Line by Line Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima

[Pages:306]Line by Line Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima Book III

Eugene T. Gendlin, Ph.D. University of Chicago

Line by Line Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, Book III

Copyright ? 2012 by Eugene T. Gendlin

Published by the Focusing Institute 34 East Ln., Spring Valley, NY 10977

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OVERALL

The chapter falls into two parts (before and after 425a13).

Aristotle asks whether there might be a sixth sense which we happen not to know. He shows that the five special senses have a certain orderly arrangement that makes them a complete set. So it seems reasonable that there exists no sixth sense that we lack and do not know about.

The second part of the chapter takes up the common sensibles and the incidental sensibles (the second and third kinds mentioned in II-6). Aristotle argues that it cannot be by a sixth sense that we sense the commonalities of the five. Rather, we can differentiate the common sensibles because there is a "common sensing" (a together-sensing) by the five. This also explains how we are able to sense the incidentals.

The first part of the chapter concerns material and efficient causes (organ and media) although the final cause enters in. The second part is in terms of formal causes. A short part at the end follows from a final cause.

TEXT 424b22-24

That there is no other sense, apart from the five (and by these I mean sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) we might be convinced by the following considerations.

Aristotle implies that there is some conjecture involved in this premises. That there is no sense other than the five might seem quite reasonable if all of the following is the case:

424b24-26

We have even now perception of everything of which touch is the sense (for all the qualities of the tangible, qua tangible, are perceptible to us by touch).

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He begins with the qualities that make an object touchable. It is the proportion of hot, cold, fluid, dry which determines the degree of solidity or fluidity to the touch. But these are also the very qualities which we sense by touch (as he said in II-11). Since we have the sense of touch, there would be no touchable sensible that we could miss.

424b26-27

Also, if we lack any sense, we must also lack a sense-organ.

For Aristotle sense and sense-organ are one and the same concrete thing (II-12).

424b27-30

Every kind of sensible [object] which we perceive through direct contacting is perceptible by touch, which we in fact have,

while all those [sensible objects] which we perceive through media and not by direct contact are perceptible by means of the simples (I mean, for example, air and water).

The word "simples" refers to the four elements, because each element has only two qualities (fire extremely hot and dry, air hot and fluid, water cold and fluid, earth cold and dry), whereas all other bodies are mixtures of all four qualities.

Now he will argue that if the senses and the media are arranged in a certain way, then it would follow that there is no sense we miss.

He does this in terms of media and organs:

424b31-34

And the situation is such that if many [sensibles] different in kind from each other are perceptible through one [medium], then whoever has a sense-organ of that [medium] will necessarily be capable of perceiving both, e.g. if the sense-organ is [made out] of air ( ), and air conveys both sound and color;

To be "capable of perceiving both" means that the animal will have the necessary organs

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for both (since the sense and the organ are one thing). He is certainly not saying that the same organ will pick up the other sensibles in the one medium, since he knows that we don't smell and hear with our eyes.

Aristotle said that the ear contains an enclosed column of air. Now his if-clause says that if an animal has such an "air-organ," the animal will also have the other organs for all other sensibles conveyed through air.

So far the conclusion is that an animal with even one sense in a medium will always have organs also for all other sensibles in that medium.

Aristotle said (II-2) that some animals have only the sense of touch, but evidently he knows of no animal that has only one distance sense without the other two. He thinks this might be necessarily so.

Later in the chapter Aristotle will use the final cause to support this argument by saying that even the mole, although an exception since it is blind, does have rudimentary eyes under the skin. Since Aristotle points out the mole's eyes, it is clear that he means that the animals who have an organ in one medium, will also have organs for all other kinds of sensibles carried by that medium. Now we come to the other medium. So, now the cross-over:

424b34-425a3

while if there is more than one medium for the same senseobject, e.g. both air and water for color, (for both are transparent), then he who has one of these will perceive whatever is perceptible through both.

In II-7 and II-8 we were told that although our ears contain air, we can hear sound in both air and water. Our eyes contain water, but we can see color not only in water but also in air. Now Aristotle concludes that if the animal is capable of sensing all sensibles in one medium, the same organs which can do this can also pick up the sensibles in the other medium.

SEE ENDNOTE 80. ON ONE SENSE-OBJECT IN TWO MEDIA

If his "if" clauses hold, the arrangement insures that if an animal has any one distancesense even just in one medium, then it also has every sense there is.

Here is another summary of the argument:

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If we have what comes by means of contact (touch), and,

If (as it seems) an animal having one media-organ for either air or water will also (have the organs to) sense anything else in that one medium.

and If sense-organs made of air can sense in water (and vice versa),

and If only water and air can be media of distance-sensing,

then: it follows that we know all senses there are. Next he shows that there are no other media.

425a3-9

Now, sense-organs are made from two of these simples only, air and water (for the pupil of the eye is of water, the organ of hearing of air, and the organ of smell of one or other of these),

Of course the eyes and ears are not made just out of air or water; rather they are made of flesh but the part that picks up the media-vibrations is air or water. Aristotle's theory is that the contained air in the ear, and water in the eye becomes continuous with the external medium and can therefore be moved by it.

Of the four elements only air and water can be media for sensing. This is shown by arguing that sense-organs cannot be made so as to contain the other two (fire and earth).

while fire either belongs to none of them [the organs] or is common to all (for nothing is capable of perceiving without warmth),

and earth either belongs to none of them or is a constituent specially and above all of that of touch.

So there would remain no sense-organ apart from those of water and air,

and these some animals possess even now.

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Fire is too volatile. With earth the organ would be solid and tangible.

The last line assumes as he argued earlier, that if we have one air and water sense then we have all senses in those media. Since we have air and water organs now, it seems from the argument here that there cannot be an unknown sense.

SEE ENDNOTE 81. ON SOLIDITY

425a9-13

It may be inferred then that all the senses are possessed by those animals which are neither imperfect nor maimed (for even the mole apparently has eyes under the skin);

hence, unless there is some other body and a property possessed by none of the bodies existing here and now,

no sense can be left out.

Here we see that the argument does rely on the final cause: Mostly and routinely, nature would not make incomplete creatures. Aristotle assumes that nature would not make a sixth kind of sensible object but fail to give it to any of the animals we know here and now. (This is where he went wrong. Nature does give birds, bees, and bats some extra senses.) He thinks that then all other animals would be incomplete. Incomplete animals like the mole do exist, but they are exceptions, and even the mole has all the organs at least rudimentarily.

The argument presents a neat pattern. It is a demonstration only if his premises hold, and they all begin with "if." So it would not be right to argue against Aristotle: "Look, if we happened not to have smell, your argument would prove that there couldn't be a third distancesense." Such an objection begins with "If we lacked smell...." This objection assumes that Aristotle's if-premises are wrong. Beginning with Aristotle's "if," we could not have lacked smell if we have even one distance sense.

Aristotle observed empirically that his "if" clauses apply to the animals he knows here and now. If they see, they also all hear and smell. But this is not the basis of his argument. Rather, he ponders by what orderly arrangement this would be so.

SECOND PART OF THE CHAPTER:

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425a14

Nor again is it possible for there to be a sense-organ special for the common-sensibles

He just showed that there is no other organ for a sixth sense-quality. That discussion was in terms of material causes, organs and media. Still in material terms Aristotle says here that there is no sixth organ for the commons either. We can take it from this spot, that the supposed sixth sense for the commons (which he will now begin to discuss) would not have its own access to the commons, since it has no organ of its own.

SEE ENDNOTE 82. ON NO SPECIAL ORGAN FOR THE COMMONS

425a14-20

the common-sensibles which we perceive by each sense incidentally

Some commentators have thought that the text must have lost the Greek word for "not." Aristotle says here that the commons (motion, figure, etc.) are sensed incidentally, whereas in II-6 he said they are sensed in themselves as such (kath auta). But there need not be a contradiction (as Hamlyn rightly points out, p. 117). Aristotle is not saying here that we sense the commons only incidentally. We sense them in both ways. Each sense senses motion, size, etc. directly as the white moves or as the loud moves, although not as common. Each sense also senses the objects of every other sense incidentally (indirectly). So we sense the commons incidentally by each of the five (as he says here). But we sense them in themselves as such (kath auta) as common by the common sensing which he will introduce a little further on.

e.g., movement, rest, figure, magnitude, number, and one;

for we perceive all these through movement, e.g. magnitude through movement (hence also figure, for figure is of magnitude), what is at rest [is perceived] through an absence of movement,

The list of commons is not quite the same as in II-6: "One" has been added! It comes at the end of the list, and then again at the end of the passage. This will be important.

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