P.J. Hutzler
Ancient Philosophy
Dr. Mahoney
Aristotle: De Anima

The Potential the Know the World

Aristotle, throughout his work in De Anima, tries to explain how we perceive and know objects external to us—not within the confines of our body. Aristotle continuously debates the process of perceiving an object with the use of the five senses, and how we understand the object past its’ simple form and gain knowledge of its function. Aristotle is saying that there is a connection between our consciousness and the external object in question, and this is how we understand and know the external object. To understand an object, Aristotle says there is two critical parts of our soul that are separate but combined help us know the object: the perceptive and the intellective (428b30). We use our perceptive power to understand the material and the form of an object, but our intellect is what helps us really know the object and its function. Aristotle devotes a great deal of De Anima to discussing the perceptive power, and its dependence on a bodily form. Aristotle says that we use the five senses to perceive objects; it is not just one perceptive tool such as the eye, but the whole body. “What is true of a part must, indeed, be understood with reference to the whole of a living thing’s body, since the part of perception bears the same relationship to its bodily part as the whole perception bears to the whole body insofar as it is a perceptive body” (412 b20). According to Aristotle, perception occurs when one of the bodily organs experiences a change, and this he sees as a kind of alteration (417a). All of our senses incorporate various mediums (a neutral state of being), and when something disrupts this medium we can experience perception. For example, the air in its neutral state is odorless, but when someone brews a nice pot of coffee it disrupts the medium and