On Aristotle's "on Sense Perception"

by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Alan Towey (Translator)

In his work On Sense Perception, Aristotle discusses the material conditions of perception, starting with the sense organs and moving to the material basis of color, flavor, and odor. His Pythagorean account of hues as a ratio of dark to light was enthusiastically endorsed by Goethe against Newton as being true to the painter's experience. Aristotle finishes with three problems about continuity. In what sense are indefinitely small color patches or color variations perceptible? Which perceptibles leap discontinuously like light to fill a whole space, which have to reach one point before another; and do observers of the latter perceive the same thing if they are at different distances? How does the central sense permit genuinely simultaneous, rather than staggered, perception of different objects?

230 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1999

About the author

Peripatetic philosopher and the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle. He was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria, and lived and taught in Athens at the beginning of the 3rd century, where he held a position as head of the Peripatetic school.