Peter Lautner

The chapter divides into three sections. The first is about knowledge and deals with the cognitive activities of both the Intellect and the soul. It stresses the difference in their way of grasping the truth. The second is about thinking and discusses its two forms, intuitive and discursive. It also draws attention to the problem whether the intuitive thinking in the Intellect can have a propositional form. The third is about self-knowledge, the highest form of knowledge, which implies knowledge of the true self. It emphasizes that this kind of knowledge has no individual character whatsoever.

The chapter divides into five sections. The first deals with the notion of sense-perception as judgement and with the way it was formulated against theories insisting on the imprinting character of sense-perception. The second is about the individual senses with an emphasis on sight, conceived of as the paradigmatic sense. The third is about the notion of the unity of sense-perception. It stresses that it was developed within the context of the critique on theories maintaining the bodily character of the perceptual process. The fourth offers an overview about the representational capacity. The fifth is about the content of sense-perception, examining the role of inborn concepts in formulating perceptual content.

The paper examines three innovative issues in the Byzantine commentator which seem to reflect his own views on the common sense power. First, he perceives a gap in Aristotle’s explanation of the double nature of representational images. He points to the common sense power as the factor responsible for our ability to connect representational images to things represented by them. This kind of activity is called additional perception. Second, the identification of the common sense power with touch can be explained with reference to the thesis that animal life is a life of perception and touch is the principle of this life. It may lead to the conclusion that the basic pattern of all sense perception is to be equated with the general way that touch works. Third, Michael endorses the view that the regulative force of the common sense power extends to the ability to stop the individual senses working altogether, as it is clear from the explanation of sleep. In this process, the role of sense organs—both those of the individual senses and the first sense organ—is especially important, which—along with other observations—allows us to conclude that the Byzantine commentator is committed to hylomorphic explanations.

It has been strongly disputed that Philoponus is the author of the commentary on the third book ofDe Animaprinted in vol. xv ofCAGunder his name, and Stephanus of Alexandria has been taken to be its real author. The evidence for the authorship of Stephanus is as follows: (I)Codex Parisinus gr. 1914, written in the twelfth century, has an adscript by a later hand saying βιβλ⋯ον τρ⋯τον ⋯π⋯ ϕωνης στεϕ⋯νου (‘third book from the voice of Stephanus’), and the same appears in the fifteenth-centuryCodex Estensisiii F 8. (II) In 543.9 there is a clause saying ὡς ⋯ν τῷ περ⋯ ⋯ρμηνε⋯ας ⋯μ⋯θομεν (‘as we learnt in theDe Interpretatione’), which was taken by M. Hayduck to be direct reference to Stephanus' commentary on theDe Interpretatione, edited also by Hayduck in vol. xiii/3 ofCAG. (III) The third book, says Hayduck, is short (brevis) and jejune (jejunus), in contrast to the verbosity of the preceding two books. (IV) The commentary on the third book ofDe Animais divided into lectures (πρ⋯ξεις), but the first two books are not. (V) Some locutions are used constantly in the third book and in Stephanus' inDe Interpretationeas well. (VI) In theCodex Vaticanus gr. 241 fol. 6 (fourteenth century) we are told that Stephanus also wrote a commentary on theDe Anima.

Aristotle’s notion of experience occupies an important place in his account of scientific understanding and its methodology. It is linked, not only to sense-perception and the principles of skill and scientific understanding, but also, methodologically, to ἐπαγωγή. Due to its various involvements it has a complex job to perform. Such a complexity – or Janus-face – gives rise to many questions concerning its status and content. Many of these questions were raised in later antiquity. In the introductory part of the paper I shall give a very brief summary of Aristotle’s notion of experience, concentrating on issues that will be relevant next, and then discuss the explanation we find in a commentary which has come down to us under the name of Philoponus. I do it in the hope that the discussion sheds light on novelties in the commentator’s approach which deserve attention.

: By examining the passage on virtues in the Epinomis, possibly by Philip of Opus, I aim to show that the ethical theory expounded there differs both from the account of the Laws and from the notions we find in the fragmentary evidence concerning the Old Academy. Unlike the account in the Laws the unity of virtue is provided, not by justice, but by piety interpreted as a virtue involving mathematics, especially astronomy. The peculiar importance of mathematics in virtue is not attested in any of the other authors of the Old Academy.