What Does Aristotle De Anima Mean

Aristotle’s, De Anima, contains some of the most significant and thought provoking claims pertaining to the nature of living things. Aristotle’s capability to convey and defend the topics throughout the text allows modern readers to debate the various perplexing claims. One of Aristotle’s most noteworthy subjects pertains to the inerrant basis of perception. Fortified by Aristotle’s explanation of the sensory of living things, his argument thoroughly explains the ways in which individuals perceive the world around them. However, Aristotle’s interpretation of the topic is not only flawed but contradictory. By examining several components of Aristotle’s work, his theory contains multiple implications as he attempts to derive a connection between
Some say it is a case of like being affected by like…once it has been acted upon it has become similar and is such as that thing is” (416b30-418a7). For Aristotle, when our body senses something, such as when we taste a particular food, our tongue literally becomes that specific taste. For example, if a human were to eat a spicy Buffalo wing, our tongue at the time would become that particular type of spice. Aristotle states that, though our tongue has the potential to taste various flavors, at the time the tongue is only actively tasting the spicy Buffalo wing, as our body receives that flavor. Aristotle defends his claim through the concept of “perceptibles”. These peceptiblies are what a human being would receive through perception. According to Aristotle, when we taste the spicy Buffalo wings, our tongue would become that spice, while at the same time the human would become conscious of the form it is receiving and unify it to an image. The human being needs to have the ability to receive these perceptiblies and forms from the specific object in order to be altered by it. Aristotle takes his
According to Aristotle, for a person to understand what they perceiving, they seem to have had a prior knowledge of that specific thing or object. Aristotle believes we passively start with what is most apparent to our senses to arrive at a concept. To go back to the example of the spicy Buffalo wing, according to Aristotle, when you perceive through your sense organs the temperature and flavor of the object you are able to make a connection that it is in fact a spicy Buffalo wing. Since these senses are apparent to you, in your mind you can derive from this combination of senses a spicy Buffalo wing through the “sensus communis”. However, an implication arises when for instance this is your first time eating the wing. When a person senses the heat and the taste, but has no prior knowledge of what they are truly perceiving, there is no way for them to be aware that the object is in fact a spicy Buffalo wing. Though humans have the potency to taste many senses, and are only at the time actively tasting the flavor of the spicy Buffalo wing, without any prior knowledge, questions arise of how exactly we make a connection to something unknown to our senses. Though Aristotle states we have the ability through the common faculty of senses, to combine theses sense to arrive at a conclusion, he