed connection between contrariety and discrimination, appealed to earlier in a passage from Book I: But if we must make psuche¯ out of the elements, there is no need to make it from all of them; for one part of a contrariety is enough to discriminate (κρίνειν) both itself and its opposite. For by the straight we know both itself and the curved; for the straightedge is judge of both, though the curved [is judge] of neither itself nor the straight. (DA I 5, 411a2–7)

When Aristotle says in this passage, of the straightedge, that it is “judge” (κριτής), his point is not merely that it is a judge, by which (as it happens) we measure curvature. His point is rather that it is “the” judge: “the” standard in relation to which linear shapes are defined.33 (I take it that, for Aristotle, particular sorts of linear shape – for example, straight or curved, slightly curved or very curved – are defined by their relationship to the straight.) Similarly, when he says of the mean, that it is “critical” or “discriminative” (κριτικόν), his point is not merely that it is an arbiter, by which (as it happens) we discriminate (e.g.) dark colors from and light ones. What he means, rather, is that the mean is “the” arbiter: “the” standard in relation to which the very idea of a dark color or a light one (dark or light ἁπλῶς, full-stop, sans phrase or tout court) are defined. But in that case, to say that sensibility is a kind of mean is to say that “that with which primarily” we discriminate among perceptible qualities, in addition to being something of “ours,” that is, our very substance and form as sentient creatures, is also something of “theirs,” that is, the “standard” in relation to which they are the particular sorts of qualities they are (e.g. dark colors, cold temperatures, low pitches). The point is clinched, it seems to me, by the following passage from Meteorology IV:

33

Cp. Plato, Tht. 160c: “And according to Protagoras I am judge (κριτής) of what is for me, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not.”

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Hard is what does not give way into itself in respect of its surface, while soft is what does give way, by not interchanging its place (for water is not soft, because under pressure its surface does not give way into its interior, but interchanges its place). Absolutely hard or soft is what is such absolutely, while [hard or soft] in relation to something else is what is such in relation to that. Now, in relation to one another [hard and soft] are indeterminate, [being defined?] by more and less (πρὸς μὲν οὖν ἄλληλα ἀόριστά ἐστιν τῷ μᾶλλον καὶ ἧττον). But since it is in relation to sensibility that we discriminate all perceptible qualities (πρὸς τὴν αἴσθησιν πάντα κρίνομεν τὰ αἰσθητά), it is clear that we have defined hard and soft absolutely in relation to touch, using touch as a mean (δῆλον ὅτι καὶ τὸ σκληρὸν καὶ τὸ μαλακὸν ἁπλῶς πρὸς τὴν ἁφὴν ὡρίκαμεν, ὡς μεσότητι χρώμενοι τῇ ἁφῇ). That’s why we say what exceeds it to be hard, what falls short of it soft. (Meteor. IV 4, 382a11–21)34

Here, Aristotle says that a body is soft or hard according as its surface “gives way into itself” under pressure. This is obviously a relative matter; the surface of a candle gives way when pressed against a nail, but not when pressed against dough. What is it, then, to be hard or soft “absolutely” (ἁπλῶς) – that is, not merely “in relation to something else” (πρὸς ἕτερον), but hard or soft “period” (ἁπλῶς), sans phrase or tout court? It is, Aristotle says, to be hard or soft “in relation to the sense of touch” (πρὸς τὴν ἁφήν). Note that this too is a relative matter: “using the sense of touch as a mean,” Aristotle says, we discriminate between bodies that are hard or soft according as they feel hard or soft, which they do according as they “exceed” or “fall short of” the sense of touch itself (lit. τὸ μὲν ὑπερβάλλον αὐτὴν σκληρόν, τὸ δ’ ἐλλεῖπον μαλακὸν εἶναί φαμεν): that is, according as they are more hard or soft than the organ that the sense of touch is primarily in (i.e. the organ of touch, whose form or essence just is the sense of touch). But though this too is a relative matter, it is not just a relative matter: for Aristotle, to be hard or soft “in relation to the sense of touch” (πρὸς τὴν ἁφήν) just is to be hard or soft “period” (ἁπλῶς), and that because it is in relation to the sense of touch that these qualities are defined (lit. τὸ σκληρὸν καὶ τὸ μαλακὸν ἁπλῶς πρὸς τὴν ἁφὴν ὡρίκαμεν).

6.6 objections and replies Perhaps it will be objected that the interpretation I have been arguing for, in making sensibility a kind of measure of perceptible qualities, is tantamount to a kind of Protagoreanism. In reply to this objection, I want to make three points.

34

Cp. Plato, Tim. 62b.

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The first is that, for Aristotle, it is not (e.g.) the touch of just anyone that is the measure of hardness, sans phrase or tout court, any more than it is the pleasure of just anyone that is the measure of goodness (ΕΝ VII 12, 1152b25–33). Consider, for example, the following passage from the Ethics, apropos the object of wish: Or is it that unqualifiedly (ἁπλῶς) and in truth it is the good that is wished for, though for each it is the apparent good? So, for the good man it is the true [good], though for the bad it is any old thing, as in the case of bodies, too, what is wholesome in truth is wholesome for bodies in good condition, though for diseased bodies other things are, and ditto even bitter and sweet and hot and heavy and all the rest. For the good man judges (κρίνει) each case correctly, and in each case the truth appears to him (τἀληθὲς αὐτῷ φαίνεται). For things beautiful and pleasant are proprietary to each state of character, and the good man is perhaps most distinguished by seeing the truth in particular cases, being as it were their rule and measure (ὥσπερ κανὼν καὶ μέτρον αὐτῶν ὤν). (EN III 4, 1113a23–33)

Just as the measure of good and bad, or healthy and sick, or beautiful and ugly, is not just any one of us, just as you may find us – mature or immature, healthy or sick, wise or foolish, good or bad, and so on – so too, the measure of perceptible qualities is not just any one of us either. Yes, in a way, even for Aristotle, “man is the measure of all things.” But the “man” in question is not just any man, but rather (as we might put it) Man himself, and the rest of us only if and so far as we have managed to become what it is in our nature to be. (Note that I have been arguing that the “measure” of perceptible qualities is sensibility: that is, not some peculiarly human sensibility, but the sensibility which is the topic of De Anima II 5–12, which Aristotle regards as common to all animals. The upshot is that, if the “measure” of perceptible qualities is human nature, it is not human nature qua human, but qua sentient.) Second, though Aristotle does maintain that we perceive “beings,” that is, real qualities of objects, as opposed to mere phantoms of our sensibility, still, there is a limit to how real (so to speak) he thinks these beings are. They are not, in his view, “transcendentally” real, that is, “in themselves” or “by nature” altogether indifferent to sensibility, any more than the nature of intelligible beings is thus indifferent to intelligence.35 Indeed, this is but the application, to sensibility and its objects, of a general rule: 35

Aristotle does say that it is a mistake to think that “nothing is either light or dark without sight, nor even flavored without taste” (DA III 2, 426a20–22). He says this because he holds that although the activities of sentient and perceived, being one and the same (in “number,” not in “being”), must be coeval, the same is not true of their respective powers

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namely, that things interact, not any old thing, with any old thing, in any old way, but “because of their community” (διὰ τὴν κοινωνίαν), that is, with such others and in such ways as accord with their respective natures (DA I 3, 407b17–19). If the “Protagoreanism” I have imputed to Aristotle is at the cost of “objectivity,” understood as tantamount to a kind of “transcendental” realism, it is not clear that that is a kind of objectivity Aristotle believes in (on the contrary). Third, and finally, though Aristotle does hold that the “rule and measure” of perceptible qualities is sensibility itself, even this should not be overstated. He allows that healthy animals differ among themselves, not only in which senses they have, but also in the character of their peripheral sense-organs; as a result, he thinks, animals differ, not only in which qualities they perceive, but also in how precisely they perceive them (see e.g. DA II 9, 421a7–26). And there are other and more interesting complications besides: for example, in the perception of color, such as arise from differences in illumination or context. So, for example, it is Aristotle’s view that there are only three colors in the rainbow (Meteor. III 4, 374b7–375a1); the appearance of others, for example, yellow, is due to these colors appearing side by side: “for red next to green appears light” (Meteor. III 4, 375a5–7). Again, the same phenomenon is exhibited in fabrics: There are untold differences in how colors appear when set beside one another, e.g. purples [embroidered] in pale or in dark wools, and moreover in this light or that, which is why embroiderers themselves say they often go wrong (διαμαρτάνειν) when working by lamp-light, taking one color in place of another. (Meteor. III 4, 375a22–28)

And yet, despite these variations, there are facts in these domains – there are but three colors in the rainbow, and embroiderers make mistakes when working by lamplight. Moreover, the ultimate basis of our power, not only to correct these mistakes, but so much to make them, lies in the form of our perceptual organs: in particular, in the fact that their “composition” or “mix” is not just any composition or (DA III 2, 426a15–19). But as this contrast makes clear, his point is certainly not that it might well have turned out that though there is no such thing as sensibility, there is such a thing as all the determinate particular perceptible qualities, or vice versa. His point is rather that, unlike perceiving and being perceived, sensibility and perceptible qualities need not be “preserved and destroyed simultaneously” (ἅμα φθείρεσθαι καὶ σώζεσθαι) (DA III 2, 426a17): for example, though my seeing the color of the cup on my desk is simultaneous with that color’s being seen by me, and that by necessity, the same is not true of my sense of sight and that color.

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mix, constantly fluctuating, and such as might belong to us “as it happened,” “incidentally” or “by chance,” but rather something “stable,” “simple,” a kind of standard, specifically “as it were a kind of mean,” which is our very form and fulfillment as sentient creatures, and which as such belongs to us “in our own right,” and which belongs to us in fact so far as we are in fact what we are in our “nature” or “substance.” (Similar remarks apply to perceptible qualities themselves. For them to be the particular sorts of quality they are – for example, dark colors or light ones, hot temperatures or cold ones, low pitches or high ones – is for them to be dark or light or hot or cold or low or high “in relation to” (πρός) a fixed standard, specifically “as it were a kind of mean.” It is because sensibility is this standard that there belongs to it the work of perceiving.)

6.7 conclusion I have been asking how Aristotle’s account of the nature or essence of sensibility figures in his explanation of why the work of perceiving “belongs to it by nature.” In pursuing this question, I have been guided by two ideas. The first was that, for Aristotle, perceiving is “of like by like.” This idea, I argued, implies that sensibility is (somehow) the form, not only of sentient creatures, but also of perceptible objects. The second was that sensibility is (as it were) the “measure” of perceptible qualities – that it is a “standard” that enters into what it is for those qualities to be the particular qualities they are. The main work of this chapter has been to use these ideas to interpret the doctrine that sensibility is “as it were a kind of mean.” We had it already, not only that perceptible qualities lie on spectra, but also that these spectra are divided in two, so that each particular quality lies, if not square in the middle, then on one side or the other. This raises the question: on what principle or by what standard are these “middles” defined? My contention has been that Aristotle’s answer to this question is found in the doctrine that sensibility is “as it were a kind of mean of the contrariety in perceptible qualities”; put another way, my contention has been that the philosophical meaning of this doctrine is that sensibility is the principle or standard that defines the middle of a spectrum of perceptible qualities. It is in this sense, I suggested, that sensibility is (as it were) the “measure” of perceptible qualities: it is the “measure” of those qualities, in being “that with which primarily” those qualities are known, and as

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entering into the very idea of what it is for those qualities to the particular sorts of quality that they are (e.g. dark colors, or cold temperatures, low pitches). It is in this sense, I submit, that sensibility is the “form” of perceptible qualities (lit. εἶδος αἰσθητῶν, DA III 8, 432a2–3), and it is by this doctrine, I submit, that Aristotle means to explain the fact that it is ours in perception to lay hold of “beings.” The explanation is that sensibility itself, in its nature or as such, is the “measure” of those beings, in their nature or as such.

7 Intelligibility

Aristotle maintains that defining “intelligence” (νοῦς) requires first defining its activity, “understanding” or “insight” (τὸ νοεῖν, νόησις), which requires first having considered its “objects” (τὰ ἀντικείμενα), “intelligible beings” (τὰ νοητά) (DA II 4, 415a16–22). My topic in this chapter, which may be regarded as a kind of prolegomenon to a study of Aristotle’s conception of intelligence, is the nature of these objects: that is, what it is about them that makes them intelligible. My principal proposal will be that what makes these objects intelligible is their being “separate” (χωριστά) and “unmixed” (ἀμιγῆ), and that because, insofar as they are intelligible, they are, in their essence, “activity” (ἐνέργεια). I am not unaware that this makes it sound as though Aristotle takes intelligibility to consist in some kind of intelligence (DA III 5, 430a17–18). But, this is hardly an objection. After all, Aristotle himself virtually says as much, when he claims that intelligence is the “form” of its objects (lit. εἶδος εἰδῶν) (DA III 8, 432a2). Taken on its face, the claim is that what these objects all are in common, in virtue of which they are all intelligible, is some kind of intelligence. What is more, this is a result Aristotle is committed to, by the doctrines that there is something that intelligible objects all are in common (lit. ἕν τι τὸ νοητὸν εἴδει), and that intelligence too, though “simple,” and (therefore) “having nothing in common with anything,” is itself intelligible; for the alternative, again as he himself says, is to suppose that intelligence “will have something mixed in, which makes it intelligible just like the rest” (DA III 4, 429b22–24, 26–29, 430a2–3). And there is also the well-known doctrine that, in the case of things without matter, “what is understanding” (τὸ νοοῦν) – that is to say, “intelligence” (νοῦς) – and “what is being understood” (τὸ νοούμενον) are 122

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the same, because “theoretical scientific understanding” (ἡ ἐπιστήμη ἡ θεωρητική) and its object (lit. τὸ οὕτως ἐπιστητόν) are the same (DA III 4, 430a2–5). The challenge, then, in developing an interpretation of Aristotle’s conception of intelligibility is not to steer clear of this result but to make sense of it. My proposal will be that the key lies in realizing that and how and why it is that, for Aristotle, intelligibility is (in a way) a creature of intelligence. Two preliminary points before I begin: First, as noted, this chapter is meant to be preparatory to a study of Aristotle’s conception of intelligence; for this reason it will be somewhat limited in scope. Aristotle’s own focus, in discussing perception in De Anima II, is primarily on the perception of proper sensibles (colors, sounds, odors, etc.); the perception of these objects, he says, is free from error, or (as he also says) nearly so,1 and it is the perception of these objects that his account of the nature of sensibility, presented in summary form in De Anima II 12, is especially designed to explain. My own focus here will be similarly narrow, limited to the indivisible objects of certain primary understandings, regarding which, Aristotle says, there is no falsehood; this is by contrast with other objects “in which there is already a sort of synthesis,” namely, the kind of synthesis characteristic of affirmation and denial (DA III 6, 430a26–28, b1–3, 26–30, III 8, 432a11–12).2 So, when I here ask what Aristotle thinks it is that makes intelligible objects intelligible, I am asking about the intelligibility of these first or primary objects. Second, it is important to bear in mind that, in Aristotle’s view, intelligibility comes in degrees; that is, not everything that is intelligible at all is equally intelligible, any more than everything healthy is equally healthy or everything good is equally good (see e.g. DA III 4, 429b3– 4, 21–22). Note then that I am not asking about the “minimum” standard an object must meet if it is to be intelligible at all. Rather I am asking about “the” standard: that is, about what every object that is in some measure intelligible in that measure is. The consequence is that the application of my proposals to particular cases will be subject to an important qualification; for though they are indeed meant to apply to every object that is intelligible at all, they are meant to apply to those objects, not just like that, but only more or less, that is, only so far as those objects are intelligible.3

1

DA II 6, 418a15, III 3, 428b18–19, 21, 27–28, III 6, 430b29. For the idea that Aristotle’s own focus, in discussing intelligence in De Anima III, is by and large similarly narrow, concentrated especially on those objects regarding which there is no falsehood, see too De Haas 2005, 338. 3 I am grateful to Klaus Corcilius for pressing me to clarify and emphasize this. 2

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7.1 intelligibility and essence My topic, then, is Aristotle’s conception of intelligibility, and my focus is on not every intelligible object, but certain primary ones, which Aristotle characterizes as “indivisible,” and regarding which he says there is no falsehood. What are these objects? They are, in a word, essences:4 Though there is saying something of something, just like affirming, and it is all true or false, not all understanding (νοῦς) is, but understanding what something is in its very being (τί ἐστι κατὰ τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι) is true, and is not [understanding] something of something; rather, just as seeing proper sensibles is true, though seeing whether the pale is human or not is not always true, so it is for everything without matter. (DA III 6, 430b26–30)

In fact, we might have expected as much. For Aristotle, the hallmark of intellectual knowledge – theoretical, practical, and productive – is knowing “why,” and there is a way in which, for him, knowing “why” is knowing “what.”5 It is no surprise, then, that just as the perception of proper sensibles is the basis of all perceptual knowledge, so understanding essences is the basis of such knowledge as is preeminently intellectual or “rational” (μετὰ λόγου).6 If the “first” or “primary” objects of intelligence are essences, one of the leading characteristics of these objects – the one which explains why there is no error regarding them – is a kind of indivisibility (DA III 6, 430a26–27, cp. Met. Θ 10, 1051b25–33). “The false,” Aristotle says, “is always in composition” (DA III 6, 430b1–2). Where there is no composition in the object – where the understanding in question is not

4

See too DA III 6, 430a26–28, though the interpretation of this passage is controversial; for some discussion, see Berti 1978, Berti 1994, Mignucci 1994, and now (on the entire chapter) Delcomminette 2020. 5 For the association of intellectual cognition with knowing why, see Met. A 1; for the association of knowing “why” and knowing “what,” see APo. II 2, also Kosman 2014, 10: “In general, Aristotle requires that if we are to gain scientific understanding of K’s being L by an explanation of this fact, it must be that whatever falls under the description that we give K in explaining why it is L should necessarily,” that is, not incidentally, “be L.” Note that this is not to say that intellectual cognition is limited to substances (on this topic see recently Bronstein 2016, 131–149). 6 McCready-Flora has recently argued, in a paper on Aristotle’s conception of ‘“belief” (δόξα), that for Aristotle, the distinctive mark of rational cognitions is being constitutively subject to the norm of truth (McCready-Flora 2013, 93–95). This is plausible as far as it goes, but leaving aside the question of whether even δόξα involves some grasp of essences, my instinct is to think that, for Aristotle, norms governing δόξα ultimately derive from norms governing the intellectual virtues. (Here I am influenced by some remarks about the priority of prohairetic action to [merely] intentional action in Lawrence 2004.)

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understanding “something of something” (τι κατά τινος) – there is no room for false understanding, but only “understanding or not” (ἢ νοεῖν ἢ μή) (DA III 6, 430b28–29, Met. Θ 10, 1051b31–32). I now want to try to bring this indivisibility into sharper focus. For Aristotle, to ask after the way in which something is “indivisible” is to ask after the way in which it is “one,” and that because, for him, being indivisible just is being one (Met. I 1, 1052b16, cp. Met. Δ 6, 1016b4–5). I begin then from his discussion of unity in Metaphysics Δ 6. Having first distinguished two ways of being one – “incidentally” and “in itself” – and having dispensed with the former, Aristotle proceeds to distinguish among various kinds of per se unity. He concludes with the following provisional summary: On the whole, anything the understanding of which is indivisible – that is, the understanding of its “what it is to be” – and anything it is not possible to separate either in time or in place or in logos – it is these especially that are one, and of these, the ones that are substances. For, in general, what does not admit of division is called one insofar as it does not, e.g. if it does not admit of division insofar as it is a human being, one human being, and if insofar as it is an animal, one animal, and if insofar as it is a magnitude, one magnitude.7 So, whereas most things are called “one” either by doing, or having, or being affected by, or being related to, something else that is one, things said to be one primarily are those whose substance is one, and that either by continuity or in form or in logos. For we count as more [than one] things that either are not continuous, or whose form is not one, or whose logos is not one. (Met. Δ 6, 1016b1–11).

Essences too are “said to be one primarily”; for the understanding of them is indivisible and it is such things especially that are one. It follows that essences are also among things “whose substance,” that is, essence, “is one” (ὧν ἡ οὐσία μία). This result might be felt to cause difficulty; might it not be said that essences do not “have” essences, they are essences? The difficulty, it seems to me, is at most only apparent. Though essences do not have essences distinct from themselves, that need not imply they do not have essences at all. There is another possibility, which in Aristotle’s view is realized, namely, that the essences essences have are the essences essences are (see e.g. Met. Z 6, 1032a4–6, Z 10, 1036a1–2, Z 11, 1036a33–1037b7, H 3,

7

In other words, “not admitting of division” (τὸ μὴ ἔ χειν διαίρεσιν) is a relative notion. Thus, even things that do not admit of division – for example, qua human being, or qua animal, or qua magnitude – need not be indivisible tout court (e.g., every magnitude is divisible). It is enough that they “not admit of division,” that is, that they are not divisible without loss. Cp. DA III 6, 430b5–13.

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1043b2–3). Even without entering into some of the difficult questions surrounding this doctrine – does it hold only of essences in the category of substance? are the essences it holds of particular or universal?8 – it seems safe to say this much, that the fact that essences are essences is no obstacle to their having essences, provided we bear in mind that the essences they have are not “natures” distinct from and prior to them, but rather the “natures” that they themselves are (cp. Met. Z 11, 1037a33–35). Essences, then, are indivisible, in a way that places them among things said to be one primarily, and that because their essence is “one.” I now want to take this a step further. There is something special about the way essences are one, something that distinguishes them from other things said to be one primarily. Unlike human beings, for example, who are not the same as their essence – “human beings and being for human beings are not the same” – there is no distinction between the essence of human beings and its essence: “psuche¯ and being for psuche¯ are the same” (Met. H 3, 1043b2–3). The point I now want to make is that the same is true of an essence’s “oneness” or unity. Unlike human beings, which are also said to be one “in the primary way,” because their essence is one, essences are not one because there belongs to them some other thing, which other thing is the cause of their unity. For the unity of human beings has a cause, as does also their being; this cause is, not those human beings themselves, but rather their essence. But the same is not true of the essence of human beings. That is, there is not some other thing that is the cause of an essence’s unity, which other thing, being itself one, belongs to that essence and thereby causes it to be one; rather, in Aristotle’s language, essences are one “straightaway” (εὐθύς): Everything that does not have matter, neither intelligible nor perceptible, each is straightaway just what something one is (ὅπερ ἕν τί ἐστιν), just as it is also just what some being [is] (ὥσπερ καὶ ὅπερ ὄν τι) . . . That’s why neither “is” nor “one” are in definitions, and [why] the what-it-is-to-be is straightaway something one (ἕν τι), just as it is also a being (ὄν τι). It is also why there is not, for any of these, some other cause of being one (τοῦ ἓν εἶναι), nor even of being a being (οὐδὲ τοῦ ὄν τι εἶναι); for straightaway each is a being (ὄν τι) and a one (ἕν τι). (Met. H 6, 1045a36–b6)

Essences are one “straightaway,” then, in that nothing else is the cause of their being one. Rather, just as there is no distinction between an essence itself and its essence or being, so too there is no distinction between an essence itself and its “oneness” or unity. For example, the cause of the

8

For thoughtful discussion see Kosman 2013, 163–174.

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unity of human psuche¯ is not some form, distinct from human psuche¯, which by belonging to it causes human psuche¯ to be one.9 Rather, the “cause” of the unity of human psuche¯ is human psuche¯ itself, inasmuch as it itself is an essence or form – one that, by belonging to other things, causes them to be one.10 I emphasize this point for what it reveals about how Aristotle thinks about the primary objects of understanding or insight. In calling these objects indivisible, his point is not merely that they are one “in the primary way,” but (stronger) that they are (as it were) forms or “varieties” of unity itself. It is true that, for Aristotle, it is one thing to ask “what sorts of thing are called one” (ποῖα ἓν λέγεται), another to ask “what is it to be one” (τί ἐστι τὸ ἑνὶ εἶναι) – the answers to these questions, he says, “must not be assumed to be the same” (Met. I 1, 1052b1–3). In the case of essences, however, the answers are the same. For Aristotle, essences are not merely called one, and that in the primary way. They are, in addition, for the beings whose essences they are, precisely “what it is to be one” or “what being a one is” (τί ἐστι τὸ ἑνὶ εἶναι). As I put it a moment ago – and this way of putting it is fine, I think, provided we bear in mind that essences are not literally species of unity (unity is not a genus, any more than being is) – essences are (as it were) forms or “varieties” of unity itself. The point is important, because it suggests that we will not have got our minds around how Aristotle thinks about these objects until we have got our minds around how he thinks about “unity” (τὸ ἑνὶ εἶναι) – as I will put it, about what it is to be “unit.”11 This brings me to the last point I want to make in this section, which is that, for Aristotle, the primary objects of understanding or insight, being “units,” are also measures: To be unit is to be a kind of principle of number; for the first measure is a principle, for that with which primarily we know is the first measure of each genus; so, in each case the principle of what is knowable is the unit. But the unit is not the same in all genera. For here it is the quarter-tone, there the vowel or consonant, and of weight it is one thing and of movement another. But everywhere the unit is indivisible, either in quantity or in form. (Met. Δ 6, 1016b17–24)

Cp. DA I 5, 411b9–12: “if something else makes [psuche¯] one, it would be psuche¯ most of all; and there will be need again to ask of it too whether it is one or has parts (πότερον ἓ ν ἢ πολυμερές); for if it is one, why will not psuche¯ be one straightaway too?” 10 Though I have spoken of the “cause” of the unity of human psuche¯ as being human psuche¯ itself, I do not mean to exclude the possibility that it might be better rather to say that its unity is “uncaused.” (Thanks to Chris Frey for pressing me on this.) 11 On this difficult topic see now Crager 2018. (I regret that I learned of this paper too late to take account of it in what follows.) 9

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The same point is developed more fully in Metaphysics Iota: To be unit is to be indivisible, which very thing is also to be proprietary, isolable in place, or form, or thought, or even whole and indivisible, but most of all to be the first measure of each kind, and most strictly of quantity; for it is from this that it has been extended to the rest. For measure is that with which quantity is known; and quantity as quantity is known with either unit or number, and every number is known with the unit, so that all quantity as quantity is known with a unit, and that with which primarily quantities are known, this itself is unit. That is why the unit is a principle of number as number, whence in the other [genera] too, that with which first each is known is called “measure,” and the measure of each is unit – in length, in breadth, in depth, in weight, in speed . . . In all these cases, it is something unit and indivisible that is measure and principle, since even in lines they use the foot as though it were indivisible. For everywhere we seek something unit and indivisible [to be] the measure; and this is what is simple, either in quality or in quantity. (Met. I 1, 1052b15–27, 31–35, cp. Λ 7, 1072a33)

To illustrate, just as we distinguish being a meter from being the meter – being a meter is being one meter long, whereas being the meter is being a unit of measurement, specifically of length – so too we must distinguish being “one” from being “unit.” It is the latter Aristotle is addressing in this passage: not “which sorts of thing are called one” (ποῖα ἓν λέγεται), but “what it is to be unit” (τί ἐστι τὸ ἑνὶ εἶναι). What he says is that to be a unit is to be a kind of principle, specifically a principle of cognition, that “with which primarily” we know – in a word, a kind of measure. The same, then, is true about the first or primary objects of intelligence. They are “one” in the same way that they “are”: not by meeting some other standard of unity and being, but rather by being such standards – that is, by being measures.

7.2 essence and entelechy So far, I have argued that, for Aristotle, the primary objects of understanding or insight, being essences, and (therefore) indivisible and unit, are kinds of measure or standard. I now want to use this result to make sense of another thing Aristotle says about these objects, which is that they are “operations” or “activities” (ἐνέργειαι) (Met. Θ 10, 1051b25–33). One thing Aristotle might be after, in calling essences “activities,” is to bring out how they differ from another sort of unit, posited by other thinkers as the essences of things. Consider, for example, the following passage from Metaphysics H:

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If essences really are in a way numbers, they are so in this way, and not in the way some speak of monads. For a definition is a kind of number; for it is divisible, into indivisibles (for logoi are not infinite), and number is like that. And just as, if from a number there be added or subtracted something of what numbers are from, it is no longer the same number but different, should even the least bit be added or subtracted, so will there no longer be the definition, i.e. the what it was to be, if something be added or subtracted. And there must be something by which numbers are one, which, as it is, they cannot say, by what [they are] one, if indeed they are one (for either they are not, but are like a heap, or if indeed they are, we must say what it is that makes one from many); and definitions are one, though likewise they cannot say [by what] even this. And this follows plausibly: for it is the same argument, and essence is one in this way, not as some say, being a kind of monad or point, but each being fulfillment and a kind of nature. (Met. H 3, 1043b33– 1044a9)

The topic of this passage is the “substance” (οὐσία) of things, what earlier was called their “essence” (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι) or the “cause of their being” (αἴτιον τοῦ εἶναι) (Met. H 3, 1043b1–2, 13–14). Here, this “substance” is contrasted with certain “monads” modeled after the units of arithmetic. (Note that these latter units are not “the” unit [singular], but rather “units” [plural], i.e. the ones “numbers are from” [ἐξ ὧν ὁ ἀριθμός ἐστιν]: for example, the units there are six of in “sixes.”)12 By contrast, Aristotle says, essences are units of a very different kind; if we must take our model from arithmetic, they are like, not the units there are six of in sixes, but rather the “number” or “how many” of those other units. This latter unit, what we might call the form of every six, is not on a level with those other units; for when one of the former is added to six ones, the result is a total of seven. Aristotle captures this contrast by saying that the kind of unit he is after is (rather) “a kind of nature and fulfillment” – something that, when “added to” six ones, makes their number to be, not seven, but six. It is true enough, or so I think, that it is one thing to be “a kind of nature or fulfillment” (ἐντελέχεια καὶ φύσις τις), another to be an “operation” or “activity” (ἐνέργεια).13 Still, in Aristotle’s view, “operations” or “activities” (ἐνέργειαι) are a sort of “fulfillment” (ἐντελέχεια), and a “fulfillment” (ἐντελέχεια) is a sort of at least quasi- “operation” or I speak of “sixes” because it is important in this context to distinguish between two kinds of six: the kind I have two of whenever I have twelve, and the kind there is only one of, namely, the “number” (“how many”) of each of those two. (For the distinction, cp. Plato, Tim. 31a, Rep. X, 597b–d.) 13 On this topic, “fulfillment” (ἐντελέχεια) vs. “operation” or “activity” (ἐνέργεια), see e.g. Blair 1992, Beere 2009, 218–219, Kosman 2013, 37–68, 174–182. 12

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“activity” (ἐνέργεια) (Met. Θ 3, 1047a30–31, 8, 1050a22–23). What is more, there are other passages in which points similar to the point made in the passage quoted above are made with the language of “operation” or “activity” (ἐνέργεια) (e.g. Met. H 3, 1043b1–2). So, one point Aristotle might be making, in calling essences “operations” or “activities” (ἐνέργειαι), is that essences spell “fulfillment” (ἐντελέχεια) for the beings whose essences they are.

7.3 essence and energeia That said, there is another, stronger sense in which Aristotle thinks essences are activities. For Aristotle, essences spell fulfillment, not only for the beings whose essences they are, but also for intelligence itself, inasmuch as they are also to be reckoned as among its operations or activities – as he puts it in one place, “understanding is one with its object” (ἡ νόησις τῷ νοουμένῳ μία) (Met. Λ 9, 1075a4–5). This is the point I try to develop in this and the following sections. It will be convenient to begin from a problem raised in De Anima III 4, about whether intelligence is intelligible.14 The problem arises from two assumptions: first, that intelligible objects all have something in common (lit. ἕν τι τὸ νοητὸν εἴδει), and second, that intelligence itself “has nothing in common with anything” (μηθενὶ μηθὲν ἔχει κοινόν) (DA III 4, 429b23–24, 28). Given these assumptions, if intelligence were intelligible, and that in its own right (lit. μὴ κατ’ ἄλλο), it looks as though it would have to be what its objects have in common. The upshot would be that everything intelligible is also intelligent (lit. “something intelligence belongs to,” ᾧ νοῦς ὑπάρχει) (DA III 4, 429b27–28).15 The remarkable thing is that this is a result Aristotle accepts. Whereas things without matter, he says, are both intelligible and intelligent (lit. “what is understanding and what is being understood are the same,” τὸ 14

Important discussions include Wedin 1988, Driscoll 1992, Sisko 1999, Caston 2000, Lewis 2003, and now Gregoric and Pfeiffer 2015. Though I myself think Aristotle’s solution to the problem is more difficult than Gregoric and Pfeiffer allow, I am in substantial accord both with their principal drift and with their fundamental starting point. (Drift: the problem is not about self-consciousness, but about the intelligibility of intelligence. Starting point: “essences . . . are objective features of the world, and that which grasps and connects these features . . . is just as objective” [p.29].) The difficulties with Aristotle’s solution are brought out clearly and forcefully in Lewis 1996. 15 Aristotle casts the problem in the form of a dilemma: either everything intelligible will also be intelligent (lit. τοῖς ἄλλοις [sc. νοητοῖς] νοῦς ὑπάρξει), or intelligence will have something in common with other things (lit. μεμιγμένον τι ἕξει, ὃ ποιεῖ νοητὸν αὐτὸν ὥσπερ τἆλλα).

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αὐτό ἐστι τὸ νοοῦν καὶ τὸ νοούμενον), things that have matter are neither (lit. “each is potentially among the intelligible objects, so that intelligence will not belong to them,” δυνάμει ἕκαστον ἔστι τῶν νοητῶν, ὥστ’ ἐκείνοις οὐχ ὑπάρξει νοῦς) (DA III 4, 430a3–4, 6–7).16 The effect is to secure it that everything intelligible is also intelligent. This result, bizarre though it may seem, is, in fact, unavoidable for Aristotle. It is unavoidable because it is the consequence of three ideas, likewise unavoidable: that intelligence is intelligible, that intelligible objects all have something in common, and that intelligence has nothing in common with anything.17 In this reasoning, the link connecting intelligible and intelligent is (apparently) immaterial. Things without matter are both intelligible and intelligent; things that have matter are neither. These, then, are the points I want to pursue in what follows: that what is intelligible is without matter, and that what is without matter is intelligent. And, as my present topic is, not every intelligible object, but only certain primary ones, I restrict my attention to essences.18

“. . . each is potentially among the intelligible objects,” δυνάμει ἕκαστον ἔστι τῶν νοητῶν; for rather a different reading of this line, supplying νοῦς as the subject and understanding ἕκαστον τῶν νοητῶν as the predicate of ἔστι, see now Menn 2020, 111–124. (To be clear, when Aristotle says that things that have matter are “potentially among the intelligible objects,” I take him to mean not that they are potentially understood, but that they are potentially intelligible. This is the default meaning of νοητός in Aristotle: “intelligible,” not “understood.” Nor should the implicit doubling of the notion of ability be cause for concern, as it has an analog in a perfectly straightforward point made earlier in De Anima II 7, that colors are not “visible” [ὁρατόν] without light [DA II 7, 418b2]. This implies that colors in darkness are only potentially visible [only potentially potentially being seen]. Later the point is put this way, that colors without light are only potentially colors [lit. τὸ φῶς ποιεῖ τὰ δυνάμει ὄ ντα χρώματα ἐνεργείᾳ χρώματα] [DA III 5, 430a16–17] – a point I take to imply that light makes what is potentially visible visible “in activity.” After all, when I turn on the light in the basement storage closet, I do not color the objects in that closet; they already had colors of their own, even if it is only now that they are [again] visible, which they now are, even if many of them even now are not also being seen.) 17 “Intelligence has nothing in common with anything”: that is, intelligence is “simple” (ἁπλοῦν) and “unmixed” (ἀμιγῆ), so that the only thing it could have in common with other things is what it itself is, namely intelligence. For this reading of “unmixed” (ἀμιγῆ) (DA III 4, 429a18), see Rodier 1900 and Hicks 1907 (both ad loc.); for a different reading see Caston 2000, 135n.1. 18 Though I do not insist on this, it seems to me likely that both points will hold of all intelligible objects, including those involving a kind of “composition” (σύνθεσις). (The argument would turn on the idea that it is not only the “elements” but also the “composition” of such objects that is an achievement of intelligence: “but what makes one is intelligence,” τὸ δὲ ἓν ποιοῦν, τοῦτο ὁ νοῦς ἕκαστον, DA III 6, 430b5–6.) 16

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7.4 intelligibility and immateriality So, first, why might Aristotle think that essences are not intelligible except when separated from matter?19 His reason, I believe, in fact, is straightforward. First, essences are not immediately intelligible – are not immediately “clear” (δῆλον) or “distinct” (σαφές) – but rather need to be made so. For example, even granting that it is clear at a glance that circles are curved, and without corners, and not lopsided, and so on, still, it is not likewise apparent, at least not to everyone, that circles are defined by a plane, line, and point. Second, the task of making such things apparent, considered quite generally, is a work of “dividing” (διαιρεῖν), that is, of distinguishing: for example, proprietary from common, genus from accident, differentia from proprium, prior from posterior, or, more generally, essential from inessential, relevant from irrelevant, “signal” from “noise.”20 Third, and finally, this work of “dividing” is fairly described as involving, not just “separating,” but separating specifically “from matter.” For it is a work that culminates in formulae whereby essences are defined, and thus circumscribed exactly, and wherever there is matter, there is more than just essence; for wherever there is matter there is still room to distinguish – “form” from “subject,” “measure” from “measured,” “what” something is from what that “belongs to.” The first two points – that essences must be made intelligible, and that by a kind of “separating” or “dividing” – are perhaps clearest in a well-known passage of Physics I 1:21

19

Here, it is important to bear in mind a point made at the outset of this chapter, which was that intelligibility comes in degrees (see e.g. DA III 4, 429b3–4, 21–22). So, when I say that essences are not intelligible “except when separated from matter,” I mean “except and so far as they are separated from matter.” (To illustrate, suppose that the essence of flesh were a kind of logos of hot and cold, and that this logos, once “separated” from hot and cold, is no longer the essence of flesh, and that hot and cold [here] are “matter.” In that case, there would be a limit to how intelligible the essence of flesh is. Though I do not take a stand on the supposition itself – I do not think a stand is required by the points developed in the main text – I am grateful to Thomas Johansen for pressing this sort of case.) 20 For the basic idea, that knowledge of essences or principles is got by a kind of division, see for example De Haas 2005, 326–329, also Castelli 2018, ad Met. I 1, 1053a18–20. Contrast perhaps Frede 1996, followed by Johansen 2012, according to which essences are made intelligible by seeing their “place” in an intelligible order, a whole “system” of concepts – that is to say, by a process, not of isolation, but of integration. (It may be that in the end both are required, isolation and integration, as both are required for literacy; still, there is no reading or writing without first learning the alphabet.) 21 On this chapter, see now Falcon 2018 and Menn 2019.

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The natural path is from what is more well-known (γνωριμωτέρων) and more distinct (σαφεστέρων) to us, towards what is more distinct and well-known by nature; for it is not the same things that to us are well-known and that are wellknown (period). That is why it is necessary to proceed this way, from what is more distinct to us, though by nature it is more indistinct, towards what is more distinct and well-known by nature. Now, what to us at the outset is clear and distinct (δῆλα καὶ σαφῆ) is rather commingled; elements and principles become well-known later, from these, to those who divide them. That is why one must proceed from universals to particulars; for the whole is more well-known to perception, and the universal is a kind of whole; for the universal embraces many as parts. In a way the same thing happens with names vis-a-vis their definitions; for names signify a kind of whole and indeterminately, e.g. circle, but its definition divides into particulars. And though children at first call all men fathers, and women mothers, later they distinguish each of these. (Phys. I 1, 184a16–b14)

Though there is much in this passage that is difficult, the points I am after are straightforward. The first is that essences need making intelligible: that they are not immediately “clear” (δῆλον), “distinct” (σαφές), “wellknown” (γνώριμον). This point is straightforward, because essences are at least among the principles there said to become clear and distinct – that is, intelligible – “from” or “out of” certain other things, here charactered as kinds of “whole” and as “confused” or “commingled” (συγκεχυμένα) (cp. Plato, Rep. VII, 524c, also EN VII 1, 1145b14–17).22 The second point is that the process whereby objects are made intelligible is a kind of “separating” or “dividing.” This point is straightforward, because (Aristotle says) elements and principles become clear to those who “divide” (διαρεῖν) said wholes, and who thereby “distinguish” (διορίζειν) the objects they are after from others with which they are “commingled.” I admit that it is not easy to know how exactly to characterize these “wholes,” nor (therefore) the process whereby principles are got “out of” them; it is not easy to put everything Aristotle says in this passage together in sync. But this does not cast doubt on the more general points

22

Contrast the picture that arises on a certain understanding of Plato, according to which Forms do not need making intelligible, but are rather always and forever themselves by themselves, each just what it is and nothing else, simply lying in wait for the “eye of the soul” to be pointed in their direction (cp. Rep. VII, 518b–519a). (For reservations about this way of thinking about Forms, see Soph. 248a–249d.) I emphasize that on the picture I am attributing to Aristotle, the process of making intelligible is nothing at all like the process wherein things come to be perceived according to the “secret doctrine” attributed to Protagoras (and to “Homer and Heraclitus and the entire tribe”) in Plato’s Theaetetus, 152c–160d. If that is right, we might think of Aristotle, on the present interpretation, as steering a kind of middle course between Protagoras and Plato. (Thanks to an anonymous referee for bringing home to me the appositeness of this representation.)

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I am insisting on: again, that essences need making intelligible, and that by being distinguished from other things with which they are “mixed.”23 The remaining point – that this distinguishing involves separating specifically from matter – is simply a consequence of the point that essences are “units.” Being unit, they are not merely what something is, but exactly or “just” that – no more and no less. For if they were anything else in addition, they would not be their own essence, in which case they would not be unit. To illustrate, suppose that the essence of triangles were not merely “what” triangles “are,” but something else besides, for example, scalene or obtuse. In that case, the essence of triangles would not be its own essence; for being it would involve being, not only what triangles are, but also that other thing too, for example, scalene or obtuse, which ex hypothesi is no part of “what being is” for triangles. Essences, then, are exactly or just what they are – no more, no less. But nothing that has matter is like that: no human being, for example, is just a human being, and not also of a certain size and shape, and variously related to countless other things, for example, a country of origin, a mother, the music of Bach, and so on. And the same will be true, not only of flesh-and-blood human beings, but also of images of human beings, whether remembered or imagined: they too will have a kind of matter, and they too will also be other things, on top of and in addition to what human beings are. No image of a human being is just what human beings are (even allowing it is that!), any more than any image of a triangle is just what triangles are, and not also scalene or isosceles, right or obtuse or acute, and so on (cp. Met. Z 10, 1035b31–1036a12, Z 11, 1036b32–1037a5, H 6, 1045a36–b7). Since, then, essences are “one,” in a way that nothing material is one, defining them will involve distinguishing them from any kind of matter; for again, wherever there is matter, there is more than just essence.24 23

Cp. Top. VI 3, 140a27–29, Met. I 1, 1053a18–20 and Castelli 2018 ad loc., also Angioni 2001, 314–317, De Haas 2005, 326–329. Note that the process I have described as making a single object progressively clearer and more distinct is described by Aristotle as beginning from one object and ending in another. In fact, these descriptions are complementary. Aristotle describes the first object as a kind of whole, the second as a kind of part which must be “divided out of” that whole; this implies that the second object was “there” all along. (Compare the process of remixing a recording, so as to make signals present in the original recording more distinctly audible.) 24 It might be wondered whether this leaves room for the possibility that essences might be understood more and less clearly and distinctly. I think it does, provided that differences in understanding may also be described as differences in object (see previous note). To illustrate, suppose we come to regard courage as a mean with regard to fear and confidence, in specific sorts of circumstance, and for specific ends, having begun by regarding it just as a mean with regard to fear and confidence; the differences, in point of clarity and distinctness, between what I have just described as two “understandings” of a single

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My suggestion, then, is that, for Aristotle, the reason that objects that have matter are only potentially intelligible is that intelligibility involves a kind of clarity and distinctness only achieved so far as an object has been “separated” or distinguished from whatever it is not – which, for essences, includes whatever subjects they belong to. This latter point, that essences are distinct from the subjects they belong to, and (therefore) from any kind of matter, is simply part and parcel of what it is to be “one” in the way they are one: not by meeting some other standard of unity, but by themselves being such standards. The first point, that intelligibility goes handin-hand with a kind of clarity and distinctness, though it does make intelligibility a kind of product of intelligence, is also straightforward: in point of fact, this kind of clarity and distinctness just is both a hallmark of intelligibility and an achievement of intelligence.25

7.5 immateriality and intelligence So much for the connection between immateriality and intelligibility; what of the connection between immateriality and intelligence? The connection, I will argue, lies in the facts that, for Aristotle, there is nothing without matter that is not “being understood” (νοούμενον), and nothing being understood that is not “understanding” (νοοῦν). I take these points, in turn. The first point is fairly straightforward. I have already observed that things without matter, being indivisible or unit, are “just” what they are – no more, no less. In this respect, they are similar to Platonic Forms: if I may put it this way, they are pure, unadulterated “signal,” with no admixture of “noise”.26 Thus, to say that nothing like that is not being understood is simply to reject a certain kind of Platonism; for it is to claim that it is only in understanding that forms are “divided,” “separated,” “set apart” from the subjects they belong to. Perhaps one might argue: once an object has “object,” courage, may also be described as differences between the objects being understood – in the one case courage, in the other, a kind of whole embracing other things too. 25 Kosman 1992, 354, where a similar result (among others) is reached, beginning from some of the same passages, but taking a different route. It has been objected to me that “distinctness,” unlike “clarity,” is not an essentially psychological or epistemological concept, consisting as it does in being “divided,” “set apart,” “separated” from other things. My own view is that, in these contexts, being “divided,” “set apart,” “separated,” etc., are, in fact, metaphors for being distinguished from one another, where “distinguishing” is a proprietary work of intelligence. 26 Rep. V, 476a: “each is itself one, but because of their association everywhere they appear with actions and bodies and one another, they each appear to be many.”

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been separated from matter, and thereby made intelligible, it will thereafter remain intelligible, even when not being understood. But this is not very plausible. For Aristotle, objects of intelligence are “in” perceptible forms, in such a way that there is no “beholding” them without also beholding sensory images (DA III 8, 432a4–9, cp. III 7, 431b2, Mem. 1, 449b31–450a1). Indeed, not only are these objects not beheld except in sensory images, they are not remembered except in sensory images either (Mem. 1, 450a12–13).27 Nor are such images themselves “understandings” or “insights” (νοήματα); for they have a kind of matter, which in itself is unknowable (cp. DA III 8, 432a12–14, Met. Z 10, 1035b31– 1036a12). But in that case nothing “in” sensory images will be intelligible just by being in such images; rather, something else will be required to make them intelligible: not merely being “in” such images, but being therein understood (cp. APo I 31, 87b28, 88a12–14). That is, nothing is intelligible, nor (therefore) without matter, except when being understood.28 The second point – that nothing being understood is not also intelligent – is trickier. It is clear enough that this is something Aristotle holds. For he says that “what is understanding” (τὸ νοοῦν) and “what is being understood” (τὸ νοούμενον) are the same, and presumably everything that “is understanding” (νοοῦν) is also intelligent (lit. ᾧ νοῦς ὑπάρχει). What is tricky is getting clear about why he thinks that what is being understood is also understanding. I will try approaching this in stages. First, it is easy enough to see why Aristotle would think the activities, “understanding” and “being understood,” are the same, at least in number. He thinks the same about perceiving and being perceived and his reason is that this is but an instance of a more general rule, which holds of any proceeding that is at once a moving and being moved or an affecting and being affected (DA III 2, 425b26–426a6, cp. Phys. III 3). Similarly, then, for understanding: if being understood and understanding are a kind of affecting and being affected, they too will be the same, at least in number. But though this much is easy, the point that we are after is

27

Here I owe a debt to Corcilius 2010, 6 n.20, which marks as problematic the claim that intelligence is “a sort of ‘storage place’ for formerly acquired concepts.” For further discussion of the role of sensory images in insight, see now Cohoe 2016. (Cohoe allows for the possibility that intelligible objects are “stored” in intelligence, e.g. at p.367. Aristotle does say that universals, once learned, “are in a way in ψυχή itself” [DA II 5, 417b23–24]. But the qualification “in a way” [πώς] is pretty elastic.) 28 The divinity is no exception, because it is always both understanding and being understood (DA III 5, 430a22, Met. Λ 9, 1074b33–35).

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stronger than that. The items it says are the same are not the activities, “understanding” (τὸ νοεῖν) and “being understood” (τὸ νοεῖσθαι), but rather the subjects of those activities, “what is understanding” (τὸ νοοῦν) and “what is being understood” (τὸ νοούμενον). How could that be? Suppose, for example, that what is being understood is the essence of triangles, and that what is understanding it is me. How could we two be the same, whether in number or in being? Here, the contrast with perception is instructive. Nowhere does Aristotle say, of sentient and perceptible, that they are the same, and that with good reason. Unlike the activities, perceiving and being perceived, which “come and go simultaneously” (ἅμα φθείρεσθαι καὶ σώζεσθαι), the same is not true of the subjects of these activities; for these subjects are what they are, sentient and perceptible, and that not merely potentially, but in fulfillment, even before and even after perceiving and being perceived (DA III 2, 426a15–26). But, with understanding the situation is different. Unlike sentient and perceptible, which come and go as they please, without dragging their counterpart along with them, the ties that bind intelligence and its objects together are stronger than that. For the “coming and going” of intelligible objects – that is to say, their being intelligible, not merely potentially, but in fulfillment – is tied to the activity of understanding those objects. For example, if I am what is understanding, and the essence of triangles what is being understood, then the latter’s being intelligible, in fulfillment, is tied to my activity of understanding it. The reason is that, unlike perceptible objects, which are perceptible, not merely potentially, but in fulfillment, even when not being perceived, intelligible objects are only thus intelligible when separated from matter, which they are only when being understood. (In this respect, intelligible objects, when not being understood, are like colors shrouded in darkness, cp. DA III 5, 430a16–17.) For intelligible objects, then, their very intelligibility, their “being there” (ὑπάρχειν) qua intelligible, is coeval with the activity of understanding them. But in that case, what is being understood will be the same, at least in number, as the activity of understanding it (cp. Met. Λ 9, 1075a4–5: “the activity of understanding is one with its object,” ἡ νόησις τῷ νοουμένῳ μία).29

29

I think this offers a way out of the difficulties raised in Lewis 1996, 42–44. Though Lewis considers some contrasts between perceiving and understanding, he does not consider this contrast, that unlike perceptible objects, intelligible objects owe their being intelligible to activities of intelligence.

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So, not only are the activities the same, namely “understanding” (τὸ νοεῖν) and “being understood” (τὸ νοεῖσθαι), but also the objects being understood and the activities of understanding them – they too are the same, at least in number. The reason, again, is that the intelligibility of these objects is an achievement of intelligence: not only in being a product of inquiry, but also in only being there, in fulfillment, in the understandings or insights (νοήσεις) which are inquiry’s terminus.30 Indeed, objects being understood must also be the same as the understandings of them, not only in number, but also in “being.” For suppose that, though the same in number, they were different in being. In that case, the object being understood would be “mixed” – that is, not “separated,” that is, distinguished – from the understanding of it, in which case it would not yet be intelligible (νοητόν), nor (therefore) being understood (νοούμενον). The next point I want to make is simply a corollary of this. If objects being understood are the same as activities of understanding them, then whenever intelligence is understanding some object, it will also be understanding something of itself – namely, its activity of understanding that object (so to say, every “understanding” [νόησις] is an “understanding of understanding” [νόησις νοήσεως]).31 For example, if the essence of triangles is the same as my activity of understanding it, then whenever I am understanding that essence, I will also be understanding something of myself, namely my activity of understanding that essence.32 If I may put it this way, in understanding that essence I am understanding my own handiwork; for what I am understanding – namely, that essence, “being there,” fully intelligible, because now “separated” (κεχωρισμένον) from everything except what it itself is – is the same as my activity of understanding it. In general, then, so far as intelligence is understanding some intelligible object, it is likewise understanding something of itself, namely its activity of understanding that object.33 30

Thanks to John Ferrari for pressing me to distinguish these two ways of being achievements of intelligence. 31 Cp. DA III 4, 430a2–4, where Aristotle infers, from the point that what is understanding and what is being understood are the same, that “intelligence” (νοῦς) is “intelligible” (νοητόν). The inference relies on the point that whenever intelligence is understanding some object, it too is being understood. 32 Lewis considers and criticizes a similar move, correctly observing that “it is fallacious to conclude that, because teaching and learning are in this sense the same, the teacher therefore learns” (Lewis 1996, 45). But my premise is that the activity of understanding is the same, not as the activity of being understood, but as the subject of that activity, the object being understood. 33 Kosman has suggested that Aristotle’s reason for insisting that intelligence is intelligible is that its activity, being a form of cognition, must involve consciousness, which, in turn, requires a kind of “internal self-presence,” which Aristotle describes as intelligence

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Similarly, when intelligence is understanding some object, what it therein understands of itself is only its activity of understanding that object; for example, when I am understanding the essence of triangles, what I understand of myself is only my activity of understanding that essence. For suppose I were also understanding, not my very own nature qua intelligent creature – intelligence has no nature of its own, at least not “before understanding” (πρὶν νοεῖν) (DA III 4, 429a21–24) – but various other things, things which belong to me, qua the intelligent creature I am, only incidentally. These “incidental belongings” are hardly the same as my activity of understanding that essence, not even in number; for their “coming and going” is not coeval with the coming and going of that activity. But in that case, if in understanding that activity I were also understanding those belongings, that could only be because I had not “separated” the one from the others: that is, because I had not distinguished those belongings from understanding that essence – in which case neither the one nor the other would as yet be intelligible. No, when I am busy understanding some object, all I am understanding of myself is just my activity of understanding that object.34 This brings me to my final point. So far, we have it that when intelligence is understanding some object, something of it is being understood too, namely its activity of understanding that object; we also have it that, in general, the object being understood is the same as the activity of understanding it. From these points it follows that the activity of understanding (e.g.) the essence of triangles, being itself an object of intelligence, will itself be the same as some activity of intelligence: in particular, it will be the same as understanding understanding that essence. The reason (again) is that the “coming and going” of intelligible objects is tied to the activities wherein they are being understood, and that because they are only intelligible when separate from matter (which they are only when being understood). What is more, this latter activity, wherein intelligence is understanding understanding some object, will itself be the same as its understanding that object; for what intelligence understands of itself, when it is understanding some object, is just its activity of understanding “understanding itself” (αὑτὸν νοεῖν) (Kosman 2013, 228–230). By contrast, the present suggestion is that Aristotle’s reason for insisting that intelligence is intelligible is that its activity is the “form,” not of consciousness awareness, but of intelligibility (cp. DA III 8, 432a2: “intelligence [is] form of forms,” ὁ νοῦς [ἐστιν] εἶδος εἴδων). In any case, when I speak in the text of “understanding” something of myself, what I mean by “understanding” (νοεῖν) is not consciousness, but insight (cp. Gregoric and Pfeiffer 2015). 34 Cp. Lear 1988, 116–135, which arrives at a similar result by a different route.

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that object. Thus, whenever intelligence is understanding some object, the understanding subject (τὸ νοοῦν) and the object being understood (τὸ νοούμενον) will be the same; for both will be the same as the activity of understanding (ἡ νόησις), that is, understanding that object.35 For example, whenever I am understanding the essence of triangles, I who am understanding and the essence being understood will be the same; for we will both be the same as the activity of understanding that essence.36 To this last, it might be objected: let it be that whenever I am understanding the essence of triangles, I then am bereft of all my incidental belongings – and indeed, not only of them, but also of much that is human – on the grounds that otherwise I will not be the same as my activity of understanding. That is, let it be that, metaphorically speaking, I must leave these belongings behind, at least if I am to view that essence as it is, not just for viewers who happen to share my perspective, but as it is “period” (ἁπλῶς) or “in itself” (καθ’ αὑτό).37 Even so, it seems incredible to suppose that I must literally leave all my belongings behind, at least whenever I am understanding that essence – to suppose that I must then be a disembodied intelligence, or (worse) the Platonic Form of Triangle! Although I agree that this would indeed be incredible, the inference is based on a misunderstanding. When I am understanding the essence of triangles, “my intelligent remains” – what is “left,” so to speak, of the human being I am, once my activity of understanding has been “separated” from everything else that I am – are (surely) an achievement of intelligence. That is, my intelligent remains, thus separated from other

In short, “what is understanding” (τὸ νοοῦν) and “what is being understood” (τὸ νοούμενον) are the same because each is the same as “the activity of understanding” (ἡ νόησις). τὸ νοούμενον is the same as ἡ νόησις, because each νοούμενον is the same as the νόησις wherein it is being understood; τὸ νοοῦν is the same as that νόησις, because that νόησις is also an understanding of something of it (namely its activity, νόησις). 36 Cp. DA III 4, 429b16–18. There we are told that if flesh and the essence of flesh are discerned by the same thing – in other words, if sensibility is among the “incidental belongings” of intelligence – then intelligence will stand to itself “as a line having been bent stands to itself whenever it has been straightened” (ὡς ἡ κεκλασμένη ἔχει πρὸς αὑτὴν ὅταν ἐκταθῇ). This, though hardly pellucid, certainly appears to imply that when intelligence is busy understanding some object it no longer has “incidental belongings.” 37 Cp. Politis 2001, 401, Burnyeat 2008, 41. Note that, for Aristotle, this “view” is not taken “from nowhere,” but from the standpoint of intelligence. We may call it, if we like, “the God’s-eye view,” provided we bear in mind that, for Aristotle, this is no mere heuristic, and also that “the God’s-eye view” is not taken from a standpoint that is alien to our humanity as such. For this standpoint, though not idiosyncratic to me, is nonetheless mine, and that by nature, inasmuch as what I am “most of all” is the divine element within me (EN X 7, 1178a2–7). 35

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things, are (surely) like the essence of triangles, thus separated from other things: like it, that is, not only in being the product of inquiry, but also in only “being there,” in fulfillment, in the understandings or insights that are inquiry’s terminus. Yes, there is a sense in which understanding what triangles are involves somehow “transcending” all my incidental belongings, and much of my humanity to boot; in Aristotle’s language, in understanding what triangles are, I am living (for a time) “a life greater than human,” that is, a life which is “mine,” “not so far as I am human but so far as something divine,” namely intelligence, “is present within me” (EN X 7, 1177b26–28). But surely this does not mean that in understanding the essence of triangles I have become (for a time) either a disembodied intelligence or the Platonic Form of Triangle. For Aristotle, the essence of triangles is fully intelligible, that is, “separate” from whatever subjects it may belong to, only when and so far as it is being understood – that is, only when and so far as it is the object of some activity of intelligence. But then, presumably the same is true likewise, and for just the same reason, of “my intelligent remains”: they too “are there” (ὑπάρχειν), in fulfillment, “separate” from the rest of me, only when and so far as they are being understood – only when and so far as they are the object of some activity of intelligence. That is, for both that essence and my intelligent remains, “being there,” pure and unmixed, separate from everything except what each of them is, though indeed the fulfillment of me and it both, is still for all that but a creature of intelligence. But to return and conclude: I was trying to make sense of the idea that the primary objects of intelligence are “operations” or “activities” – that they spell fulfillment, not only for the beings whose essences they are, but also for intelligence itself, and so are to be reckoned as among its activities. Though I began from the problem of whether intelligence is intelligible, still, in trying to make sense of Aristotle’s “solution” to this problem, I have inevitably got somewhat ahead of myself: ahead of myself, because my present topic is not intelligence itself, or its activities, but rather its objects, and inevitably, because the thesis about these objects which I am trying to understand is that they are operations or activities of intelligence. Regarding that thesis, the essential points are three: that there is nothing intelligible that is not without matter, that there is nothing without matter that is not being understood, and that there is nothing being understood that is not the same as the activity of understanding it. In making these points, I have tried to bring out how each (in a way) is relatively straightforward. The first point, that there is nothing intelligible that is not without matter, is just the point that intelligibility

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involves a clarity and distinctness of a kind only achieved by “separating” or distinguishing a thing from everything it is not. The second point, that there is nothing without matter that is not being understood, is simply the point that nothing is thus “separate” from other things except when and so far as it is being understood. The third point, that what is being understood is the same as the activity of understanding it, is just a consequence of the second: for if the two did differ, intelligible objects would “be there” – would be, that is, intelligible, not just potentially, but in fulfillment – even when not being understood. Collecting these points, and simplifying, my proposal then is just this, that intelligible objects are activities of intelligence, insights (νοήσεις), and that because the “form” of these objects, what they all “have in common,” what their intelligibility consists in, is a kind of clarity and distinctness unique to those activities.

7.6 objection and reply I conclude by considering an obvious objection. To say that intelligence’s primary objects are the same as its activities is to say that their “existing” or “being there” is a purely cognitive phenomenon. But in that case, how will our insights into essences be insights – “understandings” or “graspings” of “beings” (τὰ ὄντα) or “things” (τὰ πράγματα) out there in the world?38 Here, it is crucial to distinguish between “being” what something is and being “just” or “exactly” that (no more, no less). For example, “being” what triangles are is being a triangle: that is, it is being a subject the form triangle “belongs to,” either because triangle is the shape that it has or because triangle is the shape that it is. To illustrate, drawings of triangles will be what triangles are, if triangle is the shape that they have; the shapes of these drawings will also be what triangles are, if triangle is the shape that they are. By contrast, to be “just” or “exactly” what triangles are is to be a triangle and nothing but: that is, it is to be a subject that the form triangle belongs to and that no other form belongs to. It is such objects, I have argued, whose “being there,” not just potentially, but in fulfillment, is a purely cognitive phenomenon – an achievement of intelligence. But this is not to deny that such objects “are there” potentially in other subjects they belong to. Nor is it to deny that their “being there,” in activities of intelligence, depends on their “being there” in other subjects 38

Thanks to Yannig Luthra for pressing this objection.

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they belong to (cp. Cat. 5, 2b5–6). On the contrary, it is virtually a tautology that nothing is a measure unless there at least could be something it measures, which for Aristotle there could not be unless there now is one. To get at the point another way, consider the following passage from Metaphysics M: Just as there are also many statements about things qua moving only (ᾗ κινούμενα μόνον), separate from what each such thing is and from its attributes, and it is not necessary on that account, either that there should be something moving, separate from sensible things, or that there should be some distinct nature marked off within them (ἐν τούτοις τινὰ φύσιν εἶναι ἀφωρισμένην), so too there will be statements about and sciences of moving things, not qua moving but qua bodies only, and again qua planes only, or qua lines only, or qua divisible, or qua indivisible but having position, or qua indivisible only. Thus, since it is true unqualifiedly to say (ἁπλῶς λέγειν ἀληθές), not only that separable things are, but also that inseparable things [are] (e.g. that moving things are), it is also true unqualifiedly to say that objects of mathematics [are], and that they are exactly as they say [they are] (καὶ τοιαῦτά γε οἷα λέγουσιν). And just as it is true to say, without qualification, of the other sciences too, that they are of this, not of what is incidental (e.g. not of the pale, if the healthy is pale, and the science is of the healthy), but of what each science is of – of the healthy if qua healthy, of human beings if qua human beings – so too it is with geometry: it is not if the things it is [a science] of happen to be sensible, though [it] is not [a science of them] qua sensible, that the mathematical sciences will be [sciences] of sensibles, nor indeed will they be [sciences] of other separate things beyond them. (Met. M 3, 1077b22–1078a5)

Though Aristotle’s primary topic in this passage is the objects of mathematics, what he says about these objects is that they are no different from the objects of any science. So, for example, the science of motion makes statements about objects “insofar as they are in motion only”: that is, quite apart from “what” these objects may be in their own right, and quite apart from any other attributes they may have. Aristotle insists that it is flat-out true to say of such objects, both that they “are,” and that they are “exactly such as [scientists] say that they are.” He insists on this, despite also insisting that there need not be, nor in fact is, anything that is only in motion, whether “separate” from sensible things or somehow “cordoned off” (ἀφωρισμένον) within them. Though this may seem to come short of saying that the objects of science are creatures of intelligence, Aristotle comes close to saying exactly this just a few lines below, in suggesting that these objects are “posits”: If, positing [things] separate from their attributes (θέμενος κεχωρισμένα τῶν συμβεβηκότων), someone considers something concerning them as such, he will

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not for this reason say anything false, any more than when one draws a line on the ground and says it is a foot long when it is not; for the falsehood is not in the premises. And each would be contemplated best if one posited what is not separate [first] having separated [it] (εἴ τις τὸ μὴ κεχωρισμένον θείη χωρίσας) – the very thing that arithmeticians and geometers do. For human beings are one and indivisible, qua human beings, and he posited [them to be] one [and] indivisible, and then considered whether anything belongs to human beings qua indivisible. But the geometer treats [human beings] neither qua human being nor qua indivisible, but qua solids. For it is clear that whatever would belong to them even if they were not indivisible admits of belonging to them even without these, so that for this reason geometers speak correctly, and talk about beings, i.e. beings that are (καὶ ὄντα ἐστίν); for beings [are] in two ways, in fulfillment and materially (διττὸν γὰρ τὸ ὄν, τὸ μὲν ἐντελεχείᾳ τὸ δ’ ὑλικῶς). (Met. M 3, 1078a17–31)

The conclusion of this passage is especially revealing. It makes clear that the objects of science attain their own most perfect realization in activities of intelligence: “for beings are in two ways, in fulfillment and materially,” διττὸν γὰρ τὸ ὄν, τὸ μὲν ἐντελεχείᾳ τὸ δ’ ὑλικῶς. To Aristotle’s way of thinking, then, the idea that the objects of science are “posits,” what I have called “creatures of intelligence,” is not debunking of science. On the contrary, the “positing” in question, far from inventing or distorting the being of these objects, is precisely the first step in making it intelligible – in separating or distinguishing it from all the “noise” that, as found in concreto, it is inevitably mixed with. It is true that this “separation” cannot be performed physically, nor even in the imagination; it is the distinctive achievement, the “signature” or “calling card,” of intelligence. But this does not diminish the achievements of intelligence; on the contrary, it is precisely its ambition and triumph – “for this is the god,” τοῦτο γὰρ ὁ θεός (Met. Λ 7, 1072b31).39

39

I borrow the appropriation of this line from Kosman 2013, 214, though I have associated the divinity of νόησις with clarity, distinctness, exactness, and the like, as opposed to “selfawareness.” (Compare Broadie 2016, 177 n.35.) To obviate misunderstanding I note that, for Kosman, it is absolutely critical that this self-awareness be “diaphanous and nonreflective,” such as “must characterize any act of cognition (whatever its object) insofar as it is an act of awareness” (Kosman 2013, 229–231).

8 Intelligence

The project announced at the outset of the De Anima is to discuss, first the nature of psuche¯, then all its attributes (DA I 1, 402a7–8). History shows that inquirers into the nature of psuche¯ must take care, neither to deny that it has the attributes it does have, nor to render its having them in principle unintelligible. These pitfalls cannot be avoided unless psuche¯ itself, and its instruments and objects, are seen as forming (as it were) a kind of “community” or “partnership” (κοινωνία), in the undertakings of which each party finds its proper fulfillment.1 Seeing things this way requires seeing the instruments and objects of vital activity as united under a single principle, psuche¯ itself. This much, I think, is implicit in Aristotle’s definition of psuche¯, as the form and fulfillment of natural organic bodies. If one thing this implies is that psuche¯ is the “measure” of living creatures, the standard for judging their success, in being what they are and in doing what they do, another thing it implies is that psuche¯ is also the measure of the objects that, in living their lives, those creatures have to do with. Earlier I tried to bring out how these ideas inform Aristotle’s account of sensibility in De Anima II. In this chapter, I try to bring out how they inform his account of intelligence in De Anima III. Following up the analogy with sensibility, I take for granted that intelligence functions as a kind of “rule” (κανών) or “measure,” a kind of standard “with which primarily” we discern the essences of things. Thus, what I am looking to find in Aristotle’s account of its nature is an account of that rule or 1

This requirement is not peculiar to the study of psuche¯, but holds for every domain of study, insofar as it is a domain of study, that is, insofar as its facts are not just “as it happened” (see e.g. DA I 3, 407b17–26).

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measure or standard, just as I find in his account of sensibility as “as it were a kind of mean of the contrariety in perceptible qualities” an account of the standard we use in discerning perceptible qualities.2

8.1 understanding everything Though the discussion of intelligence extends through De Anima III 8, the chapter I focus on mainly is De Anima III 4. I begin with some preliminary points, first about what Aristotle is trying to explain in this chapter, and then about where he takes himself to explain it. The chapter begins as follows: Regarding the part of psuche¯ with which psuche¯ both knows and judges (φρονεῖ), [1] whether it be separate, or not separate in magnitude, but only in account, we must consider [2] what is distinctive about it and [3] how understanding arises. (DA III 4, 429a10–13)

Though three questions are mentioned here, only the latter two are put on the agenda of the ensuing discussion. The rest of the chapter may be divided into three main sections. The first section, hypothesizing a similarity between understanding and perceiving, develops an account of what intelligence is, concluding with a few confirmatory remarks (DA III 4, 429a13–24); the next section proceeds to detail important differences between intelligence and sensibility (DA III 4, 429a29–b22). Taken together, these two sections appear to constitute Aristotle’s treatment of the first question on his agenda, concerning what is distinctive about intelligent psuche¯, namely, intelligence itself.3 The third section then raises two difficulties which arise from this treatment (DA III 4, 429b22– 430a9). Aristotle’s handling of the first difficulty, about “how it will understand” (πῶς νοήσει), would appear to constitute his treatment of the second question on his agenda, “how understanding arises” (πῶς ποτὲ γίνεται τὸ νοεῖν).4 His point in raising the second difficulty, about whether intelligence is intelligible, remains to be seen; certainly it was not mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, as either to be discussed or set aside.5 Aristotle says “intelligence” (νοῦς) is a measure in Posterior Analytics I 23, 84b37–85a1 (I owe the reference to Marko Malink). 3 For this interpretation of Aristotle’s first topic, see Themistius, 5.3.94.3–4, pace Simplicius, 11.222.22–25 (so too Rodier 1900, ad loc.). 4 The question is anticipated at DA I 2, 405b21. 5 For discussion of Aristotle’s treatment of this difficulty, see Chapter 7, Section 3. 2

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My primary focus will be on the first section, which addresses the nature or essence of intelligence. Given that essences are causes of attributes, we may expect Aristotle’s account of the nature of intelligence to be at the same time an account of the cause of its attributes. Which attribute specifically does he here have in mind? What specifically does he think is its cause? The “fact” Aristotle relies on in developing his account is that intelligence “understands everything” (πάντα νοεῖ) (DA III 4, 429a18). This is a fact which embraces, not only the object of intelligence, but also its activity regarding that object. The object of intelligence is “everything”: more precisely, it is the essence of each and every thing there is to be – if I may put it this way, the “being” (οὐσία) of every “being beings be.” To illustrate, Socrates is a being, and among the beings he “is” – among the things that belong to him – are human, snub-nosed, tan, barefoot, courageous, and wise. The being of each of these beings – that is, “what being is” for human, for snub-nosed, for tan, for barefoot, for courageous, for wise – is an object of intelligence. The same is true of the being of everything else Socrates is, and (indeed) of the being of everything anything is. In other words, there is nothing belonging to anything whose essence falls outside the purview of intelligence – nothing such that inquiring what it is to be that is like trying to smell colors. Moreover, Aristotle says, the activity or “work” of intelligence is “understanding” or “insight” (νοεῖν): that is, if I may put it this way, hitting the nail on the head, that is, circumscribing exactly, seeing or grasping, for each and for every being be, what its being is – that is, what it is to be human, or snubnosed, or tan, or barefoot, or courageous, or wise, and so on. If this is the “fact” of which intelligence is the “cause,” then an account of its nature will reveal this cause – will reveal, that is, what about intelligence makes it an instrument for understanding essences. Note that, in saying this, I do not mean to deny that the account is also intended to explain – how to put it? – why we so much as have views about essences. After all, Aristotle had earlier described sensibility as “receptive,” just as he here describes intelligence as receptive, and it is at least arguable that what he then took himself to be explaining was the fact that animals are “sensitive” to perceptible forms: that is, are susceptible to being moved or affected by them in the first place – are so much as appeared to at all, let alone appeared to correctly (DA II 12, 424a18, III 4, 429a13–18). This is arguable, because his explanation of why plants do not perceive appears to lie in part in their “not having a mean,” in part in their “not having a principle such as to receive the forms of perceptible things” (DA II 12,

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424a32–b3), and it is arguable that the second part of this explanation is meant to explain why plants are not so much as appeared to at all (whether correctly or incorrectly).6 Similarly, it is at least arguable that what Aristotle has in mind to explain, in describing intelligence as “receptive,” is a certain “sensitivity” to the essences of things: that is, a susceptibility to being moved or affected by them in the first place – to so much as having views about “what being is” for the various things that things are. So, I do not mean to deny that Aristotle’s account of intelligence is intended to explain this too (though I would observe that, if it is, the explanation is largely formal, comparable to saying that plants are not appeared to because they are not “receptive” of perceptible forms, that is, liable to being affected by them in the way animals are, that is, liable to being appeared to). My point is rather that the account is at least also intended to explain why it belongs to intelligence to perform a certain kind of work, a kind of cognitive success, the kind Aristotle calls “understanding” or “insight” (νόησις). This point, which I have just now elicited from the “fact” Aristotle begins from, may also be elicited from the argument he provides for the substantive portion of his account of intelligence. By this I do not mean the bit that says that intelligence is “receptive of form” and “potentially such but not this” (DA III 4, 429a15–16); for these points are to be compared, not with Aristotle’s substantive account of sensibility as summarized in De Anima II 12, but rather with his preliminary discussion of perceiving in De Anima II 5 (a discussion marked as “preliminary” by its independence from Aristotle’s account of perceptible objects, which is not presented until II 6).7 No, what I mean by the “substantive” portion of Aristotle’s account of intelligence is the bit that says that intelligence is “unmixed,” 6

On this passage, see Chapter 6, Section 2. I emphasize that this is a reading I allow, not one I insist on. For it seems to me possible, perhaps preferable, to take “not having a principle such as to receive the forms of perceptible things” (μηδὲ τοιαύτην ἀρχήν οἵαν τὰ εἴδη δέχεσθαι τῶν αἰ σθητῶν) as epexegetical of “not having a mean” (τὸ μὴ ἔ χειν μεσότητα), in which case the passage would give but a single reason why plants do not perceive. Read this way, Aristotle would not be explaining why plants do not even so much as mis-perceive (are not appeared to at all), but simply why they do not perceive (are not appeared to correctly). So too, I think De Haas 2005, 333 and n.54. 7 For this view of DA II 5, see Chapter 2, Section 1. As for DA III 4, Aristotle begins with the remark that, if understanding is like perceiving, then it is a kind of being affected by its object, from which he then draws some further conclusions, all of which have analogs in DA II 5 (DA III 4, 429a13–15, a15–18). It is only afterwards that he mentions that intelligence “understands everything,” from which he immediately proceeds to draw (what I regard as) his substantive conclusion, which is then confirmed by the observations which follow (DA III 4, 429a18–24, 24–29).

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that “there is no nature of it at all except this, that it is capable,” that “it is, in activity, not one of the things that are before understanding” (DA III 4, 429a21–24). For this point – for present purposes, these formulations may be regarded as equivalent – is one that precisely does take into account both the object (“everything,” πάντα) as well as the activity (“understanding,” τὸ νοεῖν) of intelligence. Indeed, not only does Aristotle derive the point from the fact that this activity as regards this object belongs to intelligence, he also explains the connection: “for [what] appears alongside,” he says, “hinders and screens what is alien” (DA III 4, 429a18–20).8 Note that the vocabulary of “appearing alongside” (παρεμφαινόμενον) implies that, if intelligence were “mixed,” there would be two things appearing. That is, the argument for the result that intelligence is “unmixed” is, not that it would not otherwise so much as gain views about essences (let alone correct views), but rather that it would not otherwise gain clear views, good views, correct views (at least about the essences of anything “alien”).9 For these reasons, I conclude that among the things Aristotle is trying to explain in De Anima III 4 is a kind of cognitive success, and that at least part of the explanation lies in the idea that intelligence is “unmixed.”

8.2 being separate and unmixed The idea that intelligence is “unmixed” requires some comment. The larger portion of it is purely negative: to say that something is “unmixed,” that “there is not even any nature of it at all,” that it “is not, in activity, any of the things that are,” is not to say what it is, but what it is not. As for the remainder – that intelligence is “capable” (δυνατός), that is, capable of “understanding” or “insight” (νοεῖν) – it is hard to see how that is going to explain much of anything. What is wanted is not a statement of the fact, that intelligence is capable of insight, but some account of the cause of that “. . . for [what] appears alongside hinders and screens what is alien,” παρεμφαινόμενον γὰρ κωλύει τὸ ἀλλότριον καὶ ἀντιφράττει. Here, I follow (among others) Rodier 1900, Hicks 1907, Caston 2000, 140, and now Menn 2020, taking “what is alien” (τὸ ἀλλότριον) as direct object of the verbs “hinders” (κώλυει) and “screens” (ἀντιφράττει), and taking “appearing alongside” (παρεμφαινόμενον) as modifying their implicit subject. For recent discussion, see now Cohoe 2013, n.25 and Menn 2020, 104–105. 9 On the fragment of Anaxagoras invoked here (DK B12), see Caston 2000, 141: “[Anaxagoras’] concern . . . seems to focus more on the distortion of certain cognitions rather than on out-and-out obstruction.” See too Phys. IV 4, 212a7–9, IV 14, 223b33– 224a1, EN VII 14, 1154a26–31, [Prob.] 932b23–25, Plato, Tim. 50d–e. On the relationship of the De Anima to Anaxagoras more generally, see now Carter 2019. 8

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fact – in Aristotle’s language, of “by being what” (διὰ τὸ τί εἶναι) intelligence is what insight “belongs to” (ὑπάρχει) (cp. DA I 5, 411a24–26). That said, the purely negative point is admittedly mysterious, at least on its face. How could anything lack any nature whatsoever? A first point is that this is presumably a claim about what intelligence is “in its own right,” without regard to what (if anything) it might also be “incidentally.” In this regard, Aristotle’s characterization of intelligence is much like his characterization of matter.10 But in that case, at least as far as that goes, the one should cause no more difficulty than the other. To illustrate, suppose we ask, of the material for some kind of object, for example, the ingredients for a loaf of bread, “what being is” for those ingredients, and that without regard for whatever else those ingredients may happen to be, incidentally, in addition to being ingredients for bread. Aristotle’s answer to this question, as I understand it, will be that they have no nature of their own (well, none “except this, that they are capable,” i.e. capable of being bread). This is not to deny that these ingredients are also countless other things besides, for example, flour and water. Rather it is to say that if the ingredients for bread are flour and water, that is something else that they are, in addition to or on top of being ingredients for bread; in Aristotle’s language, it is to take care of the point that [a] flour and water and [b] ingredients for bread, though they may well be one “in number,” are not one “in being.” And the argument for this point is straightforward enough. Being made into bread spells development for ingredients: that is, it is a process wherein they are improved or perfected, that is, made finally to be, in fulfillment, of a nature that was theirs all along, though only potentially. By contrast, that same process, being made into bread, spells “destruction” or “ruin” (φθορά) for flour and water, inasmuch as they no longer are flour and water once they have been made into bread. Nor is there anything to the objection that the same is true of ingredients – that once made into bread, they no longer are what they are (namely, ingredients). For the whole point of the doctrine that matter does not have any nature of its own is that the “essence” of ingredients, “what being is” for ingredients, not incidentally, but in their own right or as such, is none other than the essence of what they are ingredients for (though that essence belongs to them only “potentially”). Indeed, it is not easy to see how else Aristotle will secure it that being made into something is a process of development,

10

See the passages collected in Bonitz s.v., 785a25–45.

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a progress into one’s own nature, that is, coming to be what precisely one is, not incidentally but in one’s very own substance.11 My purpose in rehearsing these points is to take some of the mystery out of Aristotle’s negative characterization of intelligence, by underscoring the fact that to claim that intelligence lacks any nature of its own is not to claim that it is not anything at all, I mean not even incidentally, on top of whatever it may be in its own right. It is true that Aristotle says, by way of confirming the thesis that intelligence is “unmixed,” that it only makes sense that it is not mixed with body, and that there is no organ of it, as there is for sensibility (DA III 4, 429a24–27). But though this may appear to entail that intelligence is not, “in activity,” anything at all, not even incidentally, the appearance is misleading. For a bit later on, having distinguished the objects of intelligence from the objects of sensibility – for example, the essence of magnitude from magnitude, the essence of flesh from flesh – and having correspondingly distinguished the “that with which” these objects are discerned (namely, intelligence and sensibility), Aristotle goes out of his way to say, three times, that either these “instruments” are different things, or else they are the same things “differently disposed” (DA III 4, 429b10–21). But to leave it open that “that with which” we discern flesh and the essence of flesh are the same is precisely to leave it open that there are other things intelligence is, not in its own right but incidentally, in addition to whatever it may be in its own right.12 Even so, we may wonder: why does Aristotle insist that intelligence lacks any nature of its own – that there is nothing that it is, in its own right, in activity? After all, the use of intelligence in understanding or insight is not a matter of now being what before you were not, I mean not incidentally but in your very own substance. Thus Aristotle’s reasons for saying that intelligence lacks any nature of its own cannot be the same as his reasons for saying the same about matter; if they were, they would also be reasons for saying the same about sensibility, whereas, in fact, Aristotle holds that sensibility does have a nature of its own, even before it is perceiving – for sensibility, he says, is “a kind of ratio,” in particular, “as it were a kind of mean” (cp. DA II 12, 424a28–32, b1, also II 11, 424a4–5, III 7, 431a14–20). But then, what are his reasons for saying that intelligence is “unmixed”? In fact, we have touched on this already. Briefly put, his reason is that intelligence understands everything: “it is necessary, therefore, since it 11 12

On this topic see Kelsey 2006, 2008, 2010. So too Politis 2001, 397–398. See too DA III 7, 431b17–19.

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understands everything, that it be unmixed,” and that because “[what] appears alongside hinders and screens what is alien” (DA III 4, 429a18– 21). To illustrate, suppose that intelligence were like a wax tablet: not one on which nothing is written, but one on which something is written, indelibly (cp. DA III 4, 430a1–2). Given how different are the things there are to say – given, that is, that they are not of some single “kind” (γένος), harboring a single contrariety, so that each of them may be associated with “a kind of ratio,” depending on its relationship to some “middle” or “mean,” that is, to some form, a kind of standard or measure, the very form (so to speak) of what there is to say13 – it is very difficult to see how such a tablet, bearing the permanent inscription of just one of the things there are to say, could, by that very fact, be a good instrument for “reading” everything there is to say. The writing already there would at best be irrelevant to, at worst interfere with, the attempt to make out other “sayings,” namely, the ones latent in our perceptions, memories, and fantasies of other things. Similarly, given how different are the things there are to be,14 it is very difficult to see how anything having a proprietary nature of its own could, by that very fact, be an instrument for understanding the essences of everything there is to be; for that nature would at best be irrelevant to, at worst positively interfere with, the attempt to “read” the essences of other beings, which are “legible” (potentially) in the sensory images that supply intelligence its objects.15

8.3 separation as measure Even allowing that the foregoing is a fair statement of why intelligence lacks any nature of its own, still we might wonder: what then is intelligence, such that it “understands everything” – that is, circumscribes exactly, for each being there is to be, what it is to be that? The answer, I take it, must meet two conditions. First, it must be something that characterizes intelligence, not “before understanding”

13

Cp. Politis 2001, 388–389. A point emphasized in Aristotle’s criticism of earlier theories (DA I 5, 410a13–15), as also noted in Politis 2001, 394–395. 15 For the metaphor of “reading,” cp. Aquinas, De veritate, Q.1, a.12, reply (I owe the reference to Jon Buttaci). The interpretation tried here is informed by the account of sensibility developed in Chapter 6; as such it differs from those considered (e.g.) in Caston 2000, 145–171 and Cohoe 2013, 363–375. (The principal difference concerns which metaphor, receptivity or measurement, best captures Aristotle’s thinking about knowledge.) 14

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(πρὶν νοεῖν), but precisely when “understanding” (νοοῦν); second, it must be something that intelligence has in common, not just with the particular essence then “being understood” (νοούμενον), but with all essences. The first condition derives from the point that intelligence, before understanding, lacks any nature of its own. The second derives from the fact that otherwise we will not have explained why it is the work of intelligence to understand everything. Earlier I argued that, for Aristotle, there is something intelligence has in common with essences, the one when understanding, the others when being understood: namely, a kind of being “separate” (χωριστόν), or “unmixed,” or “simple,” or “indivisible,” or “unit,” and (therefore) a kind of “measure.” For, I argued, the hallmark of intelligibility is a kind of clarity and distinctness that comes of having been “separated” or “distinguished” from other things, which separation, being the distinctive achievement of intelligence itself, is the signature or calling card of its proprietary activity, “understanding” or “insight.”16 What I now want to propose is that, call it what you want – intelligibility, clarity, distinctness, separateness, simplicity, unity – this is what “makes” intelligence such as to understand essences. Put another way, what makes intelligence the “measure” of its objects is the clarity and distinctness which belongs to them both (to it when understanding, to them when being understood). To be sure, we must be careful not to take this the wrong way. Aristotle does not think that intelligence is a “genus” of which essences are “species.” Even so, in the first place, there is a way in which essences are all “akin to” one another. Being essences, they are all “units” or “measures”; for each spells fulfillment for those objects whose unity and being it is the cause of – that is, each is “what being is” and “what being one is” for those objects. This requires that essences be “separate” from everything except what they themselves are, on pain of not being essences (on pain of being more than just “what something is”). Second, there is also a way in which essences are “akin to” intelligence itself; for their “being there” (ὑπάρχειν), thus separate from other things, not just potentially, but in fulfillment, is an achievement of intelligence realized only in insight. For being thus separate requires being separate from matter – for wherever there is matter, there is more than just essence, because there is still room to distinguish, for example, form from subject, essential from inessential, “signal” from “noise” – and nothing is separate from matter except when and so far as it is being understood. Provided we are careful, then, I think 16

Chapter 7, Section 3.

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that we may say, as Aristotle himself says, both that there is something that essences “all have in common” (lit. ἕν τι τὸ νοητὸν εἴδει) (DA III 4, 429b28), and that this “something” is something they have in common with intelligence (for it is intelligible too). In this way, as Aristotle puts it, intelligence is “form of forms” (εἶδος εἴδων), that is, what they all have in common, what makes them intelligible, what their intelligibility consists in (DA III 8, 432a2). My proposal, then, is that for Aristotle, the reason insight into essences is the work of intelligence is that the clarity and distinctness which characterize its activity are (as it were) the very form of its objects – are what their intelligibility precisely consists in. In fact, there are two points here: one about the “measure” we employ in understanding essences, another about why that measure is a good one. The first point may be illustrated from a remark in the Ethics – just an aside, really, about how sophistical arguments manage to create difficulties: Thought is bound when it is unwilling to stay put (μένειν μὴ βούληται), because the conclusion is not pleasing, and unable to progress (προϊέναι μὴ δύνηται), because unable to undo the argument. (EN VII 2, 1146a24–27)

This remark implies, what seems in any case true, that as a matter of fact, we do measure success in our inquiries by the “state of mind” (better, an “activity”) achieved upon their completion. By this I do not mean anything fancy: for example, a kind of meta-reflection, in which we turn our attention from the business at hand, so as to concentrate instead on how we feel about it.17 No, what I mean is simply that we judge that we have found what we are looking for when we are satisfied that we have: in Aristotle’s language, when our thought “rests” (ἠρεμεῖν, μένειν), not because it is “bound,” “unable to proceed,” but rather because it has arrived at a result in which it is “willing to abide,” “because the conclusion is pleasing.” Implicit in this is the idea that we measure success by something of “ours,” by something “subjective,” a kind of intellectual “satisfaction” or “rest.” To this, I have merely added that, when our inquiry is into essences, the “state of mind” in which we are willing to remain is (relative to us) clear and distinct; for it circumscribes exactly the object we are after, laying hold of “just” or “precisely” what it is to be that (no more, no less). The first point, then, is that the “measure” we employ in gaining insight into essences is the character of the activity in which we find satisfaction or “repose”: that is, we conclude our inquiry when we arrive at an 17

On this topic, see Kosman 2013, 211–237.

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understanding that is “clear” (δῆλον), “distinct” (σαφές), “well-known” (γνώριμον), and the like.18 The second point was that this measure is a good one, because the objects into which we inquire are “akin to” this activity: that is, they too are clear, distinct, well-known, etc. – in particular, they are all that, not merely “relative to us” (ἡμῖν), but in their own right or by nature. That is, the distinctions whereby objects are made intelligible to us do not obscure or distort those objects, but rather reveal or disclose them, that is, make them appear (to us) what (by nature) they are. To illustrate, Aristotle compares intelligence, in its capacity of “making” objects – that is, of making them intelligible – to light (DA III 5, 430a15).19 This, he says, is because light, in a way, is what “makes” colors – that is, what makes colors visible, that is, capable of being seen, not just potentially, but in fulfillment (DA III 5, 430a16–17). Similarly, he says, for the kind of intelligence that makes “everything” – it “makes” beings intelligible, that is, capable of being understood, not just potentially, but in fulfillment (DA III 5, 430a15).20 Now, visibility varies with the light in which colors are seen; the better the light, the more visible the colors.21 Similarly, intelligibility varies with the “light” in which intelligibilia are “seen”; that is, the clearer and more distinct the intelligence – the kind that is “in its nature, activity” (DA III 5, 430a18), that is, “understanding” or “insight” (νόησις) – the clearer and more distinct the object.22 In other words, progress in

We may carp at this, or find it depressing, or urge we can do better. My own view, and I think Aristotle’s too, is that such reactions are idle – that here too “we must be content to follow the law of our being” (Newman 1878, 115). 19 Let it be that the intelligence Aristotle is speaking of in this passage is in fact the divinity (so too, as I think plausibly, e.g. Caston 1999, Burnyeat 2008). Still, what is Aristotle’s divinity, if not “a life such as is best (for a short time) for us” (Met. Λ 7, 1072b14–15)? To be clear, I am not suggesting that, for Aristotle, the divinity is a “fiction” (πλάσμα), but merely that his account of it is drawn from reflection upon ourselves (a point well argued in Herzberg 2016). 20 So too Burnyeat 2008, 38. It might be objected: how can “insight” (νόησις) make beings intelligible? Mustn’t they already be “intelligible” (νοητά) before “being seen” (νοούμενα)? Here I think the analogy with color is instructive (see Chapter 7, Section 5, also Kelsey 2018). 21 Cp. Plato, Rep. VI, 508c–d: “You are aware that the eyes, when no longer turned upon objects whose colors face the daylight, but nocturnal lights, are weak and appear almost blind, as if pure vision (ὄψις) did not dwell in them. But when, I take it, they are directed upon objects illumined by the sun, they see distinctly (σαφῶς ὁρῶσι), and vision appears to reside in those very same eyes.” Though this passage is about vision, not visibility, the same applies to visibility too (cp. 507d–e). 22 Cp. Plato, Rep. VI, 508d: “Whenever [the eye of the soul] is fixed on what is illuminated by truth and being, it understands (ἐνόησε) and knows (ἔγνω) and appears to have insight (νοῦν ἔχειν); but whenever it is fixed on what is mingled with darkness, i.e. what is coming 18

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distinguishing essences from other things, which in the concrete they are inevitably “mixed” with, is at the same time progress in the direction of insight, in understanding “just” or “exactly” their very “substance” or “being” (οὐσία).23 The second point, then, is that the “measure” we employ in understanding essences is a good one, “the” measure, in fact, and that because the clarity and distinctness of understanding we find satisfying is also natural to the objects into which we are inquiring. The idea is stated succinctly in a well-known passage of Metaphysics Z: This is the task – just as in conduct, making, from what is good for the individual, what is good in general good for him, so too [in learning, making,] from what is more well-known to him, what is well-known by nature well-known to him. (Met. Z 3, 1029b5–8)

Why, we might ask, should “the” task be to make things well-known to us? Is it not rather to understand them as they are (period), in their own right or in truth? The answer, for Aristotle, is that making an object wellknown to us is making it (for us) what it is (in itself). Note that being wellknown “by nature,” as opposed to “relative to us,” is not being well-known, but not “to” anyone – any more than being good “in general,” as opposed to “relative to us,” is being good, but not “for” or “of” anyone. No, what is good “in general” is what is a good “for” or “of” everyone: for everyone, that is, not just as you may find us, each with our own idiosyncrasies and limitations, but precisely insofar as we are all sharers in humanity. Similarly, what is well-known “in general” is what is well-known to everyone: again, not just as you may find us, but precisely insofar as we are all sharers in intelligence. For Aristotle, then, to have made an object of inquiry well-known to us is to have succeeded in understanding it just as it is: “just as it is,” not in the concrete, where it is “commingled” with other things, but as it is “by nature,” namely, “separate” and “pure” – which it is, not merely potentially, but in fulfillment, only when and so far as it is being understood.24 to be and perishing, it opines and is weak, changing its opinions this way and that, and again resembles those who lack insight.” 23 Cp. Phys. I 1, 184a16–b14, also Met. I 1, 1053a18–20. 24 Aristotle’s confidence in the rightness of the correct use of intelligence, if not the grounds for that confidence, may perhaps be compared with Socrates’ response to “the eristic argument” about the possibility of inquiry raised at Meno 80d–e: “For as all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things, there is no reason why we should not, by remembering but one single thing – an act which men call learning – discover everything

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8.4 objection and reply My object in this chapter was to try to bring out what it is about intelligence that makes understanding or insight specifically its work. I have argued that, for Aristotle, the answer lies in the character of its activity, inasmuch as the clarity and distinctness which is the “form” of that activity is likewise (in a way) the “form” of its objects. I conclude by considering whether such an account “explains” understanding or insight by simply explaining it away. There is no question but that, as I have described it, the view savors of a kind of Protagoreanism. For the view just is that there is a way in which “man” is the measure of all things – not any and every man, of any and every thing, but the ones who have understanding or insight, of the objects they understand. This by itself is not especially problematic; Aristotle himself virtually says as much, explicitly, towards the end of Metaphysics I 1: Protagoras says man to be the measure of all things, as if he had said the man who understands or who perceives, and these because they have, the one understanding, the other sensibility, which we say to be measures of objects. Well, they are not saying anything, though they appear to be saying something remarkable (οὐθὲν δὴ λέγοντες περιττὸν φαίνονταί τι λέγειν). (Met. I 1, 1053a36–b3)

Still, in developing the view, I suggested that we “measure” our success by something “subjective”: namely, by the clarity and distinctness of our “view” of the objects into which we were inquiring. Thus, it might be objected: even if it is only those who “see” clearly and distinctly who are measures of objects, still, it looks as though each and every one of us is the measure of that – that is, of the clarity and distinctness of our “view” of the objects we were inquiring into. But in that case, Protagoras’ dictum starts to look remarkable after all. For the qualification Aristotle puts on it loses its edge if we each are the measure of whether or not we are measures. In fact, the answer to this objection has been anticipated above. The “man” whose “seeing” is the measure of measures is not just any man, but rather (as we might put it) Man himself – and the rest of us, only if and so

else, if we have courage and faint not in the search; since, it would seem, research and learning are wholly recollection. So, we must not hearken to that captious argument: it would make us idle, and is pleasing only to the indolent ear, whereas the other makes us energetic and inquiring. Putting my trust in its truth, I am ready to inquire with you into the nature of virtue” (Meno 81d–e, tr. Lamb).

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far as we have managed to become what it is in our nature to be.25 For Aristotle, such are those who “have lived among” (ἐνῳκηκέναι) and “made trial of” (πειρᾶν) the facts from which their inquiries begin, and who “have been schooled in” (πεπαιδευμένος) the canons specific to the disciplines that study those facts, so that those facts and those canons, having been “engrafted in” (συμφυῆναι) their very persons, are now “sovereign’” (κύριος) in their intellectual economy, functioning there as standards for telling relevant from irrelevant and true from false.26 It is persons like that, in Aristotle’s view, whose “seeing” measures success, in keeping with the maxim, cuique in arte sua credendum.27 For if the satisfaction of such persons was no measure of success, then seeking the truth would indeed be “running down flying game” (Met. Γ 5, 1009b37–1010a1).

Cp. Top. VI 4, 142a9–11: “Perhaps too what is unqualifiedly well known (τὸ ἁπλῶς γνώριμον) is not what is well known to everyone but what is well known to those well disposed in mind (τὸ τοῖς εὖ διακειμένοις τὴν διάνοιαν), just as what is unqualifiedly healthy is what is healthy to those well disposed in body.” 26 27 For further discussion, see Kelsey 2015. See e.g. Newman 1889, 341. 25

Conclusion

In this book I have tried to look at some obscure if familiar doctrines from a different perspective. The doctrines concern the nature or essence of sensibility and intelligence: that the one is a kind of mean, the other something single, separate, unmixed. The perspective is to see these doctrines as filling out Aristotle’s answer to a particular question: roughly put, why (“by being what”) does it belong to our nature to perceive and to understand beings? The core of Aristotle’s answer to this question, or so I have suggested, is that sensibility and intelligence are “forms” or “measures” of their respective objects, perceptible and intelligible beings. To see the doctrines just alluded to as “filling out” this core is to see them as specifying more particularly those forms or measures: in the one case a kind of mean, in the other something simple, separate, or unmixed. The upshot is that, for Aristotle, there is a kind of priority – the priority of measure to measured – of sensibility and intelligence to perceptible and intelligible beings. Perhaps some will find this upshot un-Aristotelian. Take for example the following passage, which comes at the end of Aristotle’s critique of Protagoreanism in Metaphysics Γ 5: And in general, if there is only what is perceptible, there would be nothing if there were no living things; for there would be no perception. Well, that there would be neither perceptible things (τὰ αἰσθητά) nor percepts (τὰ αἰσθήματα) is perhaps true (for this is an affection of what is perceiving); but that the objects (τὰ ὑποκείμενα) that produce perception would not be, even in the absence of perception, is impossible. For perception is surely not perception of itself, but there is also something different in addition to the perception, which is necessarily prior to the perception; for what imparts movement is prior by nature to what is moved,

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and that no less even if they are spoken of in relation to one another. (Met. Γ 5, 1010b30–1011a2; cp. Cat. 7, 7b36–8a12, DA III 2, 425b26–426a26)

This passage implies that there is something distinct from and prior to perception, something that would “be there” even if there were no living things, something that (as things are) is the cause of perception. And though this passage deals with perceptible beings, the same (it might be urged) holds for intelligible beings. The many differences between them notwithstanding, perceptible and intelligible beings have in common at least this much, that they are not only the objects but also the causes of perceptual and intellectual knowledge – and if causes, then independent of and even prior to whatever knowledge they are causes of. I conclude by saying something briefly about this and similar concerns, by way of clarifying the perspective I have been developing. It will be convenient to treat perceptible and intelligible beings separately, and also to distinguish between two sorts of concern.1 The first has to do with whether I have made Aristotle out to be some kind of “idealist” about perceptible or intelligible beings: that is, with whether I have made him out to think that either the ones or the others are (well) ideas of some kind, “modes” of consciousness, operations or activities of sensibility or intelligence, in something like the way associated with the good bishop Berkeley. The other has to do with whether I have made Aristotle out to be some kind of “subjectivist” about perceptible or intelligible beings: that is, with whether I have made him out to think that either the ones or the others are in their very own nature somehow essentially relative to sensibility or intelligence, in something like the way associated with the sage of Königsberg. I begin with idealism about perceptible beings. The passage just quoted contrasts certain “objects” (τὰ ὑποκείμενα) with “perceptible things” (τὰ αἰσθητά). Note that Aristotle allows – it is his point – that but for living things there would not be “perceptible things”; he uses this to argue that it is absurd to maintain that there are only “perceptible things,” because in that case but for living things there would not be anything (lit. οὐθὲν ἂν εἴη μὴ ὄντων τῶν ἐμψύχων). Much turns then on the contrast between “objects” and “perceptible things”! In fact, I interpret this contrast in a realist vein: as contrasting, not bodies and perceptible qualities, but perceptible qualities and their “activities” – that is, their activities of “altering” or “affecting” perceivers (in a word, their 1

I take the vocabulary and distinction from Broackes 1999, though I have not been careful to follow him exactly; for a similar distinction, under the headings “ontological” and “epistemological” idealism, see Guyer and Horstmann 2020.

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being perceived). It is true that elsewhere Aristotle identifies these “activities” with activities of sensibility (i.e. perceptions) – the two are one in number, he says, though not in being. But he does not there identify perceptible qualities themselves with perceptions; the qualities themselves are not as a rule even coeval with perceptions, let alone the same as them, whether in number or in being (see DA III 2, 425b26–426a26).2 The same point is enforced in the passage we have been considering. Aristotle does not, then, anticipate Berkeley in maintaining that perceptible qualities are qualities of mind.3 But neither does anything I have said suggest otherwise – not even faintly. This is plain. More plausible is the concern that the interpretation developed here makes Aristotle a subjectivist about perceptible qualities, in a way that is objectionable from an Aristotelian point of view. About this I would make two points. The first is that, for better or worse, it is in a fairly limited respect that the interpretation makes sensibility prior to perceptible qualities. In particular, it does not make sensibility prior to the genera of those qualities (color, temperature, sound, etc.); relatedly, neither does it make it prior to the contrarieties associated with those genera (light and dark, cold and hot, low and high, etc.).4 No, what it makes posterior to sensibility is rather fairly specific facts about particular perceptible qualities: for example, the fact that certain colors are dark (dark [period], ἁπλῶς, sans phrase or tout court), or that certain temperatures are cold, or that certain pitches are low, and so on.5 The interpretation does not, then, make the sense of sight (e.g.) enter into the very idea of color or of the contraries dark and light. What it does make the sense of sight enter into the very idea of is rather what it is to be a dark color or a light one – not merely as compared with some other color, but absolutely, without qualification, sans phrase or tout court (ἁπλῶς). Aristotle’s commitment to the idea that it is an absolute fact about the very being of a color that it is (say) a dark color is implied by the doctrine that particular colors differ by the “ratios” in which they “are composed of” the contraries dark and light; it is this Contrast Ross 1924, 278, who (to my surprise) interprets both DA III 2 and Met. Γ 5 as claiming that “if the senses disappeared the sensible qualities would disappear” (emphasis added). Ross acknowledges that Cat. 7, 7b36–8a12 is prima facie a difficulty, but tries to read this passage too as making the same point. (The attempt is not successful.) 3 For the claim that neither does any ancient Greek philosopher, see Burnyeat 1982, following Williams 1981 (reprinted in Williams 2006). 4 In this respect the interpretation sits well with DA II 11, 423b27–29, which says that tangible qualities are the differentiae of bodies which go into defining the elements. 5 Compare Chapter 5, Section 1, on the priority of the unit to every number, but not to the quasi-genus of number, plurality. 2

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doctrine that requires him to hold that the spectrum of dark and light has a “middle” (that it is “divided” into two “sides,” the one dark the other light); and it is this “division” or “middle” that (on the interpretation developed here) is defined by reference to the organ of sight, whose nature or essence (in Aristotle’s view) just is the sense of sight. In this it should be emphasized – and this is my second point – that to say that the character of particular colors is thus relative to the sense of sight is not to say that it is relative to how those colors look: for example, that for a color to be dark (period) is for it to look dark (in broad daylight to healthy animals vel sim.). This is because, again for better or worse, the view developed here does not make the character of particular qualities relative to the activity of the perceptual organ: to how things appear to an animal when that organ is used in perceiving. Instead, it makes the character of those qualities relative to the essence or form of the perceptual organ, i.e. to sensibility itself: it says, for example, that for a color to be dark (period) is for it to be dark as compared to (πρός) the (primary) organ of sight, whose form or essence just is the sense of sight.6 It does remain true, on this view, that were there no such thing as sensibility, there would be no “absolute” facts about whether any particular color was dark or light (dark or light [period], sans phrase or tout court), or whether any particular temperature was cold or hot, or whether any particular pitch was low or high, and so on. Rather, in the scenario envisaged, perceptible qualities would be in these respects “indefinite” (ἀόριστον, ἄπειρον), there being no standard to measure them against except one another (cp. Plato, Phil. 24b–d, Stsmn. 284e–285c). Note, however, that in this respect their situation would be analogous to what in Aristotle’s view would be the situation with time, supposing there were no such thing as psuche¯ (Phys. IV 14, 223a21–29): just as in that scenario, there might well be motion, though there would not be time, so too in the scenario envisaged here, there might well be colors, though none that were dark or light (period), sans phrase or tout court.7 I tentatively conclude that if this makes perceptible qualities

6

Compare: it is one thing to say that to be curved is to show curved when measured by a straightedge, another to say that it is to depart from the form of a straightedge, viz. the shape straight. 7 Contrast Broackes 1999, 92–93, which uses this passage from Physics IV to argue that, for Aristotle, were there no such thing as living things, colors would not be visible. I have tried to make a stronger claim: that were there no such thing as living things, colors would not be dark or light (dark or light [period]). My reason, in a word, is that in such a case there would not be anything it is to be dark or light (period).

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somehow “subjective,” it does so in a way Aristotle would find unobjectionable. Continuing with “objectivity” I turn now to intelligible beings. I have argued that the “measure” of the intelligibility of essences is a quality of the “understandings” or “insights” (νοήσεις) with which we understand those essences. I have thereby made the intelligibility of essences posterior, in its very idea, to the character of certain operations of intelligence. I will return to my reasons for doing so in a moment. The point I want to make now is just that this feature of essences – their intelligibility – is not proprietary to any of them, but rather something common to all of them. There is nothing in this to imply that anything peculiar to any particular essence will be in any way posterior to the operations of intelligence. To be sure, there might turn out to be local exceptions, as regards the essences (e.g.) of the moral or intellectual virtues. But exceptions of this sort, if such there be, must be shown to be exceptions, out of considerations specific to the particular case at hand. Certainly, it does not follow, merely from the claim that the measure of intelligibility is the quality or character of certain operations of intelligence (νοήσεις), that one must think of (say) triangle or oak as being in their essence – for example, the one a kind of quality (shape), the other a kind of substance – somehow relative to operations of intelligence. To be clear, I do not say that such a result simply cannot be got, but rather that (if so) further premises will be required. This too I think is plain. More plausible is the concern that, as regards intelligible beings, the interpretation developed here makes Aristotle out to be a kind of idealist. I have argued that, in Aristotle’s view, to be intelligible (νοητόν) is to be being understood (νοούμενον). By this I mean that, by contrast with perceptible beings, where it is one thing to be perceptible, another to be perceived, as colors in broad daylight are fully visible, even if they are unseen, the case of intelligible beings is different. Here, for Aristotle, or so I have argued, what is not being understood is by that very fact but potentially intelligible (νοητόν), as colors in pitch darkness are but potentially visible (DA III 4, 430a6–7). The reason, I argued, is that for Aristotle, whereas being intelligible is having been separated from matter, having been separated from matter is the proprietary work of intelligence. Here I suppose it is the second point that creates trouble: nothing is separate from matter except when being understood.8 In imputing this 8

Recall that, for Aristotle, intelligibility comes in degrees; when I say, then, to be intelligible is to have been separated from matter, I mean that what is intelligible, to the extent that it is intelligible, has to that extent been separated from matter.

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point to Aristotle, I have been moved by the thought that Aristotle is not (after all) a certain kind of Platonist. By this I mean that he does not believe that beings are anywhere to be found isolated and pure, each itself by itself, except in the activities or operations of intelligence. This does make Aristotle an idealist of sorts about intelligible beings; it makes essences, insofar as they are intelligible (not just potentially intelligible, but intelligible in fulfillment), ideas, i.e. activities or operations of intelligence. But I do not yet see that this is an idealism Aristotle would reject; on the contrary, the alternative is a kind of Platonism about intelligible beings. There remain other questions, in broadly the same neighborhood, which I have simply not explored. We might ask, for example, how the understanding of essences (however clear or unclear, distinct or indistinct) is related to its possible employment in inference and judgment, and how these operations are related to language, and how language is related to particular languages, and thus to particular communities, traditions, practices, and so on. Should these matters turn out to be inextricably entwined, whether in fact or for Aristotle, we eventually bump into questions about whether and to what extent and (if to some extent) how the achievements of intelligence could be universal or absolute.9 These are questions I have not pursued here, among other reasons because I had my hands full enough with the task I did set myself: to identify and interpret Aristotle’s answer to my question (“by being what” etc.), so far as that answer is developed in the De Anima. These other matters I leave for others or (perhaps) another time.

9

For discussion see e.g. Aubenque 1967 and 1982, Wieland 1975, Charles 2000, and more recently Delcomminette 2018, e.g. 25–40, 575–578.

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Wieland, W. (1975). Aristotle’s Physics and the problem of inquiry into principles. In J. Barnes, M. Schofield, & R. Sorabji, eds., Articles on Aristotle, Vol. 1. Science. London: Duckworth, pp. 127–140. Williams, B. (1981). The legacy of Greek philosophy. In M. I. Finley, ed., The Legacy of Greece: A New Appraisal. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 202–255. Williams, B. (2006). The legacy of Greek philosophy. In M. Burnyeat, ed., The Sense of the Past: Essays in the History of Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 3–48.

Index

activity (ἐνέργεια), 11–13, 35–37, 130–131 actuality. See activity (ἐνέργεια) or fulfillment (ἐντελέχεια) affection (πάσχειν), 59–63, 107–108 as “like-like”, 51–55, 80 as activity, 57–58 as corruption, 56, 80–81 as development, 56–57, 81–82 alteration. See affection (πάσχειν) Anaxagoras, 31, 44, 48–49, 77, 149 Angioni, L., 134 Aquinas, 152 Aristophanes, 36 Aubenque, P., 164

Buttaci, J., 152 Bynum, T., 101, 114

Barker, A., 90, 101, 105, 114 Beere, J., 129 Berkeley, 160, 161 Berti, E., 124 Blair, G., 129 Bolotin, D., 10 Bolton, R., 100 Bonitz, H., 150 Bos, A., 100 Bowin, J., 50, 51, 56, 61, 62 Bredlow, L., 44 Broackes, J., 50, 53, 95, 105, 109, 111, 160, 162 Broadie, S., 50, 95, 109, 144 Bronstein, D., 15, 28, 124 Burnyeat, M., 50, 51, 52, 61, 62, 140, 155, 161

Carter, J., 33, 34, 107, 149 Castelli, L., 85, 132, 134 Caston, V., 45, 46, 50, 100, 103, 108, 114, 130, 131, 149, 152, 155 Charles, D., 164 Charlton, W., 9 Coates, C., 106 Cohoe, C., 136, 149, 152 community (κοινωνία), 9, 16–18, 69, 82–83, 145 consciousness, 15–16, 50, 138, 144 Coope, U., 85 Cooper, J., 70 Corcilius, K., 10, 28, 42, 58, 100, 111, 123, 136 Crager, A., 127 Crubellier, M., 1, 2, 4, 39 De Haas, F., 101, 115, 123, 132, 134, 148 Delcomminette, S., 124, 164 Democritus, 31, 46, 80, 107 desire, 7 Dilcher, R., 44 Driscoll, J., 130 Dupré, J., 36 Ebert, T., 101 effluences (ἀπορραί), 107–108 Empedocles, 9, 42, 46–48, 54, 107 essences. See also intelligible objects

173

174

Index

essences (cont.) and explanation, 5, 6–10, 27–29, 147 as being their own essences, 125 as measures or standards, 127–128, 134, 153 as one “straightaway”, 126–127, 134, 135 as one and indivisible, 124–127 as ἐνέργειαι, 128, 130–131, 164 as ἐντελέχειαι, 128–130 Falcon, A., 132 Ferrari, J., 138 Frede, M., 114, 132 Frey, C., 34, 75, 127 friendship, 69–74 fulfillment (ἐντελέχεια), 128–130 Ganson, T., 105 Gelber, J., 109 generation, 76–77 Golitsis, P., 91 Gregoric, P., 111, 130, 139 growth, 76–77 Guyer, P., 160

as separate from matter, 132–135 as simple/separate/unmixed, 21–22 as understood in images, 136, 152 intentionality, 15–16, 50 Johansen, T., 10, 100, 102, 109, 110, 111, 114, 132 Johnstone, M., 100 Kalderon, M., 100 Kant, 160 Kelsey, S., 151, 155, 158 knowing (γινώσκειν) as “like by like”, 16–18, 43–45 as attribute of ψυχή, 6–9, 29–31, 37–38 as being altered/affected, 46–48 as true/ “of beings”, 15–16, 29–31, 37–38, 146–149 as universal in scope, 29–31, 37–38, 146–149 varieties of, 31–32 Kosman, A., 51, 124, 126, 129, 135, 138, 144, 154

hard and soft, 116–117 Heinaman, R., 50, 51, 56, 59, 61 Heraclitus, 107 Herzberg, S., 155 Hicks, R., 2, 131, 149 Homer, 42–44 Horstmann, R.-P., 160 Hussey, E., 44

Laks, A., 39, 44 Lawrence, G., 124 Lear, J., 139 Lee, M.-K., 43 Lennox, J., 106 Lewis, D., 9 Lewis, F., 130, 137, 138 life/vital activity (ζωή, ζῆν), 11–13, 35–37 Lorenz, H., 11, 50, 51, 61 Luthra, Y., 142

imagination (φαντασία), 15 intellect/intelligence (νοῦς). See also understanding/insight (νόησις, νοεῖν) as itself intelligible, 130–131 as lacking an organ, 151 as measure, 10, 22–23, 84–85, 152–156, 163 as simple/separate/unmixed, 10, 22–23, 131, 148, 149–152 as εɩ῏δος εɩ᾿δῶν, 4, 10, 22–23, 67, 84–85, 152–156, 163 intelligible objects as activities of intelligence, 21–22, 130–142, 164 as essences, 21–22, 124, 146–149 as not equally intelligible, 123, 132

Malink, M., 146 Marmodoro, A., 50 matter as pure potential, 150 as rending unintelligible, 132–135, 136 McCready-Flora, I., 124 measure, 10, 19–20, 118 as principle of cognition, 84–86, 89, 91 as prior to measured, 84–85, 86–90, 95–96, 113–115, 120–121, 161 of quality, 90–96 of quantity, 85–90 Mendell, H., 28 Menn, S., 12, 35, 36, 51, 131, 132, 149 middle (μέσον), 93–96 Mignucci, M., 124

Index Miller, F., 10 movement (φορά), 78–80 Murphy, A., 69 Newman, J.H., 10, 23, 155, 158 number, 88–89, 90 nutrition, 75–76 O’Connor, D., 90 objectivity, 95, 117–120, 130, 142–144, 155, 157–158 Parmenides, 44–45, 76 Perälä, M., 101 perceiving “literalist” vs. “spiritualist” interpretations of, 50, 52 as “like by like”, 16, 40–42, 51–55 as being altered/affected, 16, 40–42, 46–48, 55–58, 59–63 as veridical, 5, 15–16, 113, 123 vs. “transition” to perceiving, 51 perceptible qualities as composed of contraries, 93–96 as correlative to sensibility, 54–55 as lying on spectra, 92–93 as relative to “middles”, 93–96, 113–115, 161 as variable in appearance, 119–120 causal efficacy of, 109 Pfeiffer, C., 130, 139 Pigliucci, M., 36 pitch, 96 Plato, 85, 164 plurality, 88–89, 90 Polansky, R., 51 Politis, V., 140, 151, 152 predecessors, criticisms of, 6, 7, 16–18, 28–29, 33, 68, 76–77, 78–80, 107–108, 159 Protagoras, 15, 23, 41, 42–43, 44–45, 47, 48, 49, 116, 133, 157–158, 159 Reeve, C.D.C., 10 Rodier, G., 1, 131, 146, 149 Ross, W.D., 61, 92, 161 Rossi, G., 39 Sattler, B., 85 Saunders. T., 95 sense organs, 110–111

175

sensibility (αἴσθησις), 1–4 as defining middles of spectra, 19–20, 21, 95, 112–117, 161–163 as form of sense organ, 19–20, 21, 103–105, 161–163 as measure, 10, 19–20, 21, 84–85, 95, 112–117, 118, 120–121, 161–163 as ratio/mean, 10, 19–20, 21, 109–117, 161–163 as receptive of forms without matter, 107–109 as εɩ῏δος αɩ᾿σθητῶν, 4, 10, 21, 67, 84–85, 120–121, 161–163 Shields, C., 10, 114 Silverman, A., 50, 105, 114 Simplicius, 146 Sisko, J., 130 Sorabji, R., 50 soul (ψυχή), 1–4 as “like the hand”, 3–5 as subject of attributes, 6–9, 27–29, 33–38 definition of, 6, 17, 33, 35–37, 145 parts/varieties of, 2, 7, 31 translation, 11–13 sound. See pitch straightedge (κανών), 19, 102, 116, 118 Suppes, P., 85 Sutherland, D., 90 Themistius, 146 thinking. See understanding/insight (νόησις, νοεῖν) time, 89, 162 Tracy, T., 114 transparency, 111 Trendelenburg, F., 58 understanding/insight (νόησις, νοεῖν), 135–142 as compared with perceiving, 136, 155 as of “everything” (πάντα), 146–149 as the same as its objects, 135–142 as understanding understanding (νόησις νοήσεως), 138–142 Ward, J., 105, 114 Wedin, M., 130 Wieland, W., 164 Williams, B., 155, 161

Index Locorum

Aristotle [Prob.] 932b23–25, 149 APo I 10, 76b3–4, 28, 35 I 14, 79a23–24, 28 I 23, 84b37–85a1, 146 I 31, 87b28, 136 I 31, 88a12–14, 136 II 2, 124 II 13, 96b19–21, 28 Cael. IV 1, 308a29–31, 8, 79 IV 3, 310a20–31, 18, 53, 69 IV 3, 310a31–b1, 78, 79 IV 3, 310b1–11, 79–80 IV 3, 310b16–19, 8, 79 IV 3, 311a1–3, 80 IV 3, 311a3–6, 78 IV 4, 311a29–33, 78 IV 4, 312a12–21, 78 Cat. 2, 2b5–6, 143 6, 85, 86 6, 4b32–35, 86 7, 7b23–8a12, 87 7, 7b36–8a12, 160, 161 DA I 1, 402a6–7, 11 I 1, 402a7–10, 12, 13, 27, 34, 145 I 1, 402b1–3, 31 I 1, 402b5–9, 31 I 1, 403a3–11, 6

I 2, 403b20–24, 14, 39 I 2, 403b24–27, 6, 13, 28, 31 I 2, 403b28–31, 7, 29 I 2, 404a25–b6, 32, 49 I 2, 404a27–31, 43, 44 I 2, 404b8–10, 2, 6, 16, 30, 68 I 2, 404b17–18, 16, 68 I 2, 405b11–19, 2, 16, 29, 30, 40, 49, 68 I 2, 405b19–24, 49, 146 I 3, 405b31–406a2, 7 I 3, 406b15–22, 33 I 3, 406b24–25, 33 I 3, 406b26–27, 33 I 3, 407b15–26, 9, 18, 53, 69, 119, 145 I 4, 408b13–15, 37, 84 I 4, 408b14–15, 101 I 4, 408b15–18, 107 I 4, 409b13–15, 33 I 5, 409b15–16, 6 I 5, 409b23–29, 16, 30, 41, 68 I 5, 409b24–25, 13 I 5, 409b24–29, 17 I 5, 410a13–21, 30, 152 I 5, 410a23–26, 41 I 5, 410b16–18, 2, 31 I 5, 410b21–24, 31 I 5, 411a2–7, 19, 30, 102, 114, 116 I 5, 411a4, 13 I 5, 411a24–26, 2, 6, 7, 13, 16, 28–29, 150 I 5, 411b9–12, 127 II 1, 412a9–11, 35 II 1, 412a13, 34

176

Index Locorum II 1, 412a15, 34 II 1, 412a16–28, 33 II 1, 412a17, 34 II 1, 412a19–28, 34, 35 II 1, 412a28–b5, 36 II 1, 412b10–11, 34 II 1, 412b11–26, 34 II 1, 412b17–25, 104 II 1, 412b4–6, 34, 100 II 2, 413a16, 49 II 2, 413a21–23, 12 II 2, 413b11–13, 35 II 2, 413b24–27, 31, 37 II 2, 414a4–6, 37 II 2, 414a4–14, 100, 104, 105 II 2, 414a12–13, 84 II 2, 414a12–14, 37 II 2, 414a13–19, 33 II 3, 414b20–28, 31 II 3, 414b32–33, 14, 32 II 4, 415a16–22, 40, 91, 122 II 4, 415a18–22, 53 II 4, 415a22, 106 II 4, 415a23–26, 11 II 4, 415a23–b7, 75 II 4, 415a25–26, 12 II 4, 415a26–29, 106 II 4, 415b8–27, 11 II 4, 415b13–14, 84 II 4, 415b18–20, 36 II 4, 415b21–28, 84 II 4, 416a9–14, 75 II 4, 416a34–b3, 75, 76 II 4, 416b1–3, 57 II 4, 416b6–7, 75 II 4, 416b9, 75 II 4, 416b9–11, 106 II 4, 416b9–17, 76 II 4, 416b11, 76 II 4, 416b17–25, 63, 106 II 4, 416b20–23, 33, 84, 106 II 4, 416b25–27, 106 II 5, 416b32–417a2, 40, 51 II 5, 417a14–16, 51 II 5, 417a14–20, 59 II 5, 417a17–20, 52 II 5, 417a21–26, 51 II 5, 417a21–29, 35, 60 II 5, 417a25, 61 II 5, 417a30–31, 61 II 5, 417a30–b16, 59–63

177

II 5, 417a30–b2, 61 II 5, 417a32–b1, 62 II 5, 417b2–9, 62 II 5, 417b3, 56, 57 II 5, 417b5–7, 57 II 5, 417b8–9, 57 II 5, 417b12–16, 56, 61 II 5, 417b16–19, 51, 57, 62, 63 II 5, 417b23–24, 136 II 5, 417b28–418a6, 40 II 5, 418a1–3, 51, 55–58 II 5, 418a5–6, 51–55 II 6, 418a15, 21, 113, 123 II 6, 418a19–20, 37, 85, 101 II 7, 418b2, 131 II 8, 420a26–b4, 96 II 9, 421a7–26, 119 II 10, 422a11–14, 109 II 11, 422b32–33, 110 II 11, 423b1–8, 107 II 11, 423b27–29, 161 II 11, 423b27–424a10, 113–115 II 11, 424a2–10, 114 II 11, 424a4–5, 112 II 11, 424a4–7, 4, 21, 112, 114, 116, 151 II 12, 424a17, 40 II 12, 424a17–28, 103–105, 108 II 12, 424a18, 147 II 12, 424a19–24, 101 II 12, 424a24–27, 40 II 12, 424a27–28, 4 II 12, 424a28–32, 112, 151 II 12, 424a31, 4, 21 II 12, 424a32–b3, 148 II 12, 424b1, 21, 112, 151 II 12, 424b1–3, 109 II 12, 424b3–18, 109 II 12, 424b17, 110 III 1, 425a30–31, 33 III 2, 425b12–13, 37, 85, 101 III 2, 425b20–22, 114 III 2, 425b23–24, 105 III 2, 425b26–426a6, 136, 160, 161 III 2, 426a15–19, 119 III 2, 426a15–26, 118–119, 137 III 2, 426a17, 119 III 2, 426a20–22, 118 III 3, 427a17–b6, 42–43 III 3, 427a19–b24, 32 III 3, 427a20–21, 15

178

Index Locorum

Aristotle (cont.) III 3, 428b18–21, 113, 123 III 3, 428b19, 21 III 3, 428b21, 21 III 3, 428b27–28, 21, 113, 123 III 4, 429a10–11, 5, 33 III 4, 429a10–13, 146 III 4, 429a13–18, 147 III 4, 429a13–24, 146 III 4, 429a13–29, 148 III 4, 429a15–16, 148 III 4, 429a18, 33, 131, 147 III 4, 429a18–20, 149 III 4, 429a18–21, 152 III 4, 429a21–24, 139, 149 III 4, 429a23, 37, 85 III 4, 429a24–27, 151 III 4, 429a24–b22, 146 III 4, 429b3–4, 123, 132 III 4, 429b10–21, 151 III 4, 429b16–18, 140 III 4, 429b21–22, 123, 132 III 4, 429b22–24, 122 III 4, 429b22–430a9, 130–131, 146 III 4, 429b23–24, 4, 130 III 4, 429b26–29, 122 III 4, 429b27–28, 130 III 4, 429b27–29, 130 III 4, 429b28, 130, 154 III 4, 430a1–2, 152 III 4, 430a2–3, 122 III 4, 430a2–4, 138 III 4, 430a2–5, 123 III 4, 430a3–4, 131 III 4, 430a6–7, 131, 163 III 5, 430a15–18, 155–156 III 5, 430a16–17, 131, 137 III 5, 430a17–18, 4, 37, 122 III 5, 430a22, 136 III 6, 430a26–27, 21, 124 III 6, 430a26–28, 123, 124 III 6, 430b1–2, 124 III 6, 430b1–3, 123 III 6, 430b5–6, 131 III 6, 430b5–13, 125 III 6, 430b26–30, 123, 124 III 6, 430b28–29, 125 III 6, 430b29, 21, 113, 123 III 7, 431a10–14, 8 III 7, 431a14–20, 110, 112, 151 III 7, 431b2, 136

III 7, 431b17–19, 151 III 8, 431b20–21, 1 III 8, 431b20–432a3, 1–4 III 8, 431b21, 1, 10, 17, 68 III 8, 431b21–22, 2 III 8, 431b21–23, 31 III 8, 431b22, 32 III 8, 431b23–28, 3 III 8, 431b26–28, 2 III 8, 431b28–432a1, 3 III 8, 432a1–3, 3 III 8, 432a2, 122, 139, 154 III 8, 432a2–3, 17, 19, 67, 84, 85, 99, 121 III 8, 432a4–9, 136 III 8, 432a11–12, 123 III 8, 432a12–14, 136 III 9, 432a15–22, 7 III 9, 432a30–433a8, 8 III 10, 433b10–11, 8 III 10, 433b10–13, 8 III 11, 434a9, 100 III 13, 435a17–19, 107 Div. 2, 464a5–6, 107 2, 464a11, 107 EE II 1, 1219b2–3, 12, 35 VII 1, 1235a4–31, 69 VII 2, 1236b21, 70 VII 2, 1236b26, 70 VII 2, 1236b27–32, 70 VII 2, 1237b28–29, 23 VII 3, 1238b15–31, 70 VII 5, 69, 71–74 VII 5, 1239b10–22, 72 VII 5, 1239b17–18, 73 VII 5, 1239b22–29, 73 VII 5, 1239b29–39, 73 VII 5, 1240a1–4, 73 EN I 7, 1098a13, 12 II 6, 1106b28–35, 72 III 4, 1113a23–33, 118 VI 1, 1139a8–11, 18, 69 VII 1, 1145b14–17, 133 VII 2, 1146a24–27, 154 VII 12, 1152b25–33, 118 VII 14, 1154a26–31, 149 VII 14, 1154b12–14, 74 VIII 1, 1155a32–b10, 69

Index Locorum VIII 3, 1156a10–19, 70 VIII 4, 1157a30–33, 70 VIII 4, 1157b5, 70 VIII 5, 1157b33–34, 70 VIII 8, 1159b1–24, 69 VIII 8, 1159b19–23, 73 VIII 12, 1161b18, 70 VIII 12, 1161b27–31, 70 VIII 12, 1162a4–7, 70 IX 7, 1167b34–1168a9, 54 IX 7, 1168a5–6, 70 IX 9, 1170a16–19, 11 IX 9, 1170a19–21, 70 IX 9, 1170a21–22, 72 X 4, 1175a12, 11, 35 X 7, 1177b26–28, 37, 141 X 7, 1178a2–7, 140 X 7, 1178a5–7, 37 GA II 6, 743a21–23, 18, 69 V 1, 780a3–14, 114 GC I 5, 321b35–322a4, 76 I 5, 322a4–6, 76 I 5, 322a20–28, 76 I 7, 80–82 I 7, 323b3–7, 80 I 7, 323b11–15, 80 I 7, 323b15–18, 80 I 7, 323b24–29, 81 I 7, 323b28–29, 80 I 7, 323b29–324a9, 80 I 7, 323b30, 18, 53, 69 I 7, 324a1–3, 80 I 7, 324a2–9, 81 I 7, 324a9–14, 81 I 7, 324a10–14, 82 I 7, 324a14–b4, 81 I 7, 324b6–7, 81 I 7, 324b16–17, 81 I 8, 324b26–32, 107 I 8, 326b21–24, 108 I 9, 326b31–33, 108 I 9, 327a2–3, 108 I 10, 328a18–33, 109 II 6, 333a35–b3, 76 II 6, 333b3–20, 76 II 6, 333b22–24, 54 II 7, 334b27, 94 II 8, 334b31–335a3, 96

II 9, 335b32–33, 33 Iuv. 3, 469a5–7, 110 3, 469a14–16, 110 Mem. 1, 449b31–450a1, 136 1, 450a12–13, 136 Met. α 2, 994a22–24, 56 α 2, 994a30–31, 56 Β 1, 995a34–b1, 39 Γ 5, 1009a5–9, 43 Γ 5, 1009a7–12, 45 Γ 5, 1009b12–21, 46–48 Γ 5, 1009b22–25, 44, 76 Γ 5, 1009b25–33, 44, 49 Γ 5, 1009b37–1010a1, 158 Γ 5, 1010b30–1011a2, 160–161 Δ 13, 85 Δ 15, 1021a29 ff., 55, 87 Δ 4, 1015a1–3, 76 Δ 6, 1016b1–11, 125 Δ 6, 1016b4–5, 125 Δ 6, 1016b17–24, 127 Ζ 3, 1029b5–8, 156 Ζ 6, 1032a4–6, 125 Ζ 8, 1033a19–23, 56 Ζ 9, 1034a24, 8 Ζ 10, 1035b31–1036a12, 134, 136 Ζ 10, 1036a1–2, 125 Ζ 10, 1036a33–1037b7, 125 Ζ 11, 1036b32–1037a5, 134 Ζ 11, 1037a33–35, 126 Η 3, 1043b1–2, 129, 130 Η 3, 1043b2–3, 126 Η 3, 1043b13–14, 129 Η 3, 1043b33–1044a9, 129 Η 4, 1044b15–20, 105 Η 6, 1045a36–b6, 126 Η 6, 1045a36–b7, 134 Θ 3, 1047a30–31, 130 Θ 8, 1050a22–23, 130 Θ 8, 1050a34–b1, 11, 35 Θ 10, 1051b25–33, 124, 128 Θ 10, 1051b31–32, 125 Ι 1, 1052b1–3, 127 Ι 1, 1052b15–27, 128 Ι 1, 1052b16, 125 Ι 1, 1052b18, 92 Ι 1, 1052b18–20, 20, 85

179

180

Index Locorum

Aristotle (cont.) Ι 1, 1052b18–25, 91 Ι 1, 1052b20–21, 86 Ι 1, 1052b25, 85 Ι 1, 1052b31–35, 128 Ι 1, 1052b33–35, 20, 85, 91 Ι 1, 1052b35–1053a8, 87 Ι 1, 1053a8–12, 87 Ι 1, 1053a18–20, 91, 134, 156 Ι 1, 1053a18–21, 20, 85 Ι 1, 1053a24–25, 85, 92 Ι 1, 1053a27–30, 92 Ι 1, 1053a28–30, 92 Ι 1, 1053a31–32, 92, 96, 101 Ι 1, 1053a31–33, 91 Ι 1, 1053a31–35, 91 Ι 1, 1053a36–b3, 157 Ι 1, 1053b4–6, 91 Ι 1, 1053b4–8, 20, 85 Ι 2, 1053b25–28, 91 Ι 2, 1053b28–1054a4, 91 Ι 2, 1053b28–1054a9, 92 Ι 2, 1054a9–13, 91 Ι 3, 1054a20–29, 88 Ι 3, 1054a21–22, 89 Ι 3, 1054b28–29, 92 Ι 3, 1054b28–31, 92 Ι 4, 1055a6–7, 92 Ι 4, 1055a6–9, 92 Ι 4, 1055a8–17, 93 Ι 6, 88–89 Ι 6, 1056b14–20, 88 Ι 6, 1056b20–21, 92 Ι 6, 1056b32–34, 55 Ι 6, 1056b32–34 ff., 87 Ι 6, 1056b32–1057a1, 88 Ι 6, 1057a2–4, 88 Ι 6, 1057a2–7, 89 Ι 6, 1057a7–12, 87 Ι 6, 1057a9–12, 91 Ι 6, 1057a12–17, 89 Ι 7, 1057a21–22, 93 Ι 7, 1057b26–34, 94 Λ 7, 1072a33, 128 Λ 7, 1072b14–15, 155 Λ 7, 1072b26–30, 37 Λ 7, 1072b31, 144 Λ 9, 1074b33–35, 136 Λ 9, 1075a4–5, 130, 137 Μ 3, 1077b22–1078a5, 143

Μ 3, 1077b22–1078a31, 143–144 Μ 3, 1078a17–31, 144 Meteor. III 4, 374b7–375a1, 119 III 4, 375a5–7, 119 III 4, 375a22–28, 119 IV 4, 382a11–21, 109, 116–117 IV 4, 382a19–20, 101 PA II 1, 647a24–27, 110 II 2, 648a36–649b8, 109 II 2, 648b11–15, 109 II 2, 649a5–11, 109 II 2, 649a34–b8, 109 II 10, 656a27–28, 110 IV 10, 687a20–23, 4 Phys. I 1, 184a16–b14, 132–134, 156 I 1, 185a12–14, 5 I 4, 187a20–23, 77 I 4, 187a36–b7, 77 I 5, 188a31–34, 18, 53, 69 I 6, 189a13–14, 93 I 9, 192a19–20, 73 II 1, 193a4–9, 5 II 6, 198a5–9, 83 II 8, 199b14–15, 9 III 3, 136 IV 4, 212a7–9, 149 IV 12, 220b14–32, 92 IV 12, 220b20–21, 86 IV 12, 221a1–4, 86 IV 12, 221b3, 56 IV 13, 222b16, 56 IV 13, 222b21, 56 IV 14, 223a21–29, 89, 162 V 2, 225b15–16, 51 V 2, 225b33–226a6, 51 VI 5, 235b9–12, 56 VI 7, 237b28–33, 86 VI 7, 238a12–16, 86 VIII 4, 255b14–17, 78 VIII 4, 255b15–17, 8, 79 VIII 7, 261a20, 56 Pol. V 8, 1307b27–30, 57 SE 11, 172a34–36, 33 Sens. 1, 436b8–10, 105

Index Locorum 2, 438a4, 107 2, 437a18–20, 106 2, 438b2–11, 111 2, 438b10–11, 111 2, 438b17–20, 111 2, 439a10–12, 106 2, 439a16–17, 13, 106 3, 439b27–440a7, 94 3, 440a13–16, 94 3, 440a15–17, 107 3, 440a31–b25, 96 3, 440b14–24, 94 5, 443a21–26, 107 5, 443b1–2, 107 6, 446b2–3, 52 6, 446b3–4, 51 Somn. 2, 455b34–456a2, 110 3, 458a28–29, 105 Top. VI 3, 140a27–29, 134 VI 6, 145a3–10, 56 Homer Odyssey 18.130–137, 43–44

Plato Laws IV, 716c–d, 74 Laws X, 889d, 95 Lysis 214c–d, 72 Meno 81d–e, 156–157 Phdr. 270c–d, 31 Phdr. 271a, 31 Phil. 24b–d, 162 Prot. 331d, 41 Rep. I, 341d, 57 Rep. V, 476a, 135 Rep. VI, 507d–e, 155 Rep. VI, 508c–d, 155 Rep. VI, 508d, 155 Rep. VII, 518b–519a, 133 Rep. VII, 524c, 133 Rep. X, 597b–d, 129 Soph. 248a–249d, 133 Stsmn. 284e–285 c, 162 Tht. 151e, 32, 42 Tht. 152c–160d, 133 Tht. 160c, 116 Tim. 29d–30a, 74 Tim. 31a, 129 Tim. 50d–e, 149 Tim. 62b, 117

181