Attention, Perception and Thought in Aristotle

In the first part of the paper, I’ll rehearse an argument that perceiving that we see and hear isn’t a special case of perception in Aristotle but is rather a necessary condition for any perception whatsoever: the turning of one’s attention to the affection of the sense organs. In the second part of the paper, I’ll consider the thesis that the activity of the active intellect is analogous to perceiving that we see and hear. RESUMÉ: Dans la première partie de l'essai, je soutiendrai que percevant que nous voyons et entendons n'est pas un cas spécial de perception en Aristote mais suis plutôt une condition nécessaire pour n'importe quelle perception quelconques: l’attention à l'affection des organes sensoriels. Dans la deuxième partie de l'essai, je considérerai la thèse que l'activité de l'intellect actif est analogue à la perception cette nous voient et entendent. Aristotle holds that there is a passive intellect, by which the mind can become any intelligible object, and an active intellect, by which the mind can make any intelligible object. What is the activity of the active intellect? In this paper, I’ll argue that the role of the active intellect in thought is analogous to the role of perceiving that we see and hear in perception. Aristotle sometimes himself draws analogies between perceiving and thinking. One analogy, for example, concerns the relation holding between faculties and their objects. If thinking is like perceiving, then as the faculty of perception is to the object perceived, so too the faculty of thought is to the intelligible object. This analogy, suggested by De An. 3.4 (429a13-18), lends support to Aristotle’s assimilation model of thought: in thinking, the faculty of thought becomes formally identical with the intelligible object. This model of thought is plausible in part since, by the time Aristotle makes the claim, he has already argued that, in perceiving, the faculty of perception