Aristotle on Intelligent Perception

Abstract

Aristotle presents perception as a potentially intelligent form of cognition—a form of cognition that allows us to respond in discerning, knowing ways to a range of different situations, and develop certain theoretical insights relevant to some inquiry. But it’s not clear how we should understand the interaction between our rational and perceptual powers in these cases, or how widespread we should take their interaction to be. In this paper I argue against interpretations on which human perception would be an inherently rational power. I then develop an alternative view of intelligent perception that seeks to do justice to the role Aristotle assigns nonrational uses of perception in his account of our learning, and to his emphasis on the continuity between animal and human forms of cognition. On the view I develop, our rational powers allow us to develop a reflective understanding of the knowledge we acquire by purely perceptual means—a reflective understanding that can then affect what we recognize perceptually, and thereby yield forms of action and insight unavailable to other animals.