Aristotle on the Common Sense

Abstract

Apart from using our eyes to see and our ears to hear, we regularly and effortlessly perform a number of complex perceptual operations that cannot be explained in terms of the five senses taken individually. Such operations include, for example, perceiving that the same object is white and sweet, noticing the difference between white and sweet, or knowing that one's own senses are active. Observing that other animals must be able to perform such operations, and being unprepared to ascribe any share in rationality to them, Aristotle explained such operations with reference to a higher-order perceptual capacity which unites and monitors the five senses. This capacity is known as the ‘common sense’ (koine aisthesis, sensus communis). Unfortunately, Aristotle provides only scattered and opaque references to this capacity. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the exact nature and functions of this capacity have been a matter of perennial controversy. This book offers an extensive and compelling treatment of the Aristotelian conception of the common sense, which has become part and parcel of Western psychological theories from antiquity through to the Middle Ages, and well into the early modern period. This book begins with an introduction to Aristotle's theory of perception and sets up a conceptual framework for the interpretation of textual evidence. In addition to analysing those passages which make explicit mention of the common sense, and drawing out the implications for Aristotle's terminology, this book provides an examination of each function of this Aristotelian faculty.

Psychology and Physiognomics

“…Even if aristotle rejects the conflation of both faculties, he states that all cognitive processes are based on sensation, which is-historically but not fundamentally-the condition that makes reflection possible at all (On the Soul 429a1). aristotle's account, however, raises many questions: what kind of intelligence was possessed by animals (Labarrière 2000); did he have concept of "consciousness" (Caston 2002); what was the status and func tion of what he calls the "common sense" (On the Soul 425a14-b2) which differed from the five senses and was thought to coordinate them into a kind of synesthesia (Gregoric 2007). More positively, Barnes concludes, "Philosophy of mind has for centuries been whirled between a Cartesian Charybdis and a scientific Scylla: aristotle has the look of an Odysseus" (1971,114).…”

John Bulwer (1606–1656) and Some British and French Contemporaries

“…On the classical theory oïsensus communis, see Gregoric (2007); on its replacement by the theory of primary and secondary qualities, see Martinez (1974), Crombie (1990b: 329-331), Pasnau (2011); on Berkeley's tbeory and its influence, see Rée (1999:34-39, 336-345), Wilson (1999). Although Aristotle gives a philosophically consistent psychological explanation of the coordination of the senses in perception and action, the physicalorganic basis has been a problem.…”

The Value of Image. The Design of and Data Streams from the Perception by Design

“…In the statement that "the view of object is visible" [14], it is defined the limit of the field of interest in what it is not perceptible with other senses. The development of sensitive knowledge takes place, according to the same Aristotle, in two stages: in the first ("impression of the senses") the sense organ "includes" passively (without matter) the shape of what is observed and the sense "feels" the sensible; in the second development of sensitive knowledge it intervenes the sensus communis that coordinates the senses and provides awareness of the sensation [15]. If the five senses were completely independent from each other, not coordinated and integrated, we would not be able, for example, to perceive the roughness with the view, or either to perceive a fabric with both view and touch.…”