A unidade da sensação em Aristóteles

Abstract

Aristotle's account of sensation starts from two main sense objects that actualize the senses, namely, those proper to each sense and those common to all the senses. Proper as color to sight, sound to hear, and so on; and common are listed as movement, rest, figure, unity and size. Proper and common sensible are held to act on the senses as concomitant (ἀκουλουθουντα) to each other, which means that we cannot see a color without a size, and vice-versa. Since discrimination of sensible differences is putative to a unit of the faculty of perception the clarification of this sensible unit should be able to support the explanation of the discrimination of sensible differences. The first step towards this explanation comes from the joint cause of proper and common sensible. For the second, we must treat of Aristotle's definition of sense in general which says that sense is what has the capacity to receive into itself the sensible forms without the matter. This definition specifies that sensible forms occurs according to a quality (τοιονδί) and a proportion (λόγος). In this way the unity of common and proper sensible would be equivalent to the sensible form received without matter, and hence the foundation of all sensation. Whether and how the clarification of this unity makes it possible to understand discrimination is a more complex matter, since there are two points of view to be discussed: the nature and necessity of a central sense organ and the formal unity necessary for sensitive discrimination. Our hypothesis is that Aristotle's explanation is carried out by taking the proper sensible as a link to a unitary approach of the sense faculty which is the unity for both proper and common sensibles.