Open AccessAristotle on Joint Perception and Perceiving that We Perceive
Author(s) -
Rosemary Twomey
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
revista de filosofia antiga
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1981-9471
DOI - 10.11606/issn.1981-9471.v13i1p147-180
Subject(s) - perception , joint attention , joint (building) , interpretation (philosophy) , object (grammar) , psychology , focus (optics) , interpreter , section (typography) , cognitive psychology , epistemology , philosophy , linguistics , computer science , architectural engineering , developmental psychology , physics , optics , autism , engineering , programming language , operating system
While most interpreters take the opening of De Anima III 2 (“Since we perceive that we see and hear […]”) to be an oblique reference to some sort of conscious awareness, I argue that Aristotle intends to explain what I call ‘joint perception’: when conjoined with Aristotle’s subsequent claim that perceiving and being perceived are the same activity, the metaperception underpins the perception of a unified object. My interpretation is shown to have a more satisfactory account of the aporiai that follow. While I argue that the immediate focus of the metaperceptual account is joint perception, it may also be applicable to other kinds of complex (i.e. non-special) perception, which I briefly consider in the closing section.