Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    On Sense and the Sensible
    On Sense and the Sensible
    On Sense and the Sensible
    Ebook49 pages47 minutes

    On Sense and the Sensible

    By Aristotle

    3/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Having now definitely considered the soul, by itself, and its several faculties, we must next make a survey of animals and all living things, in order to ascertain what functions are peculiar, and what functions are common, to them. What has been already determined respecting the soul must be assumed throughout. The remaining parts of our subject must be now dealt with, and we may begin with those that come first.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe Big Nest
    Release dateDec 6, 2016
    ISBN9781787240056
    Author

    Aristotle

    Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist whose works have profoundly influenced philosophical discourse and scientific investigation from the later Greek period through to modern times. A student of Plato, Aristotle’s writings cover such disparate topics as physics, zoology, logic, aesthetics, and politics, and as one of the earliest proponents of empiricism, Aristotle advanced the belief that people’s knowledge is based on their perceptions. In addition to his own research and writings, Aristotle served as tutor to Alexander the Great, and established a library at the Lyceum. Although it is believed that only a small fraction of his original writings have survived, works such as The Art of Rhetoric, Nicomachean Ethics, Poetics, and Metaphysics have preserved Aristotle’s legacy and influence through the ages.

    Read more from Aristotle

    Related authors

    Related to On Sense and the Sensible

    Titles in the series (100)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Consciousness Isn’t Self-Centered

      Feb 27, 2020

      The great mystery of consciousness is why matter lights up with felt experience. After all, we are composed of particles indistinguishable from those swirling around in the sun; the atoms that compose your body were once the ingredients of countless

      10 min read

    • Article

      A Perception Of Something

      Nov 7, 2020

      A Perception Of Something
      9 min read

    • Article

      My Out-of-Body Experience

      Jan 19, 2022

      Two years ago, I decided to do nothing. Not for the rest of my life, of course—for two hours. As a neuroscientist, I was already familiar with the evidence that mindfulness meditation, or attending to the present moment, is beneficial for stress and

      6 min read

    • Article

      Spirit In The Psychology

      Oct 31, 2019

      Spirit In The Psychology
      7 min read

    • Article

      BODY OF Knowledge

      Feb 19, 2019

      BODY OF Knowledge
      4 min read

    • Article

      Fleshy Stuff

      Nov 6, 2017

      Fleshy Stuff
      5 min read

    • Article

      Soul

      Dec 28, 2018

      Soul
      8 min read

    • Article

      Human Emotions Are Personal Narratives

      Aug 29, 2019

      For his next book, Joseph LeDoux knew he had to go deep. He had to go back in time, way back, 3.5 billion years ago. The author of the seminal The Emotional Brain, followed by Synaptic Self and Anxious, sensed a missing element in those books on how

      10 min read

    • Article

      A Clash of Perspectives on Panpsychism

      Feb 27, 2020

      In recent years the concept of panpsychism, “which entertains the possibility that all matter is imbued with consciousness,” writes Annaka Harris, has been firing up cognitive scientists who plumb the nature of consciousness. Some entertain the possi

      7 min read

    • Article

      How Do We Create Our Reality?

      Mar 2, 2021

      How Do We Create Our Reality?
      8 min read

    • Article

      My 3 Greatest Revelations

      Nov 17, 2023

      My 3 Greatest Revelations
      4 min read

    • Article

      To Be, Not To Do

      May 5, 2021

      To Be, Not To Do
      7 min read

    • Article

      CHILLS & THRILLS

      Oct 1, 2021

      CHILLS & THRILLS
      3 min read

    • Article

      Antonio Damasio Tells Us Why Pain Is Necessary

      Jan 18, 2018

      Following Oliver Sacks, Antonio Damasio may be the neuroscientist whose popular books have done the most to inform readers about the biological machinery in our heads, how it generates thoughts and emotions, creates a self to cling to, and a sense of

      12 min read

    • Article

      Nothing Solid, Nothing Separate

      Feb 11, 2020

      Nothing Solid, Nothing Separate
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Symposium on Anxiety

      Sep 1, 2020

      A Symposium on Anxiety
      25 min read

    • Article

      The Playful Dance of Awakened Mind

      Mar 11, 2024

      The Playful Dance of Awakened Mind
      9 min read

    • Article

      Our Library

      Oct 29, 2018

      One of the oldest debates in the scientific literature is whether ‘time’ is something that can be ‘perceived’ at all. Most psychologists and neuroscientists have come around to thinking that it isn’t. Our five senses – taste, touch, smell, sight, and

      2 min read

    • Article

      Consciousness Is Perfectly Clear

      Mar 2, 2021

      Consciousness Is Perfectly Clear
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Body Replaced

      Sep 5, 2022

      The Body Replaced
      4 min read

    • Article

      Meditations on Buddhanature

      Sep 20, 2023

      Meditations on Buddhanature
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Charmed Life of Frank Wilczek

      Mar 17, 2021

      Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek’s new book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality, is both a way of thinking about the abundance that characterizes our exterior and interior worlds, and a kind of alternative to traditional religion, a way of being “born aga

      13 min read

    • Article

      The Spiritual Materialist

      Mar 30, 2023

      The Spiritual Materialist
      11 min read

    • Article

      Our Conscious Perception

      Nov 7, 2020

      Our Conscious Perception
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for On Sense and the Sensible

    3/5

    1 rating1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      A basic, straightforward, and short Aristotelian text. It is quite interesting what he divines about his subject matter.

    Book preview

    On Sense and the Sensible - Aristotle

    Aristotle

    Aristotle

    On Sense and the Sensible

    THE BIG NEST

    LONDON ∙ NEW YORK ∙ TORONTO ∙ SAO PAULO ∙ MOSCOW

    PARIS ∙ MADRID ∙ BERLIN ∙ ROME ∙ MEXICO CITY ∙ MUMBAI ∙ SEOUL ∙ DOHA

    TOKYO ∙ SYDNEY ∙ CAPE TOWN ∙ AUCKLAND ∙ BEIJING

    New Edition

    Published by The Big Nest

    www.thebignest.co.uk

    This Edition first published in 2016

    Copyright © 2016 The Big Nest

    Images and Illustrations © 2016 Stocklibrary.org

    All Rights Reserved.

    ISBN: 9781787240056

    Contents

    SECTION 1

    SECTION 2

    SECTION 1

    Part 1

    Having now definitely considered the soul, by itself, and its several faculties, we must next make a survey of animals and all living things, in order to ascertain what functions are peculiar, and what functions are common, to them. What has been already determined respecting the soul [sc. by itself] must be assumed throughout. The remaining parts [sc. the attributes of soul and body conjointly] of our subject must be now dealt with, and we may begin with those that come first.

    The most important attributes of animals, whether common to all or peculiar to some, are, manifestly, attributes of soul and body in conjunction, e.g. sensation, memory, passion, appetite and desire in general, and, in addition pleasure and pain. For these may, in fact, be said to belong to all animals. But there are, besides these, certain other attributes, of which some are common to all living things, while others are peculiar to certain species of animals. The most important of these may be summed up in four pairs, viz. waking and sleeping, youth and old age, inhalation and exhalation, life and death. We must endeavour to arrive at a scientific conception of these, determining their respective natures, and the causes of their occurrence.

    But it behoves the Physical Philosopher to obtain also a clear view of the first principles of health and disease, inasmuch as neither health nor disease can exist in lifeless things. Indeed we may say of most physical inquirers, and of those physicians who study their art philosophically, that while the former complete their works with a disquisition on medicine, the latter usually base their medical theories on principles derived from Physics.

    That all the attributes above enumerated belong to soul and body in conjunction, is obvious; for they all either imply sensation as a concomitant, or have it as their medium. Some are either affections or states of sensation, others, means of defending and safe-guarding it, while others, again, involve its destruction or negation. Now it is clear, alike by reasoning and observation, that sensation is generated in the soul through the medium of the body.

    We have already, in our treatise On the Soul, explained the nature of sensation and the act of perceiving by sense, and the reason why this affection belongs to animals. Sensation must, indeed, be attributed to all animals as such, for by its presence or absence we distinguish essentially between what is and what is not an animal.

    But coming now to the special senses severally, we may say that touch and taste necessarily appertain to all animals, touch, for the reason given in On the Soul, and taste, because of nutrition. It is by taste that one distinguishes in food the pleasant from the unpleasant, so as to flee from the latter and pursue the former: and savour in general is an affection of nutrient matter.

    The senses which operate through external media, viz. smelling, hearing, seeing, are found in all animals which possess the faculty of locomotion. To all that possess them they are a means of preservation; their final cause being that such creatures may, guided by antecedent perception, both pursue their food, and shun things that are bad or destructive. But in animals which have also intelligence they serve for the attainment of a higher

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1