This paper aims to identify several interpretive problems posed by the final part of DA II.11, where Aristotle intertwines the thesis that a sense is like a ‘mean’ and an explanation for the existence of a ‘blind spot’ related to the sense of touch, adding the further contention that we are capable of discriminating because the mean ‘becomes the other opposite’ in relation to the perceptible property being perceived. To solve those problems, the paper explores a novel interpretation of Aristotle’s (...) claims, arguing that they describe a homeostatic physiological reaction by which the sensory apparatus responds to perceptible stimuli. According to the proposed interpretation, such homeostatic reaction constitutes a necessary condition for perceiving what Aristotle refers to as ‘proper’ perceptible features, which include properties like ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ as well as colors and sounds. (shrink)

In this work I reconstruct the physical and mental descriptions of perception in Aristotle. I propose to consider the thesis that αἴσθησις is a μεσότης as a description of the physiological aspect of perception, meaning that perceiving is a physical act by which the sensory apparatus homeostatically counterbalances, and thence measures, the incoming affection produced by external perceptible objects. The proposal is based on a revision of the semantics of the word mesotês in Plato, Aristotle and later Greek mathematicians. I (...) show how this interpretation fits the text, and how it solves problems that afflict the rival interpretations. I further develop a ‘non-dephysiologizing’ spiritualist reading of the additional description of perception as reception of forms without the matter. I show that Aristotle uses the expression ‘forms without matter’ to describe actually abstracted items in one’s mind rather than the way in which the form are received. In opposition to forms-in-matter, such items are causally powerless and metaphysically sterile: an F-without-matter somewhat determines the subject it is in without qualifying or identifying it as an F-subject. Thus, we have a second ‘mental’ description of perception. Further parts of the thesis are devoted to settle interpretive questions raised by controversial statements about perception found in De Anima II 5 and III 2, and to discuss the question of how the mental and physiological descriptions of perception Aristotle offers are related. My conclusion is that Aristotle’s views combines a form of quasi-dualist vitalism about powers which is nonetheless compatible with hylomorphism, and a form of epiphenomenalism with regard to perceptual events. (shrink)

In the fifth book of Plato'sLaws(745e7–746a8), the Athenian stranger concedes that some requirements posed in the description of the ideal city might be unrealistically demanding. The passage quotes the due limits fixed with regard to wealth and the regulations about the number of children and the size of the family, as well as the rules to be observed in the allocation of houses in the city and in the countryside. The latter requirement is recalled at 746a6–7 (ἔτι δὲ χώρας τε (...) καὶ ἄστεος, ὡς εἴρηκεν, μεσότητάς τε καὶ ἐν κύκλῳ οἰκήσεις πάντῃ), where the word μεσότης is unanimously understood as indicating a geographic notion of ‘middle’, with regard to either the position of the houses in the ideal city, or that of the city in the territory. (shrink)

In the fifth book of Plato'sLaws(745e7–746a8), the Athenian stranger concedes that some requirements posed in the description of the ideal city might be unrealistically demanding. The passage quotes the due limits fixed with regard to wealth and the regulations about the number of children and the size of the family, as well as the rules to be observed in the allocation of houses in the city and in the countryside. The latter requirement is recalled at 746a6–7 (ἔτι δὲ χώρας τε (...) καὶ ἄστεος, ὡς εἴρηκεν, μεσότητάς τε καὶ ἐν κύκλῳ οἰκήσεις πάντῃ), where the word μεσότης is unanimously understood as indicating a geographic notion of ‘middle’, with regard to either the position of the houses in the ideal city, or that of the city in the territory. (shrink)