Aristotle on the Perception of Perception : Seeing, Remembering, and Sleeping

This study is an inquiry into three related topics in Aristotle���s psychology: the perception of seeing, the perception of past perception, and the perception of sleeping. Over the past decades, Aristotle���s account of the perception of perception has been studied in numerous articles and chapters of books. However, there is no monograph that attempts to give a comprehensive analysis of this account and to assess its relation and significance to Aristotle���s psychological theory in general as well as to other theories pertaining to the topics (e.g. theories of consciousness), be they ancient, medieval, modern, or contemporary. This study intends to fill this gap and to further the research into Aristotle���s philosophy and into the philosophy of mind. The present study is based on an accurate analysis of the sources, on their Platonic background, and on later interpretations within the commentary tradition up to the present. From a methodological point of view, this study represents systematically orientated research into the history of philosophy, in which special attention is paid to the philosophical problems inherent in the sources, to the distinctions drawn, and to the arguments put forward as well as to their philosophical assessment. In addition to contributing many new findings concerning the topics under discussion, this study shows that Aristotle���s account of the perception of perception substantially differs from many later theories of consciousness. This study also suggests that Aristotle be regarded as a consistent direct realist, not only in respect of sense perception, but also in respect of memory.

The philosopher and the rhetorician : a study of persuasion in Plato's Gorgias and Aristotle's Rhetoric /

In his treatise, On Rhetoric, Aristotle argues that there are three species within an art of rhetoric, judicial, deliberative, and epideictic. Aristotle's threefold rhetorical art, which is based on the functioning of the soul toward justice, reveals the possibilities for persuasive speech found in the Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle suggests that the soul and political life can be ordered according to reason through speeches pursuing justice, efficiency, and noble action. The relation between rhetoric and the soul also demonstrates how Socrates' rhetoric in Plato's Gorgias is based on an well-ordered soul, which is a just soul. In contrast to his own persuasion, Socrates demonstrates that the persuasive speech employed and taught by Gorgias, the rhetorician, is based on disorder and injustice. These two texts reveal that the intent of rhetoric is not separate from its practice. A study of the art of rhetoric, based on a study of the just soul and the good life, leads to the higher inquiries into politics and philosophy. Thus, political life and philosophy may benefit when citizens examine the nature of rhetoric, and subsequently, justice, within a community and within a soul.

Aristotle on Thumos and Phantasia

What is Aristotle���s conception of thumos? This question can be broken down into two separate but related questions: (a) what is the object of desire for thumos, and (b) in which faculty of the soul is thumos grounded? The latter question is the focus of this paper. In this paper, “grounded in” is to be taken physiologically; the second question can be rephrased as “Which faculty of the soul is thumos a function of?” As a general rule Aristotle employs both a colloquial and a technical sense of thumos throughout the corpus. When I ask “What is thumos?,” I am interested in the technical sense that appears primarily in On the Soul and in the Nicomachean Ethics, where thumos is defined as a category of desire (a subset of orexis). The main argument of this paper is that Aristotle���s thumos is grounded in the faculty of phantasia – specifically, a sub-faculty called definite phantasia.

Aristotle and pedagogy. 'Arístóteles y la pedagogía'.

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