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RESEARCH PRODUCT

On Activity and Passivity in Perception: Aristotle, Philoponus, and Pseudo-Simplicius

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Ancient and late ancient theories of perception are often described by a generalisation according to which Aristotle held a passive theory whereas Plato, the Platonists and the Neoplatonists supposed perception to be something active. I shall argue that, despite this general difference, there are important points of convergence in the theories of Aristotle and his Neoplatonic commentators. First, the notion of activity is important for Aristotle’s theory as well. Perception not only is an activity (energeia) for Aristotle. It is a perfect activity, the perfection of which is the activity itself and is thus not dependent on an external product. Further, the reception of forms without matter is by no means an exhaustive description of perceptual cognition in Aristotle. The sensitive soul is also capable of memory, imagination, and non-universal generalisation Aristotle calls ‘experience’. Human beings who have reason also make perceptual judgments that, however, are not identified with perceptions in Aristotle’s theory.