Abstract

ARISTOTLE’S THEORY OF PERCEPTION AND THOUGHT in books 2 and 3 of de Anima is usually interpreted in terms of representationalism: in perception and thought, we receive sensible or intelligible forms. These forms are representations of qualities, things, or events in the world. We gain epistemic access to the world by means of these representations. In this paper I argue that contrary to received opinion, Aristotle’s text can also be read in terms of direct realism: we have epistemic access to the world in perception and thought without representations intervening as epistemic intermediaries.