Theophrastus on Odorous Exhalations and the Nature of Perception
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F25%3A10508793" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/25:10508793 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004739314_005" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004739314_005</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004739314_005" target="_blank" >10.1163/9789004739314_005</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Theophrastus on Odorous Exhalations and the Nature of Perception
Original language description
While Aristotle forcefully criticizes the view (associated with Empedocles) according to which perception is defined by material "effluences" coming from the objects and "fitting" within the perceiver's organs, Theophrastus repeatedly invokes material "exhalations" when discussing phenomena of smelling. This has been taken by scholars as a sign of Theophrastus' departure from Aristotle. The present paper argues that, rather than departing from Aristotle's theory of perception, Theophrastus takes it for granted and that he introduces odorous exhalations as an additional, subordinate explanatory factor to account for a wide set of phenomena within the Aristotelian framework. Against this background, the second part of the paper assesses the lamentably fragmentary evidence for Theophrastus' view on the nature of perception. It argues that there is no good evidence for associating Theophrastus with the "spiritualist" version of Aristotelianism which denies that perception essentially involves any material change. But it also argues that Theophrastus cannot be associated with any of the existing "materialist" interpretations either, on which perception essentially involves either a literal replication of the perceived quality in the sense organ or a replication of it in a transduced form. On either of these accounts, perception would become impossible, on Theophrastus' view, because the organ would cease to be able to be affected by the object. If the fragmentary evidence suggests any view on the nature of perception, then it is the view on which perception consists in the reception of the form of the perceived object alone, without it becoming the form of the perceiver herself (or her organ) - but on which this reception is the result of a perfectly material way of acting of the object, via the medium, on the sense organ.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/GA25-16298S" target="_blank" >GA25-16298S: Aristotle on the Nature of Human Thinking</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)
Others
Publication year
2025
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
Perspectives on Peripatetic Physics: From Theophrastus to Alexander
ISBN
978-90-04-73930-7
Number of pages of the result
30
Pages from-to
67-96
Number of pages of the book
445
Publisher name
Brill
Place of publication
Leiden
UT code for WoS chapter
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