Abstract This paper explores Aristotle’s account of distance perception by considering how he would respond to one of Plotinus’ objections to perceptual mediation in Enneads 4.5. I argue that we should think of the special objects of the distance senses on the model of Aristotle’s account of the eclipse in Posterior Analytics 2: sounds, odours, and the effects of colour in the medium inhere ‘in’ the bodies that serve as media—air and water—but are ‘of’ their distal causes, like bells, or cheese, etc. This model allows us to explain why we perceive distant bodies and not the medium itself.
Abstract In On Memory and Recollection , Aristotle makes the curious remark that recollection is ‘a sort of reasoning’ ( sullogismos tis ) (453a10). The remark is especially puzzling in light of the automatic and associative character of what he takes to be typical recollective processes, since these features can create the impression that recollection is due merely to a triggering mechanism. This paper proposes a reading that resolves this apparent tension. On the proposed reading, the remark points to a basic form of rationality that familiar pictures of reasoning simply presuppose.
Abstract Making sense of Arcesilaus’ scepticism requires explaining how he can have some commitment to P while suspending judgement over P. Those who engage with this question tend to focus on the nature of Arcesilaus’ commitments. I shift the focus onto the nature of his suspension of judgement. This is necessary if we are to have a full explanation of Arcesilaus’ position. Drawing on a distinction between two kinds of suspension of judgement in the Pyrrhonian tradition, I argue that there is a sense in which Arcesilaus can both suspend judgement over, and have some commitment towards, P.
Abstract This paper offers a new way to interpret the rational part in vicious souls in the Republic . I challenge the orthodox view that the rational part in vicious souls is corrupted, desiring what lower parts desire qua good. Against this ‘corruption model’, I propose the ‘enslavement model’: the rational part in vicious souls is enslaved but not corrupted. When enslaved, it does not desire qua good what the ruling part desires. I argue that this interpretation better fits the text and offers interpretative advantages, providing a new way to understand Plato’s psychology in the Republic .
Abstract Some interpreters hold that, for Aristotle, the pleasant is the primary de dicto goal of every vicious person. I argue that this is false and develop an alternative account of vicious motivation by self-interest ( to sumpheron ). In Nicomachean Ethics 2.3, Aristotle claims that the vicious person errs with respect to the objects of choice: the pleasant, the sumpheron , and the fine. I argue that the vicious person can commit conceptual errors, ordering errors, and errors of omission in her pursuit of these objects. I develop this reading by providing an interpretation of Aristotle’s account of the sumpheron on which it is both a means and an end.
