Perceiving That We See and Hear in Aristotle’s De Anima III 2

This article tackles Aristotle's discussion of the activity of 'perceiving that we are seeing and hearing' in De Anima III 2 425b12-25.Its central claim is that the passage postulates a particular type of perception, where a certain content F is perceived in the absence of causal interactions between sense organs and actually perceptible F-objects.In Aristotle's view, the 'underlying' colors being seen must be included in the perception of one's own seeing, but such colors are merely phenomenal and thus deprived of the causal powers by which perceptible objects physically interact with sense organs.The paper also contends that it makes no difference to the aim of the passage whether αἴσθησις and ὄψις describe perceptual activities or capacities, and that Aristotle's much-discussed 'regress argument' can be explained without taking the expression 'perceiving that we see (or hear, etc.)' as an awkward description of the intrinsic 'phenomenal awareness' belonging to first-order perceiving.