When I judge white to be different from sweet, at that and the same to different the act of distinc the sensory § 24. There is need of explanation, however, if we are to How one understand how one and the same sensory faculty can thus act at one and the same time with reference to objects like faculty can apply itself white and sweet, which as perceived affect sense differently. co-instanThe same subject cannot, so far as it is undivided (àdiaíperov), taneously and so far as it acts in an undivided time (èv àdiaιpéry objects in Xpóvo), be affected at once with opposite movements compari(Kɩvýσeis). In whatever way sweet moves the sense, bitter son or moves it in the opposite way; and white moves it in a way tion. In different from either. Yet if, as experience teaches us, such one respect comparison is a fact, the above simultaneous action must be faculty is possible somehow. Perhaps the solution is that the faculty another it which pronounces (rò кpîvov) on the difference of such quali- is divisible ties (whether homogeneous or not) is in itself when it so acts, single. numerically one, undivided and indivisible1; yet, in its rela- This sug tions, not self-identical, but divided (xexwptoμévov) 3. If this answer. be so, one and the same percipient subject would, in virtue of its partibility of relationship, apprehend the several objects, while in virtue of its local and numerical identity it would grasp them together, and bring them into one relation with one another *. single: in and not gests the answer not § 25. Yet is this explanation really admissible? The This same numerically and locally (тón кaì ảρilμ) one thing may wholly 2 1 ἀριθμῷ ἀδιαίρετον καὶ ἀχώριστον. 3 The difficulty with which Aristotle here contends is put sharply in further ex the agent of comparison several objects, yet satisfactory in its potential relationships be (or exhibit) contraries, but not without in its realized relationships, while remaining one and the planation: same. As, for instance, the same surface cannot at once for though be white and black, so (it might be argued) the same one sensory faculty cannot at once receive the forms1 of white and discri- and black. This difficulty is real, Aristotle admits; yet mination it may, he thinks, be met. In a passage of the Physics2, may be botentially arguing that ὁ χρόνος is ἀριθμὸς κινήσεως κατὰ τὸ πρότερον καὶ as regards ὕστερον, the geometrical point, ἡ στιγμή, and the unit of different Time, Tò vûv, are compared. Each has two aspects, in one how can it of which it is a éрas or limit. In this aspect the σryμń is be actually not a μópιov μýkovs, and the rêv is not a xpóvos. As in the tration space-line, so in the time-line, the 'now,' which some call a point, is at once the beginning and the end, according to the aspect in which we view it. It is the end of the past, the beginning of the future. Thus it would fittingly illustrate the position of the percipient subject in relation to different things and focussing them all at the same time. As the vôv can be at once both beginning and termination, while numerically one and the same, so this subject, while preserving its self-identity, may be related at once to different, and even opposite, objects, such as black and white, or sweet and white 2. The κοινὴ αἴσθη. :: like each special αἴσθησις, is so? Illus from the way in which the στιγμή οι τὸ νῦν is actually both one and two. 1 rà elon: the distinctive function of sense is the reception of forms without matter. * 2208 5-26 συνεχής τε δὴ ὁ χρόνος τῷ νῦν, καὶ διῄρηται κατὰ τὸ νῦν ... ἀκολουθεῖ δὲ καὶ τοῦτό πως τῇ στιγμῇ· καὶ γὰρ ἡ στιγμὴ καὶ συνέχει τὸ μῆκος καὶ ὁρίζει· ἔστι γὰρ τοῦ μὲν ἀρχὴ τοῦ δὲ τελευτή. ̓Αλλ ̓ ὅταν μὲν οὕτω λαμβάνῃ τις ὡς δυσὶ χρώμενος τῇ μιᾷ, ἀνάγκη ἵστασθαι, εἰ ἔσται ἀρχὴ καὶ τελευτὴ ἡ αὐτὴ στιγμή. By making στιγμή = τὸ νῦν here (427* 10, cf. 426 28), with Brentano, we not only explain the phraseology, but we get a more appropriate simile. The point in the time-line at which the relationship between the different objects is realized is just that which could best illustrate Aristotle's attempt at explanation. A difference of time between the perception of one object and that of the other would be fatal to his explanation of comparison: and this difference is just what he smooths over by his ingenious simile. Time is the 'form of internal sense.' Aristotle here approaches closely to Kant's thought of a synthetic unity of apperception, though not yet a transcendental unity, and only operating in the sphere of sense. Only such apperception could synthesize the fleeting manifold of perception. a mean, i.e. it is one, though it, realizes itself in many relationships. As the point, in space or time, can be regarded as at once terminus and initium,being conceived as a mean between both, so this kowǹ alolŋois (which is what is here meant by Tò κpivov) while per se one, is in its relationships divided between the diverse objects. So far as it is two it applies itself to them severally so far as it is also one it brings them into the conjunction required for comparison. As Plato in the Theaetetus found the solution of such a difficulty in a faculty of thought transcending temporal and spatial limitations, so Aristotle finds the solution of it (as far as the comparison of sensible data goes) in the assumption of a sensus communis, which is freed from the trammels that hamper the operations of each single special sense. Each αἴσθησις—τὸ αἰσθητικὸν τοῦ ἰδίου—is a mean between the ἐναντία of its province: and τὸ αἰσθητικὸν πάντων 1 is likewise a mean between the αἰσθητά of all the αἰσθήσεις 2. 1 Cf. 449a 17. 2 A further explanation of the κown aïobŋois is attempted in de Anima 431a 20 seqq. in which Aristotle endeavours, by the aid of the idea of a proportion between pairs of numbers or quantities, to illustrate the relation between the central sense and its objects, whether homogeneous or heterogeneous, e. g. white and black, or white and sweet. The difficulties of this passage, however, are so great that they have baffled commentators from the earliest times to the present. See Torstrik's edition of the de Anima, pp. 199-202; Trendelenburg (Belger), pp. 426-32, with the passages from Simplicius and Philoponus there quoted; Kampe, Erkenntnisstheorie des Arist., pp. 108-9n. Also see the judicious notes of E. Wallace, ad loc. Until the disputed points of reading and interpretation are settled for this passage, we cannot venture to rely upon it for trustworthy guidance as to Aristotle's conception of the sensus communis. The insertion, however, of a second reference to this matter, in connexion with the psychology of reason and will, shows plainly enough that Aristotle intended to use to the full his conception of ἔν τι ἀριθμῷ, τῷ δ ̓ εἶναι ἕτερον, which he applies (as we have seen) to explain (a) the individual aloeŋτýpɩov in relation to its function qua αἰσθητικόν, 4243 25; (6) the κοινὴ αἴσθησις οἱ τὸ ἐπικρῖνον (or κρίνον) here in its relationship to the special αἰσθήσεις; and (c) in 431 12- 1o the διανοητική ψυχή (regarded in reference to πρᾶξις) in relation to the φαντάσματα which are to it οἷον αἰσθήματα. The plan which we have followed precludes our entering any further into this last part of the subject. B. The sensus of per κοινά and và xa và συμβεβηκός. such perception, scarcely at all in perception The so called κοινὰ In the concluding chapter o. the tract de Sensu, we find what was perhaps chronologically Aristotle's first essay on the subject of simultaneous perception of different sensibles. The whole object of the dropía, with which that chapter commences, is to lead up to the establishment of two propositions (a) that co-instantaneous perception of different alooŋrá, with a single special sense, is strictly impossible; and (b) that, since such perception is a fact, it must be accounted for by the agency of the one central sense there (449 17) referred to as Tò alσOηTIкòv πάντων. 2 § 26. The objects of the sensus communis are, chiefly, communis those called by Aristotle (1) the common1 sensibles, and as faculty (2) the incidental sensibles (τὰ κοινὰ καὶ τὰ κατὰ συμβεβηκός). ceiving à The Kourά variously enumerated in different passages by Aristotle consist (most fully stated) of kívŋois kai ǹpeμía, ἀριθμός, μέγεθος, σχῆμα, τὸ τραχὺ καὶ τὸ λεῖον, τὸ ὀξὺ καὶ τὸ Errors in (Tò èv ἀμβλύ (τὸ ἐν ὄγκοις). These are said to be perceptions 'common to all the special senses, or if not to all, at least to sight and touch.' Wherefore (dió) with reference to these percepts errors take place (àñаτŵvтαι), while with οἱ τὰ ἴδια. reference to the special or proper (περὶ τῶν ἰδίων) objects of each sense, such as colour, no such error occurs, or at least it occurs only in the lowest possible degree 3. Two points are remarkable in Aristotle's statement respecting these κοινά. First, that though they are called κοινὰ πασῶν, this is corrected and their perception restricted to sight and touch; secondly, that after declaring the above aloľŋrá to be common, he goes on 'wherefore (dió) errors are possible, &c.' Why, one may ask, does the fact of these being common to several senses, render error more likely or more frequent regarding them than as regards the air@nrá of some special aloenois? Do the different senses which perceive any given KOLóv contradict, instead of corroborating, one another's testi1 But see Neuhäuser, op. cit., pp. 30 seqq. пάoŵν Tŵ αἰσθήσεων really common only to sight and touch. They are really κοινά, because they are objects of ἡ κοινὴ αἴσθησις. All perceived in 2 418 a 6-25, 425a 15, and 442b 5 where, however, kívŋois and åpilμós are not named. 3 428 18 ἡ αἴσθησις τῶν μὲν ἰδίων ἀληθής ἐστιν ἢ ὅτι ὀλίγιστον ἔχουσα τὸ ψεῦδος. one of mony? If so, why? There is an incongruity in Aristotle's virtue of position as to the relation between 'special' and 'general' them, viz. sense 1. κίνησις. There the per ception of or any of without ments of and rest. number, peμía. and so on, We have here classified the Kowá as objects of the sensus could not communis. They are all perceived in virtue of one of be one special them, viz. kívŋois 2. But Kivnois is itself perceived by the sense for sensus communis; so is χρόνος 3, and so too is μέγεθος. Though they are classed with the αἰσθητὰ ὧν καθ ̓ αὑτά φαμεν τὰ κοινά, αἰσθάνεσθαι, and distinguished from the incidental αἰσθητά 4, them, e. g. we find no special alonτýpɩov dedicated to them; thus, so far ivnois, as we perceive them by each ato@nois, we really do so only depriving κατὰ συμβεβηκός 5. If then they are to be really perceived our judg. καθ ̓ αὑτά, they must be objects to some αἴσθησις, and this, movement being no special sense, must be the κown alotnois. There of magnicould not, with profit to our experience, be any one special tude, sense for the perception of these, e. g. of kívŋois and Were there such special sense, then when we saw an object of all objective moving or at rest, its movement or rest would, for us, be, necessity. in relation to the proper object of seeing, as sweetness is now to colour; i. e. a merely incidental percept. We see an object of a certain colour to be sweet. This only means that an uniform experience has taught us to connect its colour with this particular taste. We are accustomed to find the taste and the colour together in the object. There is no necessary connexion between them, however, as there is between a body and its movement or rest. Were there a special sense for the perception of movement or rest, the latter, as lotov of such sense, might and no doubt would connect itself customarily, but never necessarily with the idia of other senses. We should by the assumed special sense perceive movement per se, not, as now, always in a moving body. Thus a gulf would be created in experience between movement and rest and bodies; and the same 1 See pp. 277, 286 n., 325-8, . 2 4258 16 ταῦτα γὰρ πάντα κινήσει αἰσθανόμεθα κτλ. 3 450 9 μέγεθος ἀναγκαῖον γνωρίζειν καὶ κίνησιν ᾧ καὶ χρόνον: 4518 17 ὅτι τοῦ πρώτου αἰσθητικοῦ καὶ ᾧ χρόνου αἰσθανόμεθα : 452 7 seqq. * 418a 8. ... 5 4258 14 τῶν κοινῶν . . . ὧν ἑκάστῃ αἰσθήσει αἰσθανόμεθα κατὰ συμβεβηκός, οἷον κινήσεως κτέ. |