OXFORD STUDIES IN ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY - PhilPapers · thattheorganisFinadiﬀerentwayfromthewaytheobjectisF.Indeed,Richard Sorabji,arguablyliteralism’smostwell ... Oxford Studies

Offprint from

OXFORD STUDIESIN ANCIENTPHILOSOPHY

EDITOR BRAD INWOOD

VOLUME XLIII

3

ARISTOTLE ON ODOUR AND SMELL

MARK A JOHNSTONE

T sense of smell occupies a peculiar intermediate positionwithin Aristotlersquos theory of perception In De anima smell is treatedas the third of the three distance senses like sight and hearing itinvolves perceiving an object at a distance through an externalmedium However in De sensu Aristotle treats odour the properobject of smell as intimately related to flavour the proper object oftaste Taste for Aristotle is a species of touch requiring contactbetween the body of the perceiver and the object perceived Smelltherefore combines features of both distance and contact senses itsmode of operation is like that of sight and hearing while its properobject is closely related to that of a form of touch Largely for thisreason Aristotlersquos discussion of the sense of smell has the potentialto tell us a great deal about his theory of sense-perception moregenerally First it provides invaluable information about his viewson perceptual mediation and the operation of the distance sensesNext it promises to help us understand his distinction betweendistance and contact senses and his views on the ontological statusof the proper objects of perception Finally it provides a crucialtest case for views on the role of ordinary material changes inperception an issue that has received much attention in the recentliterature on Aristotlersquos psychology

In this paper I examine Aristotlersquos claims about odour and smellespecially inDe anima andDe sensu to seewhat light they shedon his theory of perception more generally In the first half of thepaper my goals are predominantly negative In particular I arguethat neither of the two most highly influential recent ways of under-standing Aristotlersquos theory of perception as a whole can adequatelyaccount for what he says about the sense of smell These two viewscopy Mark A Johnstone

I would like to thank Hendrik Lorenz and Thomas Johansen for their helpful com-ments on earlier versions of this paper

This claim is most explicit at DA a Aristotle emphasizes the special intermediate position of smell between the con-

tact and distance senses at De sensu andash

Created on 16 July 2012 at 1109 hours page 143

Mark A Johnstone

are commonly known as lsquoliteralismrsquo and lsquospiritualismrsquo Roughlyliteralists maintain that in perception for Aristotle the perceiverrsquossense-organ takes on in a literal way the very same sensible qua-

The literalismspiritualism debate has been the focus of much recent litera-ture on Aristotlersquos psychology In addition to the works listed immediately below(nn and ) prominent discussions of Aristotle on perception in which this debateplays a central role include J Lear Aristotle The Desire to Understand [Desire toUnderstand] (Cambridge ) ndash M Nussbaum and H Putnam lsquoChangingAristotlersquos Mindrsquo in M Nussbaum and A O Rorty (eds) Essays on Aristotlersquos Deanima [Essays] (Oxford repr ) ndash S M Cohen lsquoHylomorphism andFunctionalismrsquo in Nussbaum and Rorty (eds) Essays ndash D Bradshaw lsquoAris-totle on Perception The Dual-Logos Theoryrsquo [lsquoDual-Logos Theoryrsquo] Apeiron () ndash J Sisko lsquoAlteration and Quasi-Alterationrsquo [lsquoQuasi-Alterationrsquo] Ox-ford Studies in Ancient Philosophy () ndash F D Miller Jr lsquoAristotlersquosPhilosophy of Perceptionrsquo Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Phi-losophy () ndash V Caston lsquoThe Spirit and the Letter Aristotle onPerceptionrsquo [lsquoSpirit and Letterrsquo] in R Salles (ed) Metaphysics Soul and Eth-ics in Ancient Thought Themes from the Work of Richard Sorabji (Oxford )ndash and H Lorenz lsquoThe Assimilation of Sense to Sense-Object in Aristotlersquo[lsquoAssimilationrsquo] Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy () ndash For fur-ther references see Caston lsquoSpirit and Letterrsquo nn and Several of theseauthors (notably Lear Bradshaw Caston and Lorenz) have advocated alternativesto both literalism and spiritualism as have eg D Modrak Aristotle The Power ofPerception [Power of Perception] (Chicago ) J K Ward lsquoPerception and Logosin De anima II rsquo [lsquoPerception and Logosrsquo] Ancient Philosophy () ndashA Silverman lsquoColour and Colour-Perception in Aristotlersquos De animarsquo [lsquoColourrsquo]Ancient Philosophy () ndash and R Polansky Aristotlersquos De anima (Cam-bridge ) The present article represents an attempt to advance the developmentof such a lsquothird wayrsquo view

Prominent advocates for literalism include R Sorabji lsquoBody and Soul in Aris-totlersquo [lsquoBody and Soulrsquo] Philosophy () ndash lsquoIntentionality and Physiolo-gical Processes Aristotlersquos Theory of Sense-Perceptionrsquo [lsquoTheoryrsquo] in Nussbaumand Rorty (eds) Essays ndash lsquoAristotle on Sensory Processes and Intentiona-lity A Reply to Myles Burnyeatrsquo [lsquoReplyrsquo] in D Perler (ed) Ancient and MedievalTheories of Intentionality [Intentionality] (Leiden Boston and Cologne ) ndash and (at book length) S Everson Aristotle on Perception (Oxford )

Stated somewhat more carefully literalism is the view that in perception the per-ceiverrsquos sense-organ becomes F in just the same sense of the term as that in whichthe object is F where F denotes some sensible quality A literalist could still claimthat the organ is F in a different way from the way the object is F Indeed RichardSorabji arguably literalismrsquos most well-known and influential proponent has expli-citly argued that in vision the eye jelly takes on colour in a different way from theway in which the object seen is coloured (to illustrate what he has in mind Sorabjicompares the coloration of the Aristotelian eye jelly (κόρη) with the coloration ofthe sea (Sorabji lsquoTheoryrsquo ndash)) By contrast Everson like others who maintainthe literalistrsquos account of perceptual assimilation (eg T Slakey lsquoAristotle on SensePerceptionrsquo Philosophical Review () ndash) holds that organ and objectare (eg) red not only in the same sense of the term but also straightforwardly inthe same way I am grateful to Caston lsquoSpirit and Letterrsquo for his clear discussionof this distinction between different literalist views and in general for his helpfulsurvey of the space of possible literalist and spiritualist positions


Aristotle on Odour and Smell

lity the sense-object possesses for example the eye jelly becomesred when one sees a red object By contrast spiritualists maintainthat for Aristotle nothing happens when a perceiver encounters asense-object under suitable conditions save that the perceiver be-comes perceptually aware of that objectmdashno ordinary lsquomaterialrsquochanges or processes are involved in perception as such I begin byarguing against spiritualism that Aristotle clearly commits himselfto the occurrence of ordinary material changes in both the sense-organ and the medium of smell changes that cannot plausibly bedismissed as merely accidental to perception proper Yet as I thennote this conclusion should provide little comfort to the literalistsince the changes in question are not the ones literalism would leadus to expect If literalism were correct we should expect the organof smell to become odorous bitter- or sweet-smelling for exampleHowever Aristotle makes it clear that on his view the organ andmedium of smell become dry when they are acted on by an odor-ous object a kind of change literalism neither predicts nor explainsBased on these considerations I conclude that neither spiritualismnor literalism provides a satisfactory account of Aristotlersquos theoryof smell

In the second half of the paper I offermy own positive account ofAristotlersquos theory of smell I begin by examining Aristotlersquos views

The most prominent recent advocate of spiritualism is Myles Burnyeat lsquoIs anAristotelian Philosophy of Mind Still Credible A Draftrsquo [lsquoCrediblersquo] in Nuss-baum and Rorty (eds) Essays ndash lsquoHow Much Happens When Aristotle SeesRed and Hears Middle C Remarks on De anima ndashrsquo [lsquoHow Much Happensrsquo]in Nussbaum and Rorty (eds) Essays ndash lsquoAquinas on ldquoSpiritual Changerdquo inPerceptionrsquo [lsquoAquinasrsquo] in Perler (ed) Intentionality ndash lsquoDe anima II rsquo [lsquoDAII rsquo] Phronesis () ndash Burnyeat traces his interpretation of Aristotleon perception back to such earlier figures as John Philoponus Thomas Aquinasand Franz Brentano Other notable recent proponents of spiritualist ideas includeS Broadie lsquoAristotlersquos Perceptual Realismrsquo [lsquoPerceptual Realismrsquo] in J Ellis (ed)Ancient Minds (Southern Journal of Philosophy suppl Memphis ) ndashT K Johansen Aristotle on the Sense Organs [Sense Organs] (Cambridge ) andD Murphy lsquoAristotle on Why Plants Cannot Perceiversquo Oxford Studies in AncientPhilosophy () ndash It should be noted that although Broadie Johansenand Murphy all argue in favour of spiritualist conclusions none of them endorsesspiritualism outright

This set of conditions will include the state of alertness and preparedness of theperceiver the absence of obstructions or obstacles the existence of certain favour-able environmental conditions (such as the presence of light for example in the caseof sight) and so on In what follows I sometimes speak of a perceiver lsquoencounteringan object under suitable conditionsrsquo as a convenient way of referring to this list

I provide a more precise account of spiritualism and some of its core commit-ments below


Mark A Johnstone

as expressed in De sensu ndash on the nature of odour and its rela-tionship to flavour According to Aristotle odour and flavour areintimately connected since both involve interaction between thelsquoflavoured dryrsquo (to enchumon xēron) and the moist This raises thequestion of what the difference between them is supposed to be onAristotlersquos account I agree with others who have considered thisissue especially Thomas Johansen in concluding that the tasteable(to geuston) is formed by a mixture of the flavoured dry with themoist whereas smell involves the flavoured dry acting on air or wa-ter in a different way However unlike Johansen I argue that thisshould not lead us to adopt a spiritualist account of perceptual me-diation for the sense of smell Aristotlersquos text not only allows forbut in fact strongly supports an alternative account On this ac-count the flavoured dry acts on the moist medium of smell in aperfectly ordinarymanner by drying it to some degree and in somedeterminate way This conclusion is important for understandingAristotlersquos views on perceptual mediation However we might stillwonder how exactly the drying of the organ and medium of smellis supposed to be related to the perception of odour as such In thefinal section of this paper I argue that Aristotlersquos discussion of thespecific case of odour and smell suggests a plausible and interestingway of understanding the relationship on his view between ordi-nary material changes in the sense-organs and the activation of thecapacity to perceive considered merely as such

I

In order to assess the prospects for a spiritualist interpretation ofAristotlersquos theory of smell it will be helpful to have a clear statementof spiritualism and its core commitments According to the spiritu-alist nothing happens when a perceiver encounters a sensible ob-ject under suitable conditions save that the perceiver becomes per-ceptually aware of that object However it is extremely difficult tosay exactly what kinds of change the spiritualist wishes to excludeThe first set of problems is terminological Scholars speak vari-ously of lsquophysicalrsquo lsquomaterialrsquo and lsquophysiologicalrsquo changes or pro-cesses yet all of these terms raise difficulties in this context Theterm lsquophysicalrsquo is problematic not only because of the risk of con-

Johansen Sense Organs ndash



fusion with contemporary debates about physicalism but also be-cause spiritualists do not deny that perception is a lsquophysicalrsquo processin a sense on their interpretation of Aristotle perception requiresand involves the body (since certain bodily lsquostanding conditionsrsquomust be in place if it is to occur) while the study of perceptionclearly falls within the purview of the study of nature (phusis) Theterm lsquophysiologicalrsquo is less ambiguous but has the disadvantage ofeffectively excluding changes in the medium of perceptionmdashwhichare verymuch at issue heremdashwhile tending to put the reader inmindexclusively of changes to muscles nerves and the like rather thansay interactions between the wet and the dry in sensible objectsmedium and sense-organ For these reasons in what follows Iprefer the term lsquomaterialrsquo (as in lsquomaterial changesrsquo)

Terminological issues aside the first challenge is to provide aprecise characterization of the kinds of change the spiritualist deniesare part of perception per se This is best done I believe by invok-ing a set of distinctions Aristotle draws in De anima betweendifferent kinds of alteration a discussion frequently emphasizedby spiritualists The most important distinction for present pur-

For a spiritualist account of the lsquophysicalrsquo side of perception emphasizingstanding conditions see eg Broadie lsquoPerceptual Realismrsquo Burnyeat attributesmuch confusion to the word lsquophysicalrsquo as in the claim sometimes attributed tospiritualists that for Aristotle perceiving is not a physical process (lsquoI suspect that theroot of the trouble is the word ldquophysicalrdquorsquo (Burnyeat lsquoAquinasrsquo )) He prefers(as I do here) using the word lsquomaterialrsquo to denote the kind of change spiritualistsdeny is part of perception per se On this issue see especially Burnyeat lsquoAquinasrsquo lsquoa [spiritual change] is a physical change but not a material changersquo

As F Solmsen lsquoGreek Philosophy and the Discovery of the Nervesrsquo MuseumHelveticum () ndash and others have observed Aristotle wrote surpris-ingly little about nerves and related physiological structures However Aristotlersquosapparent lack of interest in the operation of the nervous system should not leadus to conclude too hastily that he took no interest in the role of lsquomaterialrsquo changesin perception at all (pace eg Burnyeat lsquoHow Much Happensrsquo ndash who citesSolmsenrsquos work on ancient Greek philosophers on the nerves in support of an lsquoargu-ment from silencersquo for spiritualism) since ordinary material changes may also occurat the level of Aristotlersquos chemistry involving interactions among the hot cold wetand dry

Although it is important to be clear that it is the Aristotelian contrast betweenmatter and form that is at issue here not the more familiar modern contrast betweenlsquomaterialrsquo and lsquomentalrsquo events or processes

I take Myles Burnyeat as my main guide to the spiritualist position here es-pecially in his article on De anima Cf Hendrik Lorenzrsquos careful dis-cussion of Aristotlersquos distinctions between different kinds of alteration in DA (lsquoAssimilationrsquo ndash) Although not himself a spiritualist Lorenz largely supportsBurnyeatrsquos conclusions about the different kinds of alteration Aristotle distinguishesin this chapter


Mark A Johnstone

poses is between lsquodestructiversquo and lsquonon-destructiversquo alterations Ina destructive alteration one quality replaces another in a persist-ing subject within a range delimited by a pair of opposites whereasin a non-destructive alteration there is no such replacement of onequality by another A straightforward example of a destructive al-teration is the case of a cold thing becoming hot This change can becalled lsquodestructiversquo because it involves the replacement of one qua-lity by another the heated thing is no longer cold at the terminus ofthe change Aristotle distinguishes such straightforward destructivealterations both from the kind of change that occurs when a personwith the capacity to learn acquires new knowledge and from thekind of change that occurs when someone who already possessesknowledge employs it in the activity of contemplation Both of thesekinds of change differ from straightforward destructive alterationssince both involve amovement towards the full realization of the in-dividualrsquos nature not towards a state of privation Neverthelessas Aristotle makes clear on his view learning is a different kind ofchange from employing knowledge one already possesses In parti-cular learning is still a destructive alteration since it involves thereplacement of ignorance by knowledge By contrast the kind ofchange involved in employing knowledge one already possesses isgenuinely non-destructive since it involves no replacement of onequality by another Rather it involves only the activation of a capa-

Aristotle speaks of a φθορά τις a lsquokind of destructionrsquo of a quality by its opposite(DA b)

At DA bndash Aristotle distinguishes between two kinds of alterationchange into conditions of privation and change towards a thingrsquos enduring state(ἕξις) and nature (φύσις) He claims that learning is an alteration of the latter kindpresumably since in acquiring new knowledge the learner progresses towards thecompletion of his or her nature However it is important to be clear that this is adifferent distinction from that between learning and contemplating and that forAristotle activating onersquos capacity to perceive is analogous to contemplating notto learning Aristotle emphasizes the distinction between acquiring new know-ledge and exercising knowledge already acquired at DA andash He explicitlyclaims that perceiving is analogous to contemplating but not to learning at De sensubndash

Thus to be clear Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of alteration in DA (i) straightforward destructive alterations (ii) extraordinary destructive alterationsinvolving a movement towards the fulfilment of onersquos nature (eg learning) and(iii) extraordinary non-destructive alterations (eg contemplating) His claim is thatthe activation of onersquos capacity to perceive considered merely as such is a non-destructive alteration (type iii) not merely that it is not a straightforward destructivealteration (which would exclude only type i) Thus Aristotle is not thinking of justany exercise of a capacity when he seeks to isolate the kind of alteration involved inactivating onersquos capacity to perceive since the acquisition of new knowledge is also



city one already possesses As a result this change is an alteration(alloiōsis) only in a highly qualified sense if it can rightly be calledan alteration at all

In DA Aristotle clearly commits himself to denying that thechange that occurs when onersquos capacity to perceive is activated isa straightforward destructive alteration Indeed it appears that onhis view this change considered in its own right is not a destructivealteration at all Rather for Aristotle the change that occurs whenonersquos capacity to perceive is activated is a non-destructive altera-tion comparable to the change involved in employing knowledgeone already possesses in the activity of contemplation The spiri-tualist insists on this point and claims that this lsquoextraordinaryrsquo non-destructive alteration is identical to becoming perceptually aware

an exercise of a capacity namely the capacity to learn This point is often missedfor example by those who take Aristotle to have in mind any change involving theactivation of a capacity (eg Everson Aristotle on Perception cf Sisko lsquoQuasi-Alterationrsquo ndash) and also by those who take him to be interested in any changethat preserves onersquos nature as the acquisition of new knowledge would (eg CastonlsquoSpirit and Letterrsquo ndash) I am indebted to Lorenz lsquoAssimilationrsquo for his cleardiscussion of these distinctions

That is to say without regard to any ordinary changes thatmay also be involvedAristotlersquos comparison with the activation of the capacity to build (DA b) is il-lustrative here He claims that in activating his or her capacity to build consideredmerely as such a builder is not altered in any way This initially startling claim be-comes perfectly intelligible if we suppose that there is a way of viewing the activationof a capacity one already possesses merely as such in a way that disregards any cor-responding bodily motions or other ordinary changes So understood the view isperfectly compatible with the claim that in any actual case a builder must for ex-ample move around or hammer things in order to create a structure out of his orher materials Aristotlersquos distinction between exercising a capacity one already pos-sesses considered merely as such and the ordinary changes that accompany doingso will be important for understanding his views on the relationship between thematerial and formal aspects of perception which I consider in the final section ofthis paper

Throughout DA Aristotle is hesitant to call the change involved in acti-vating onersquos capacity to perceive an lsquoalterationrsquo without significant qualification Heis clearly grappling here with the challenge of accommodating the kind of changeinvolved in activating onersquos capacity to perceive (or for that matter to contemplate)within his general framework for classifying kinds of change as presented in GC (he refers his reader to this discussion at DA andash) If perceiving is to fit into thisframework at all it must be as a form of alteration but if it is a form of alteration atall it must be alteration of a non-standard kind

Aristotle compares activating onersquos capacity to perceive with actively employ-ing knowledge one already possesses throughoutDA (eg at andash bndashbndash) As he stresses however the parallel between the two cases is imperfectsince under normal circumstances I can employ my knowledge whenever I wishwhile perception requires the actual presence of an external object (DA bndash)


Mark A Johnstone

of the sense-object Furthermore for the spiritualistmdashand this is astronger claimmdashthere is no accompanying ordinary or destructivealteration involved in perception Rather according to the spiri-tualist the extraordinary alteration that constitutes the rise to per-ceptual awareness is all that happens in perception considered assuch As noted this is not to deny that certain quite specific mater-ial lsquostanding conditionsrsquo need to be in place in order for perceptionto occur However on the spiritualist interpretation of Aristotlersquosview no ordinary destructive alterations are part of perception perse I take it that this claim represents a fundamental commitment ofspiritualism As such it provides a clear criterion against which thespiritualist interpretation might be tested and potentially refuted

II

The first question then is this according to Aristotle do any ordi-nary destructive changes occur in the sense-organ when a perceiverencounters an odour under suitable conditions My case that theydo begins with a little-remarked passage from the end ofDe anima

ἔστι δ ᾿ ἡ ὀσμὴ τοῦ ξηροῦ (ὥσπερ ὁ χυμὸς τοῦ ὑγροῦ) τὸ δὲ ὀσφραντικὸν αἰσθη-τήριον δυνάμει τοιοῦτον (andash)

This is a stronger claim because it is perfectly possible to agree with Burnyeatabout the lsquoextraordinarinessrsquo of the kind of change involved in exercising the capa-city to perceive considered in its own right while still maintaining that there arein addition to this extraordinary change ordinary material changes in the sense-organs changes which represent the material aspect of perceiving Burnyeat himselfacknowledges this possibility when he remarks towards the end of his paper on DA that his interpretation leaves lsquological spacersquo for underlying material changesbut denies that Aristotle provides any lsquotextual spacersquo for such changes (BurnyeatlsquoDA II rsquo ndash) On the contrary I claim there is ample lsquotextual spacersquo in Aris-totlersquos discussion for ordinary material changes in the sense-organs indeed in histreatment of the sense of smell he clearly commits himself to their occurrence

It is briefly remarked on by Lorenz lsquoAssimilationrsquo n who recognizesthe difficulties it raises for spiritualism

Here and in what follows I use Rossrsquos OCT edition of the Greek text withoccasional reference to his edition with paraphrase and commentary I will alsobe using Rossrsquos edition of the text of the Parva Naturalia with his accompa-nying commentary Translations from De anima are based on Hamlynrsquos Clar-endon edition although sometimes (as here) slightly modified Translations fromother Aristotelian works are based on the Revised Oxford Translation sometimesslightly modified



Odour is of the dry just as flavour is of the moist and the organ of smell ispotentially of this kind

In this passage Aristotle claims that the organ of smell is poten-tially dry If an organ is potentially dry it must actually be theopposite of dry namely moist at least to some degree Thus thefirst thing to note about this passage is that in it Aristotle reveals animportant fact about the organ of smell namely that it is actuallymoist at least to some degree Furthermore Aristotle traces the po-tential dryness of the organ back to the basic nature of odour whichis lsquoofrsquo the dry (I say more about the connection between odour anddryness below) Since for Aristotle the capacity to smell just is thecapacity to be acted on by odour in a certain way (DA bndash)this gives excellent reason to think that the moistness of the sense-organ is hardly accidental to it it must be potentially dry and henceactually moist if it is to function as an organ of smell

The next thing to note about this passage is that in it for thefirst time in De anima a lsquosense-organrsquo (aisthētērion) as opposedto a lsquosensersquo or lsquosense-facultyrsquo (aisthēsis aisthētikon) is said to belsquopotentiallyrsquo (dunamei) of such-and-such a kind Presumablythe point of saying that the organ of smell is potentially dry isthat it becomes actually dry when one encounters an odour undersuitable conditions It is difficult to see what else Aristotle couldmean by claiming that the organ is potentially of such-and-such akind This is it seems an alteration the sense-organ undergoesFurthermore it appears to be a paradigmatic case of an ordinarydestructive alteration something moist the potentially dry sense-organ becomes actually dry or is at least dried to some extent it isno longer moist to the same degree at the terminus of the changeYet as noted the spiritualist can admit no ordinary destructivechange when a perceiver encounters a sense-object under suitable

I take it to be uncontroversial that when Aristotle claims here that the organ ofsmell is potentially lsquoof this kindrsquo (τοιοῦτον) he means that it is potentially dry

See in this context GC Up to this point in De anima Aristotle has spoken only of the sense-faculty

(τὸ αἰσθητικόν) as potentially of such-and-such a kind (notably at andash) Later inDe anima however he does refer to the organ of taste as capable of being moistened(bndash) and to the organ of touch as being potentially such as the tangible qualitiesalready actually are and as becoming like them when they act on it (bndasha)

Cf DA andashb where in a more or less parallel passage the organ oftaste is first said to be potentially wet and then explicitly said to become actually wetwhen it is acted on by something that is tasteable


Mark A Johnstone

conditions but merely the extraordinary non-destructive alter-ation that is becoming perceptually aware of the sense-object inquestion Aristotlersquos description of the organ of smell as poten-tially dry therefore presents a direct and serious challenge for anyinterpreter who wishes to read Aristotlersquos account of the sense ofsmell along spiritualist lines

The spiritualist interpreter of Aristotle has two main options forresponding to this passage First she might insist that despite ap-pearances to the contrary the change in question really is an ex-traordinary alteration and is therefore of a kind the spiritualist canreadily admit In order to make this plausible she could claim thatwhen Aristotle speaks of the lsquoorganrsquo in this passage he is referringto the whole hylomorphic compound not merely to its materialaspect On this interpretation when Aristotle says that the sense-organ is of such-and-such a kind what he really means is that thesense the power of perception that resides in the organ is of such-and-such a kind But this will not do here Admittedly Aristotledoes occasionally use the term aisthētērion in a broad sense that in-cludes the capacity for perception together with its material basis

However if this were the case here we would expect Aristotle tosay that the organ is potentially like the special sensible in questionin this case that it is say potentially lsquobitter-smellingrsquo or lsquosweet-smellingrsquo After all according to Aristotle these are the kinds ofquality picked up on by the sense of smell However in the pas-sage in question the organ is said to be not potentially odorous butpotentially dry Moisture and dryness are not qualities differenti-

This seems to be Johansenrsquos approach in Aristotle on the Sense Organs At leastthis would be one way to interpret his occasional slide between talking about the lsquoor-ganrsquo and the lsquofacultyrsquo of smell For example he writes lsquothe difference between odouras belonging to the dry and flavour as belonging to the wet is supposed to give usdifferent definitions of the sense-faculties (and organs) of smell and taste The sense-faculty of smell has the potentiality to become dry but the sense-faculty of taste hasthe potentiality to become wetrsquo after which he continues in the same paragraphlsquothe organ of smell is made dry by the action of odour The organ of smell should bepotentially dry but not actually so for only then can it be made dry by the actionof odourrsquo (ndash emphasis added) It is also possible that in treating references tothe faculty and the organ as effectively interchangeable as he does here Johansensimply failed to appreciate the problem Aristotlersquos claim about the drying of the or-gan of smell raises for the spiritualist

This seems clear for example at DA bndash On the distinction between thesense-organ conceived as a spatially extended material structure and the power toperceive that resides in it see DA andash

Odours are named after corresponding flavours see DA a ff



ated by the sense of smell as Aristotle describes it In order tomain-tain that Aristotle is referring to an extraordinary non-destructivealteration heremdasha rise to cognitive awareness of a sense-objectmdashthespiritualist would therefore have to claim that awareness of odouris always at the same time awareness of dryness But besides beingunsupported by the text there is simply no good reason to supposethis is the caseWhile odoursmay have a special relationship to dry-ness for Aristotle dryness is not itself among the differentiae of theproper object of smell

The second option for the spiritualist is to concede that on Aris-totlersquos view an ordinary destructive alteration occurs in the sense-organ whenever a perceiver encounters an odour under suitableconditions but then insist that this alteration represents a lsquomereconcomitantrsquo something accidental to perception as such In a paper on Aquinas on perception Myles Burnyeat suggests this lineof response in interpreting Aristotle Although he does not ad-opt this approach to the sense of smell in his paper he does so forAristotlersquos views on the sense of taste Burnyeat concedes that forAristotle a personrsquos tongue is always moistened when perceiving aflavour such changes are as he puts it lsquoinevitablersquo However heargues such changes can be dismissed as accidental to perceiving assuch Hemotivates this claim by employing an analogy with sightlsquojust as colours can only be perceived in light so flavours can onlybe perceived in liquidmdashand liquid is bound to moisten things it isin contact with But that moistening is accidental to the perceivingrsquosince lsquowetness is not a flavour but an object of touchrsquo Similarly aspiritualist might claim that odours must be perceived lsquoinrsquo the dryeven though drying is lsquoaccidental to the perceivingrsquo of odour Onthis view to borrow Burnyeatrsquos terms the drying of the organ of

Burnyeat lsquoAquinasrsquo Although his official topic in this paper is Aquinas muchof it is explicitly on Aristotle while Burnyeat makes it perfectly clear that he con-siders Aquinas to be an intelligent and accurate interpreter of Aristotlersquos theory ofsense-perception (eg lsquoin my narrative Aquinas has read Aristotle as a commentatorshould with insight and integrityrsquo ()) In general one of Burnyeatrsquos main goalsin this paper seems to be to enlist Aquinas as an ally in defending his spiritualistinterpretation of Aristotle

Burnyeat lsquoAquinasrsquo Burnyeat acknowledges lsquonatural changesrsquo at all onlyin connection with the contact senses of taste and touch His official view of Aquinas(and he implies of Aristotle) in this paper is that no lsquonatural changesrsquo occur in thesense-organs when one perceives by sight hearing or smell

Ibid Ibid Ibid (emphasis original)


Mark A Johnstone

smell is lsquoirrelevantrsquo to perceiving it has lsquonothing to do withrsquo theperception of odour per se

However this response on the part of the spiritualist will not doeither For on what basis could the drying of the organ of smellbe dismissed as lsquomerely accidental torsquo and as having lsquonothing todo withrsquo the perception of odour In the case of taste Burnyeatrsquosposition was that for Aristotle the presence of moisture represents anecessary background condition for gustatory awareness much asthe presence of light represents a necessary background conditionfor the perception of colour Yet even if this were true of the roleof moisture in the case of taste (something I doubt for reasons thatwill become clearer below) it does not provide a plausible accountof the role of dryness in the case of smell To begin with it is dif-ficult to make sense of the claim that odour can only be perceivedlsquoinrsquo the dry much as colour can only be perceived lsquoinrsquo the light dry-ness does not appear to play the same role for Aristotle in the case ofsmell that light plays in the case of sight Moreover as noted Aris-totle makes it clear that dryness is connected in some fundamentalway to the nature of odour itself We have seen one such passagealready (lsquoodour is ldquoofrdquo the dryrsquo) and I consider more below If thisis right it becomes implausible to claim that the drying of the or-gan of smell has lsquonothing to do withrsquo the perception of odour Andwhat would be the motivation for insisting on the point It is not amatter of being charitable to Aristotle in fact the spiritualist inter-pretation is consciously uncharitable to Aristotle In short once it

Ibid Burnyeat also uses another analogy to clarify his idea of merely concomitant

material changes In considering Aquinasrsquo claim that lsquonatural changesrsquo necessarilyaccompany lsquospiritual changesrsquo in episodes of taste and touch he writes lsquoAquinasis doing no more than acknowledge commonsensically that a hot thing felt willproduce other effects on the perceiver effects which have nothing to do with theperceiving Likewise ice cream cools the tongue regardless of whether its taste isstrawberry or peppermint Aristotle would not wish to disagreersquo (lsquoAquinasrsquo )Drawing on this analogy we might suppose that the drying of the organ of smellassociated with smelling is like the cooling of the tongue associated with tasting icecream However this analogy also seems unpromising One problem is that one doesnot perceive dryness at all when perceiving an odour in the way that one perceivescoldness when tasting ice cream A deeper problem is that coldness has no specialconnection to flavour in the way that dryness apparently does to odour for AristotleFlavour is not lsquoofrsquo the cold and one frequently perceives it without any cooling ofthe tongue This proposed style of analysis therefore fails to take account of let aloneexplain the close connection on Aristotlersquos view between odour and dryness (I saymore about the connection between odour and dryness below)

For example Burnyeat has famously claimed that if his interpretation of Aris-



is conceded that ordinary material changes inevitably accompanyperception by smell and that the specific kind of change involvedreflects Aristotlersquos stated views on the nature of odour the claimthat these changes have lsquonothing to do withrsquo perception loses allplausibility

III

To this point I have focused on what happens to the organ of smellwhen a perceiver encounters an odour under suitable conditions Inow turn to consider Aristotlersquos views on changes in the medium ofperception For Aristotle smell like sight and hearing is a medi-ated distance sense odours like colours and sounds are perceivedat a distance through a medium (DA b) On his view odoursare perceived not only through air but also through water for wa-ter animals are able to perceive food at a distance and move towardsit by following its odour (bndash) However Aristotle claimsodours are not perceived through air and water qua air and waterRather just as in the case of colours odours are perceived throughdifferent media because these media share some feature in com-mon In the case of colours the feature in question was transpar-ency air and water are both transparent (diaphanēs) and all coloursare perceived through a transparent medium (a ff) By analogyAristotle explains odours are perceived through air and water notbecause these media are transparent but in so far as they share anameless common feature (andash) In De anima Aristotle saysnothing specific about this common feature However in De sensuwe learn that odour can be perceived through air and water becauseboth are capable of lsquowashingrsquo or lsquorinsingrsquo the lsquoflavoured drynessrsquo (Desensu bndasha) Furthermore the reason why air and water

totlersquos theory of perception is correct we should conclude that Aristotlersquos whole phi-losophy of mind is no longer credible and should be lsquojunkedrsquo or at least relegated tothe status of mere historical curiosity (Burnyeat lsquoCrediblersquo )

This raises the question of why humans (and other animals that breathe) can-not smell under water Aristotle answers this question by noting that humans cannotinhale under water (DA andash De sensu b) then positing the existence of alsquolidrsquo or lsquoflaprsquo inside the nose analogous to the eyelid which is pushed aside whenone inhales thereby exposing the organ of smell The olfactory organs of fish likethe eyes of hard-eyed animals lack such a lid or flap this explains why they are ableto smell without inhaling (DA bndasha De sensu bndash)

ἔστι δ ᾿ ὀσφραντὸν οὐχ ᾗ διαφανές ἀλλ ᾿ ᾗ πλυτικὸν καὶ ῥυπτικὸν ἐγχύμου ξηρότητος


Mark A Johnstone

have this power to lsquowashrsquo or lsquorinsersquo (plutikon kai ruptikon aplusis a) the flavoured dryness Aristotle explains is that bothare moist (andash) All odours according to Aristotle are per-ceived through a moist medium

The involvement of moisture here should not be surprisinggiven the conclusions reached in the previous section One strik-ing feature of Aristotlersquos theory of perception is that for each ofthe three distance senses the feature that allows the sense-organto function as an organ of perception also allows the perceptualmedium to function as such For example in the case of sight boththe medium and the organ must be transparent while in the case ofhearing both medium and organ must involve air (or presumablywater) that is capable of being moved as a mass I take it thatthis point would be accepted by all major parties to the debate Itnow appears that the same holds true of smell both the organ andthe medium of smell must be moist if odour is to be perceived

εἰ οὖν τις θείη καὶ τὸν ἀέρα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ ἄμφω ὑγρά εἴη ἂν ἡ ἐν ὑγρῷ τοῦ ἐγχύμουξηροῦ φύσις ὀσμή καὶ ὀσφραντὸν τὸ τοιοῦτον Although the claim that air and waterare both moist is expressed here as the antecedent of a conditional Aristotle clearlymeans to accept it as is confirmed by his subsequent remarks at De sensu bndashThe view that both air and water are moist fits with Aristotlersquos general theory of theelements according to which air is by nature hot and moist while water is by naturecold and moist Aristotle notes that air is by nature moist and attributes its abilityto serve as a medium of smell to its moistness at De sensu bndash

AlthoughAristotle focuses almost exclusively on hearing through air inDA he does claim that we hear through water too albeit less well (DA b)

On Aristotlersquos account the air that serves as a medium for the perception ofsound must be struck a sudden blow as the result of the impact of two solid objectsin such a way that it does not have the opportunity to disperse (DA bndash)

It is certainly accepted by Burnyeat who writes lsquoprecisely as in the case ofperceiving colour the mediate effect [of sound] on the organ is the same as the im-mediate effect on the mediumrsquo (lsquoHow Much Happensrsquo ) It is also apparentlyaccepted by Everson a prominent literalist who remarks that lsquothe water of the korē[eye jelly] will be affected just as any transparent object isrsquo (Aristotle on Perception) It is perhaps worth observing here that Aristotlersquos requirement that there besymmetry of effects in medium and sense-organ raises serious problems for literal-ism The literalist is committed to holding that in the case of vision (for example)the sense-organ becomes coloured in a way that a third party could observe If shealso accepts the symmetry of effects in organ and medium she seems to be com-mitted to saddling Aristotle with the implausible view that the intervening mediumalso becomes coloured in a way a third party could observe To put the point anotherway if the medium of sight does not literally become colouredmdashas it manifestly doesnotmdashthen the symmetry of effects in organ and medium gives us good reason todoubt whether the organ of sight literally becomes coloured on Aristotlersquos view asany literalist must maintain

This idea that the medium and organ of smell must have the same key feature



What remains to be determined is precisely why the medium ofsmell must be moist if an odour is to be perceived through it Theorgan of smell I have argued is moist because it must be capableof becoming dry at least to some extent Is the same true of themedium Is the moist medium dried and therefore changed in anordinary way when it is acted on by an odorous object

In order to answer this question it will be useful to begin byconsidering by way of comparison and contrast the standard spiri-tualist account of perceptual mediation This account has receivedits most powerful and sustained exposition in Myles Burnyeatrsquos in-fluential discussion of Aristotlersquos views on the senses of sight andhearing In this article Burnyeat asks how much happens accord-ing to Aristotle when a perceiver sees a colour or hears a musicaltone His answer is that according to Aristotle no ordinary altera-tion occurs in the medium of perception in such cases at most themedium undergoes what he calls a lsquoquasi-alterationrsquo In the case ofsight this means that nothing happens to the transparent mediumwhen someone perceives a colour save that the colour appears tothe perceiver through it In order to illustrate what he has in mindBurnyeat asks the reader to imagine looking at a red object througha glass full of water Colour is lsquoinrsquo the medium he argues in just thesame way that redness is lsquoinrsquo the water not in the way it would bein the water if say red dye were added to it but only in the highlyqualified sense that the red object appears to the perceiver throughthe water Nothing happens to the medium when this occurs savethat the sense-object appears to the perceiver through it

Could a spiritualist account of perceptual mediation along thesegeneral lines accommodate Aristotlersquos views on the sense of smellUnfortunately Burnyeat does not consider this question aboutsmell the third of the three mediated distance senses in his article or indeed in any of his published writings However thechallenge of applying a spiritualist account of perceptual mediationto the sense of smell has been taken up by Thomas Johansen inhis book Aristotle on the Sense Organs Essentially Johansenaccepts Burnyeatrsquos account of perceptual mediation for the sense

is supported by Aristotlersquos remarks at GA andash where he claims that the organ ofsmell involves passages (πόροι) connecting with the external air and themselves fullof πνεῦμα (this πνεῦμα will be moist just like the external air)

Burnyeat lsquoHow Much Happensrsquo Ibid Ibid


Mark A Johnstone

of sight albeit with minor modifications then seeks to extendthis account to cover the sense of smell On the resulting viewthe medium of smell undergoes no ordinary change Odour is inthe medium only in the highly qualified sense that it appears toa perceiver through the medium nothing happens to the mediumof smell when a perceiver encounters an odour under suitableconditions save that the odour appears to the perceiver through it

However the spiritualist account of perceptual mediation facesserious problems accounting for what Aristotle actually says aboutthe specific case of smell To begin with the analogy between sightand smell upon which Johansen relies is somewhat stretched Tosee this we might observe for example that in the case of smellthere is no equivalent to light (phaos) and the role it plays in the caseof sight Light Aristotle tells us in De anima is lsquothe actuality ofthe transparent qua transparentrsquo (bndash cf a) Howeverin the case of smell there is no additional factor that must be in placeif perception is to occur no activation of the salient feature of theperceptual medium and hence no need for any equivalent to a lightsource In view of such differences the spiritualist is not entitledsimply to carry over his analysis of perceptual mediation in the caseof sight and to apply it to smell without finding some textual basisfor this interpretation in the discussion of smell itself and providingat least some explanation of how the analogy between the two casesis supposed to hold

The spiritualist account of perceptual mediation also faces a ge-neral difficulty one that becomes especially acute in the specific

One apparent difference between the views of Johansen and Burnyeat is thaton Johansenrsquos interpretation a sense-object cannot act on a medium in any way inthe absence of an actual perceiver Thus Johansen writes that lsquothe transparent ischanged only when the colour appears all the way through it and here appearingimplies appearing to a perceiver It is only insofar as the colour appears to a per-ceiver that it appears through the medium at all So the transparent could not bechanged by the colour unless there was a perceiver at the other end of it to whomthe colour appeared through the transparentrsquo (Sense Organs ) This maintainsthe consistency of spiritualism but only by saddling Aristotle with the view that atolling bell or slice of ripe cheese has no effect on the surrounding air in the absenceof an actual perceiver Needless to say on this view the medium can only ever be saidto be lsquochangedrsquo (or lsquomovedrsquo κινεῖται) in an extremely attenuated sense Burnyeat bycontrast endorses the model of a wave for understanding Aristotlersquos views on the ef-fects of sounds on the medium implying that the medium undergoes changes evenin the absence of an actual perceiver (lsquoHowMuchHappensrsquo ndash) On this pointsee also n below

Johansen Sense Organs ndash φῶς δέ ἐστιν ἡ τούτου ἐνέργεια τοῦ διαφανοῦς ᾗ διαφανές



case of smell On the standard spiritualist view a sense-object hasno effect on the perceptual medium besides appearing to the per-ceiver through themediumWhen applied to the sense of smell thisimplies that an odorous object (say a piece of ripe brie) has no ordi-nary effect on the air that surrounds it at least not qua odorous andno effect whatsoever in the absence of an actual perceiver Howeverthis view is plainly contradicted by evident empirical facts of a kindof which Aristotle was surely aware Indeed in DA Aristotleseems to accept that an odorous object (qua odorous) is capable ofaffecting the air that surrounds it in such a way that the air itselfcan be smelt and thus that it has some ordinary effect on it evenin the absence of an actual perceiver Further evidence against thespiritualist interpretation on the point can be adduced from Aris-totlersquos view that odours like sounds affect the intervening mediumprogressively beginning with the portion of the medium closest tothe object and arriving at the air adjacent to the organ of the per-ceiver only after a delay It is simply not plausible I maintain to

At DA bndash This passage takes the form of a list of unansweredquestions making it difficult to discern exactly what Aristotle commits himself toyet these questions depend on the assumption that air can be affected in such a wayas to become odorous Sarah Broadie who interprets Aristotlersquos theory of percep-tion along spiritualist lines considers this passage in some detail (lsquoPerceptual Real-ismrsquo ndash) Broadie acknowledges that Aristotle accepts here that air can becomeodorous as a result of being acted on by odour Nevertheless she argues that thispassage is consistent with spiritualism since the only thing Aristotle says is that theair becomes perceptible in a certain way and air might become perceptible (she ar-gues) without acquiring any powers other than the power to be perceived and hencewithout undergoing any ordinary change () However presumably the power tobe perceived is based on some feature the affected air now possesses which distin-guishes it from air not so affected Broadiersquos view requires that for Aristotle twoportions of air can differ in no way save that one can be perceived and the othercannot On this interpretation consistency with spiritualism is preserved only at ahigh cost we must conclude that for Aristotle perceptibility floats free as it werefundamentally disconnected from other features of the world Besides being strangeand unappealing in its own right there are good reasons to think that Aristotle didnot hold this view For one thing he apparently regarded sensible qualities such asodorousness as systematically correlated withmdashand presumably in some way depen-dent uponmdashother features of perceptible objects such as the proportions of moistureand dryness they contain For example at De sensu andash Aristotle explainsthe relative odorousness of various kinds of metal and wood in terms of the amountof moisture contained in each I revisit this point about a correlation between odor-ousness and moisture or dryness in the concluding section of this paper

In De sensu Aristotle wonders whether the objects of sense-perception or atleast the movements proceeding from them always arrive first at a middle point lsquoasodour and sound seem to dorsquo (a) He observes that lsquohe who is nearer perceivesthe odour sooner and the sound of a stroke reaches us some time after it has beenstruckrsquo (andash) He concludes that this is true of odours and sounds but not of


Mark A Johnstone

think that such a temporally extended process should fail even toget underway in the absence of an actual perceiver or that noth-ing happens to the medium as it progresses as the spiritualist mustmaintain

Finally the spiritualist account of perceptual mediation fails toexplain why the medium of smell must be moist according to Aris-totle To be sure the spiritualist can trace the shared ability of bothair and water to act as media for the perception of odour to theirpossession of a common power the power to wash and rinse fla-voured dryness One might even give the shared feature a nameas Johansen does when he coins the term lsquotransodorancersquo (in dir-ect parallel with Aristotlersquos own use of the term lsquotransparencyrsquo inthe case of sight) Nevertheless in the absence of any indepen-dent grasp of what lsquotransodorancersquo is the term serves as a mereplaceholder for whatever feature allows both air and water to be

colours which affect the whole of the intervening medium simultaneously thus lsquotheparts of media between a sensory organ and its object are not affected all at onceexcept in the case of lightrsquo (andash)

Burnyeat (lsquoHow Much Happensrsquo ) anticipates this objection in the case ofsounds He attempts to respond to it by denying that sounds for Aristotle involveair travelling from the point of impact to the ear of the perceiver in the mannerof a wind Rather he claims they affect each stationary part of the intervening airsequentially like the water in a pond gradually freezing over or like the motion ofa wave This is surely right as far as it goesmdashAristotle clearly wished to reject theview that sounds (or odours) involve air travelling from the sense-object to the organof the perceiver However it does not follow from the fact that air does not travellike a wind that it does not move at all as Burnyeat concludes (ibid ) since itcould vibrate in place Vibration and freezing are not lsquoquasi-alterationsrsquo of the kindthe spiritualist can admit any more than drying is Burnyeat uses the model of awave to argue against the view that the perceptual medium undergoes any ordinaryalteration when it is acted on by a sound Specifically he argues that there is no lo-comotion in the case of a wave on the basis that locomotion for Aristotle requiresa change of place and everything is back where it began after a wave has passedthrough (lsquoAristotelian physics does not recognize the movement of a wave or vibra-tion as movement properly so calledrsquo ) Yet moving quickly from A to B andthen back to A surely involves ordinary locomotion on Aristotlersquos account (picturethe movement in a length of rope after it has been flicked) If the spiritualist is will-ing to concede that air undergoes an ordinary change in the manner of a wave whenit is acting as a medium for sound say by vibrating in place and transmitting thatmovement to the adjacent portions of air then he or she has already conceded themain point at issue To anticipate somewhat my own view developed below is thatfor Aristotle odours affect the medium by means of just such a successive qualitativechange as each portion of the intervening air dries those adjacent to it

The word lsquotransodorantrsquo (δίοσμος) is never used by Aristotle However Jo-hansen (Sense Organs n ) cites with approval its use by Alexander (In Desensu Wendland) and by Theophrastus as reported by Themistius



smelt through I have claimed that the common feature in questionis moisture on my view a medium is lsquotransodorantrsquo (diosmos) justin case it is moist Since spiritualists cannot admit any ordinary in-teraction between an odorous object and the medium of smell theyare unable to say anything informative about how an odorous objectsets a moist medium in motion or why the medium of smell mustbe moist if an odour is to be perceived through it (or for that mat-ter about why Aristotle chooses to use the language of lsquowashingrsquoor lsquorinsingrsquo to characterize this process) As a result any spiritual-ist will be forced to leave the nature and operation of the mediumrsquostransodorance utterly mysterious and unexplained

So what does happen to the medium of smell when it is acted onby an odorous object on Aristotlersquos account The most straightfor-ward answer and it seems to me the correct one is that an odor-ous object acts on the medium of smell by drying it presumablyin some determinate way This explains why the medium of smellmust be moist It also explains why odour which is lsquoofrsquo the dry isthe appropriate kind of thing to interact with the medium of smell(since for Aristotle it belongs to the nature of dry things to act onmoist things by drying them at least in the presence of heat) Inter-estingly this answer also helps make sense of Aristotlersquos otherwisepuzzling claim that coldness negates the effect of odours (since onAristotlersquos view heat is required for the dry to act on the moist)

In addition it allows us to regard the washing or rinsing of the fla-voured dryness by the medium of smell as involving an ordinaryinteraction between moist and dry surely the most natural way ofunderstanding these phrases It avoids the unattractive view that anodorous object has no ordinary effect on the surrounding mediumallowing room to explain the fact accepted by Aristotle that theair around an odorous object can itself become odorous It also

In De sensu a ff Aristotle explains that odour has beneficial effects onhumans since odour as a power is naturally heat-giving and helps to warm thecold area around the brain (this area is also said at De sensu bndash to benefit fromthe effect of odours because it is excessively moist) In this connection it shouldbe remembered that for Aristotle the dry can only act on the wet in the presence ofheat (since the dry and the wet are passive in and of themselves as Aristotle stressesthroughoutMeteor ) This suggests that themedium and organ arewarmed slightlyas they are dried a suggestion confirmed by Aristotlersquos claim that odours are neg-ated when the air is cold (De sensu bndash) presumably because the dry cannotact on the moist in the absence of heat and the slight warming effect of odours isoverwhelmed and negated by the cold

I suggest that Aristotlersquos view be understood as follows the odorousness of a


Mark A Johnstone

explains Aristotlersquos claim that an odour like a sound affects eachportion of the medium successively And finally it matches the dry-ing of the organ of smell thus maintaining the parallel between ef-fects in the medium and effects in the organ that Aristotle adheresto in his descriptions of sight and hearing My proposal then isthat on Aristotlersquos account the medium of smell becomes dry tosome extent and presumably in some determinate way when it isacted on by an odorous object

If this is correct Aristotlersquos views on the mediation of odour areincompatible with spiritualism For Aristotle the moist medium ofsmell is dried when it is acted on by an odour This drying of themedium is an ordinary destructive alteration just like the dryingof the organ of smell discussed above Once again it will not do forthe spiritualist to fall back on the view that any ordinary alterationsthat occur are merely accidental to the perception of odour as suchall of the arguments advanced above will apply again and still morestrongly Indeed if both medium and organ of smell must be moistfor perception by smell to occur and if both undergo an ordinarydestructive alteration of a kind that reflects Aristotlersquos stated viewson the fundamental nature of odour the idea that the changes in-volved have lsquonothing to do withrsquo the perception of odour collapsescompletely

IV

To this point I have argued that forAristotle both the organ and themediumof smell aremoist and that both are driedwhen acted on byan odorous object If this is right and if these changes cannot plau-sibly be dismissed as having nothing to do with perception thenspiritualism does not provide a satisfactory account of Aristotlersquostheory of smell However this conclusion should provide no spe-cial comfort for the literalist since the changes in question are not

flavoured dry object is correlated with and in some sense depends on its ability todry the medium of smell The air or water so affected takes on at least temporarilythe power to dry further portions of air or watermdashand ultimately the sense-organ ofa perceivermdashin the same way Note that this view avoids the symmetry problem forthe literalist mentioned above (n ) The challenge for the literalist was to explainwhy we should think that for Aristotle the transparent eye jelly literally becomes col-oured when the transparent medium manifestly does not But there is no equivalentproblem in supposing that the medium and organ of smell both become dry to someextent and in some determinate way when acted on by an odorous object



the ones literalism would lead us to expect If literalism were cor-rect we should expect Aristotle to maintain that the organ of smellbecomes odorousmdashsweet- or bitter-smelling for examplemdashand notthat it becomes dry After all as noted above dryness is not amongthe qualities differentiated by the sense of smell Admittedly noth-ing I have said rules out the possibility that the organ (andmedium)of smell might become odorous in addition to becoming dry ThusAristotlersquos claims about the sense-organ and medium of smell be-coming dry do not rule out literalism in the clear-cut way that theyrule out spiritualism Nevertheless interactions between the wetand the dry play a central role in the operation of the sense of smellon Aristotlersquos account as I am arguing it should be understoodLiteralism simply has nothing to say to explain these changes orthe role they play in perception for Aristotle

At this juncture a literalist might object that her view retainsa significant advantage in that it provides a simple and straight-forward way of understanding Aristotlersquos claims about perceptualassimilation For Aristotle as is well known sense-perception is aform of receptivity to certain features of the world in which theperceiver becomes in some way like the object perceived (eg DA andash) The literalistrsquos way of understanding this idea isas I say straightforward the perceiverrsquos sense-organ takes on in aliteral way the sensible quality that the sense-object already pos-sesses Mindful of this advantage the literalist might present mewith a challenge Certainly she might say you have raised problemsfor my view But what do you have to say about perceptual assimila-tion You have argued that perceiving odour necessarily involves akind of ordinary material alteration that my theory does not predictor explain But what do these changes have to do with perception

To be clear in my view the literalist is actually poorly placed to provide a plau-sible account of the kind of change involved in lsquobecoming likersquo the sense-objectdescribed in passages such as DA andash As noted above Aristotle under-stood this change as an extraordinary non-destructive alteration involving only theactivation of a capacity one already possesses The literalist by contrast is commit-ted to understanding the assimilation in question as a perfectly ordinary destructivealteration Thus I agree with those interpreters such as Lear Desire to UnderstandBurnyeat lsquoDA II rsquo and Lorenz lsquoAssimilationrsquo who argue that Aristotlersquos claimsin DA effectively rule out literalism Thus while the straightforwardness of theliteralistrsquos account may be an advantage literalism has other serious problems as anaccount of Aristotlersquos views about perceptual assimilation In my view the propersubject of the change described in DA is the sense or sense-faculty the powerto perceive that resides in the sense-organ (on this see the final section of this paperbelow)


Mark A Johnstone

as such The challenge is a reasonable one What does dryness haveto do with odour on Aristotlersquos account and what does the dryingof the organ of smell have to do with our perception of it In theremainder of this paper I provide my answers to these questionsI begin with Aristotlersquos views on the nature of odour its mode ofoperation and the differences between it and flavour (chumos) asthis is perceived by the closely related sense of taste

V

Aristotlersquos most detailed discussion of the nature of odour occursin De sensu This discussion is explicitly and closely connectedto his treatment of flavour and taste in the immediately precedingchapterDe sensu The reason for this close connection as soon be-comes clear is that the proper objects of both taste and smell ariseas a result of the action of the lsquoflavoured dryrsquo (to enchumon xēron)on the moist In order to understand Aristotlersquos theory of odour itis therefore necessary to begin with his theory of flavour (chumos)The quality we call flavour Aristotle claims in De sensu arises asthe result of the action of a certain subclass of dry earthy substanceson water in the presence of heat Water itself is flavourless so thequestion arises of how water becomes flavoured (De sensu andash)Having rejected the Empedoclean view that all water already con-tains within itself tiny imperceptible traces of every possible flavour(andash) and also a second view that water is a kind of matterfromwhich various flavours can be generated (andash) Aristotleconcludes that water becomes flavoured as a result of its being actedon in some way (andash) He rejects the idea that water is affectedby the application of heat alone even though heat does play the roleof a lsquoco-causersquo (sunaition) (andash) Rather he argues water ac-quires flavour by nature in much the same way as it can be seen

In what follows I concentrate (as Aristotle mostly does) on odours that are re-lated to the flavours associated with taste Aristotle thinks that there is a second classof odours with no connection to flavours such as the fragrance of flowers (De sensub) These odours which are experienced by humans alone (on account of therelatively large size and moistness of the human brain which is warmed and stimu-lated by them (De sensu andashb)) are pleasant in their own right their pleasant-ness does not depend on a desire for food

Cf Meteor a where Aristotle claims that water alone among liquidsdoes not thicken when heated or cooled because it alone does not contain dry earthymatter



to change when people lsquowashrsquo colours or flavours in it (bndash)whenwatermoves through certain dry and earthy substances by theagency of heat it acquires a certain quality (poion ti b) In-deed this is what we should expect to happen Aristotle maintainseverything is acted upon by its opposite the opposite of the wet isthe dry and while fire and earth are both dry (hence fire too can acton water) dryness is most characteristic of earth (bndash) Fla-vour he concludes is an affection (pathos b) brought aboutin water by the flavoured earthy dry which is capable of transform-ing the sense from potentiality to actuality (bndash)

Having completed his discussion of flavour Aristotle turns at thebeginning of De sensu to consider odour However throughoutthis discussion he draws heavily on the conclusions he had reachedin the preceding chapter This procedure reflects Aristotlersquos earlierclaim at the very beginning of De sensu that odour and flavourare lsquopretty much the same affectionrsquo (σχεδὸν γάρ ἐστι τὸ αὐτὸ πάθοςb) Thus the property of odorousness Aristotle claims in Desensu is based on flavour as evidenced by the fact that flavourlessthings are also odourless (De sensu andash) and by the strikinganalogies in the ways in which flavours and odours are named (Desensu bndashDA andashb) Indeed at the very beginning ofDesensu we are instructed to think of odours in the same way as fla-vours inasmuch as what the dry effects in the moist the flavouredmoist (to enchumon hugron) effects in a different kind (ἐν ἄλλῳ γέ-νει) in air and water alike (De sensu bndash) This similarity

In his discussion of the sense of taste Johansen helpfully likens the way thatflavour comes to be in water (a precondition for it becoming tasteable) to the waythat hot water squeezed through coffee grounds takes on the flavour of coffee Thisconcrete image helps us to understand how flavours that originate in the soil come tobe present in water and then subsequently in plants (Johansen Sense Organs )

καὶ ἔστι τοῦτο χυμός τὸ γιγνόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ εἰρημένου ξηροῦ πάθος ἐν τῷ ὑγρῷ τῆςγεύσεως τῆς κατὰ δύναμιν ἀλλοιωτικὸν εἰς ἐνέργειαν

Aristotle means presumably in a different province of sense The proviso hereis important since it allows that while the affection in question may be the samein both cases odour and flavour are not strictly identical since the moist may beaffected in different ways by each (to anticipate somewhat by blending with the fla-voured dry in the case of flavour and by being dried by it in the case of odour)

ὅπερ γὰρ ποιεῖ ἐν τῷ ὑγρῷ τὸ ξηρόν τοῦτο ποιεῖ ἐν ἄλλῳ γένει τὸ ἔγχυμον ὑγρόν ἐνἀέρι καὶ ὕδατι ὁμοίως In his commentary on this passage Ross argues that it showsthat for Aristotle odour must always arise from full-fledged flavour so that the lsquofla-voured dryrsquo must always first blend with moisture to form the lsquoflavoured moistrsquo be-fore it can be smelt (Ross De anima ) Against this Johansen has argued that weshould simply omit the phrase τὸ ἔγχυμον ὑγρόν at line b following the author-ity of the single manuscript L (Johansen Sense Organs ) to make this passage


Mark A Johnstone

is emphasized again at bndash where we learn that odour is inboth air and water what flavour is in water alone After stressingthe idea that odour is perceived through both air and water andin the light of the fact that both air and water are moist Aristotleeventually defines odour as lsquothe nature of the flavoured dry in themoistrsquo (De sensu a)

These striking similarities and connections between flavour andodour threaten to create a serious difficulty for Aristotlersquos theoryof smell This is because if both odour and flavour result from theaction of the flavoured dry on the moist it quickly becomes unclearwhat the ultimate difference between odour and flavour is supposedto be Two of the more obvious responses to this problem can berejected as unhelpful First it will not do to distinguish smell fromtaste by reference to the sense-organs involved in the perception ofeach say by claiming that odour is perceived by humans throughthe nose and flavour through the tongue This is not helpful be-cause on Aristotlersquos view the distinction between different sensesmust be drawn in terms of the proper objects of each thus the organof smell just is whatever part of its body an organism uses to per-ceive odour Nor will it do simply to point out that for Aristotle

agree with Aristotlersquos remarks elsewhere (eg at andash and at a) that lsquothe fla-voured dryrsquo (not lsquothe flavoured moistrsquo) is the agent that produces odour My ownview is that Johansen is right to resist Rossrsquos conclusion that odour arises only as anafter-effect of full-fledged flavour but wrong to think that we need to excise part ofthe best-attested text to achieve this result for it could perfectly well be that boththe unblended flavoured dry and the flavoured moist (consisting of a blend of theflavoured dry in the moist) are capable of affecting a moist medium in the manner ofan odour since the flavored dry could retain some of its original powers even whenit is part of a mixture

δῆλον ἄρα ὅτι ὅπερ ἐν τῷ ὕδατι ὁ χυμός τοῦτ ᾿ ἐν τῷ ἀέρι καὶ ὕδατι ἡ ὀσμή ἡ ἐν ὑγρῷ τοῦ ἐγχύμου ξηροῦ φύσις ὀσμή Cf De sensu andash where Aris-

totle remarks that the object of smell has been well described by likening it to adipping (βαφή) or washing (πλύσις) of the dry in the moist

At DA bndash In fact on Aristotlersquos view the precise location of the organwill vary considerably between different kinds of animal In humans it seems theorgan of smell is in the head since odour enters the head when we inhale (De sensua) Aristotle sometimes identifies the organ in humans as the μυκτῆρες (HA bmdashpresumably here lsquothe nostrilsrsquo) although elsewhere it becomes clearthat strictly speaking the organ in humans must be located somewhere inside thenose However this is by no means common to all creatures In some cases the dif-ferences from humans are slight birds for example lack μυκτῆρες but perceive odourthrough πόροι in their beaks (PA bndash) The differences are more strikingin those animals that do not breathe thus for example we learn at PA bndash that insects smell through themiddle part of their bodies However Aristotle alsoclaims that in the cases of insects (and fish) the sense-organ of smell can be difficult



smell is a distance sense while taste is a contact sense While this iscorrect it will help only if we already have a clear grasp of the differ-ence between the distance and contact senses for Aristotle In factthis is not as straightforward as one might think One way of seeingthe problem is to ask what the difference is between smell and tastefor a water animal water seems to extend all the way to the relevantsense-organ in both cases but is said to act as a medium only in thecase of smell Thus in order to make sense of Aristotlersquos distinc-tion between odour and flavour and hence to obtain a clear senseof his views on the nature of odour we need some principled wayof distinguishing between what happens to water when it serves asa medium for perception of odour and what happens to it when it isinvolved in perception by taste

The answer to this problem I suggest is that on Aristotlersquos ac-count taste unlike smell involves a mixture of the flavoured dry inthe moist This is more or less explicit in DA where Aris-totle asserts that if we lived in water we would perceive by taste asweet object added to the water not through a medium but due toits mixture with the water as in a drink (andash) This solutionto the problem also fits with Aristotlersquos view that foodmust be com-posite (De sensu andash) which he uses to explain why unmixedwater does not suffice for food (De sensu andash) More impor-tantly it accommodates Aristotlersquos view that taste is a contact sensewhile smell is a distance sense To see this it is helpful to picturea flavourful dry substance such as salt dissolving in water In suchcases the salt mixes with the water so that the water becomes saltya process Aristotle apparently took to involve a thorough blending

to discern (De sensu b cf HA andash) He does not seem overly con-cerned by this fact what matters to him it seems is establishing that such animalsare able to perceive odour determining the precise location of the organ in each in-dividual case was apparently of less interest

This problem is well observed by Johansen Sense Organs On this point I am in agreement with Johansen Sense Organs and in his earlier

lsquoAristotle on the Sense of Smellrsquo Phronesis () ndash διὸ κἂν εἰ ἐν ὕδατι ἦμεν ᾐσθανόμεθ ᾿ ἂν ἐμβληθέντος τοῦ γλυκέος οὐκ ἦν δ ᾿ ἂν ἡ

αἴσθησις ἡμῖν διὰ τοῦ μεταξύ ἀλλὰ τῷ μιχθῆναι τῷ ὑγρῷ καθάπερ ἐπὶ τοῦ ποτοῦ It also explains why odours do not provide nourishment Aristotle explains

these facts about nourishment by claiming that animals are nourished only by a mix-ture of the wet and the flavoured (specifically the sweet) earthy dry lsquoNeither the drywithout the moist nor the moist without the dry is nourishment for nourishmentfor animals is not one thing alone but rather what has been mixed [τὸ μεμειγμένον]rsquo(De sensu bndash)


Mark A Johnstone

of the salt with the water When a perceiver tastes salty water thissalty blended mixture which has properties of both salt and wa-ter comes into direct contact with the tongue Because it requirescontact in this way taste is to be understood as a contact sense aspecies of touch In fact on Aristotlersquos view flavour can only betasted in moisture a flavourful dry substance placed on the tonguecan be tasted only because it is the nature of the tongue to moistenthus dissolving the dry substance in liquid This idea is reflec-ted in a certain ambiguity in Aristotlersquos terminology for althoughhe often refers to flavour (chumos) as the proper object of taste fla-vour proper resides in flavoured earthy dry substances while lsquothetasteablersquo (to geuston) is a blend of the flavoured earthy dry with li-quid it is the lsquoenflavoured moistrsquo as Aristotle sometimes puts ita compound substance that is capable of nourishing an organism

Taste then involves a mixture of the flavoured dry in the moistIn the case of distance senses such as smell by contrast the sense-object does not travel right up to the sense-organ but rather oper-ates at a distance through a medium There is in other wordsno movement of particles from the sense-object to the organs ofthe perceiver In fact we now know that Aristotle was wrong about

Aristotlersquos most detailed discussion of the nature of mixture and blending oc-curs in GC For discussion of this chapter and of Aristotlersquos views about mix-ture in general see D Frede lsquoOn Generation and Corruption I On Mixture andMixablesrsquo in F De Haas and J Mansfeld (eds) Aristotle On Generation and Cor-ruption Book I Symposium Aristotelicum [On Generation and Corruption I] (Oxford) ndash and J Cooper lsquoA Note on Aristotle on Mixturersquo ibid ndash

On the moistening of the tongue see DA andashb This shift in terminology from χυμός to τὸ γευστόν in DA is well noted

by Polansky Aristotlersquos De anima ndash The tasteable (τὸ γευστόν) is also said to be moist at DA a Incidentally

this shows again why Johansenrsquos suggested excision of τὸ ἔγχυμον ὑγρόν at line bis unnecessary See n above

Thus for Aristotle lsquoit is qua tasteable [γευστόν] that assimilated food nourishesrsquo(De sensu a) He goes on to claim that lsquoall animals are nourished by the sweetrsquo(πάντα γὰρ τρέφεται τῷ γλυκεῖ De sensu a) a claim repeated at a I am grate-ful to Michael Bennett for drawing my attention to these passages

As Aristotle eventually makes clear the contact senses also operate through amedium since the flesh serves as the medium for perception by touch with the trueorgan of touch lying further within (DA bndash) This does not collapse the dis-tinction between distance and contact senses since odours colours and sounds acton a perceiver at a distance through an external medium whereas the objects of tasteand touch must come into direct contact with the perceiverrsquos body In addition wedo not perceive tangibles as a result of the separate agency of the medium (as in thecase of the distance senses) but rather together with the medium in much the sameway as a warrior who is struck on his shield is affected together with the shield (DAbndash)



smell on this point it does involve tiny particles travelling from theodorous object to the nose Yet I think we can also sympathize withthe motivation behind his view for it certainly seems that the pieceof ripe brie on the far side of the room acts on me so that I perceiveit (not say something between me and it) and that I cannot simi-larly taste it at a distance Aristotle wished to reject the view thatperception involves effluences from the object striking the sense-organs At the same time he wanted to maintain the intuitivelyappealing view that it really is possible to perceive things at a dis-tance He achieved this by introducing an intermediary the me-dium the sense-object first moves the medium and the mediumthen moves the sense-organ Importantly nothing needs to travelfrom one place to another for this to occur If the operation of odourinvolved a mixture of the flavoured dry with the moist medium theresulting blend would come into direct contact with the organ ofsmell since the medium extends all the way to the organ How-ever this cannot be what occurs in the case of smell on Aristotlersquosview since smell is a distance sense Hence odour cannot be in themedium in the manner of a mixture

So how does the flavoured dry thing I smell at a distance interactwith the moist intervening medium of air or water if not by mixingwith it The answer I claim again is that it does so by drying itto some extent and presumably in some highly determinate way

This drying need involve no locomotion rather I maintain it isto be understood as a progressive qualitative change in which eachpart of the intervening medium affects the next by drying it muchas heat passes down a stationary metal rod In this way Aristotle

Aristotle apparently believed that this view would have the undesirable con-sequence of reducing all five special senses to forms of touch (see eg De sensuandash)

At DA andash The point is initially made for the three distance sensesand is extended to cover touch and taste in the immediately following discussion(since the flesh acts as a medium in these cases)

Johansen simply neglects this possibility His basic argument in favour of aspiritualist interpretation of Aristotlersquos views on perceptual mediation in the caseof smell proceeds by elimination either odour is in the medium as in a mixtureor else the spiritualist account of perceptual mediation must be correct odour isnot in the medium as in a mixture therefore the spiritualist account must be cor-rect (Johansen Sense Organs ndash especially ndash) This argument rests on afalse dichotomy since it ignores the very real third possibility that an odorous objectmight act on the moist medium by drying it in the way I have described

Aristotle understood heating as a qualitative (as opposed to quantitative)change


Mark A Johnstone

retains the idea that odour acts on a perceiver at a distance and withit the distinction between contact and distance senses He also pre-serves the contrast between his view and effluence theories for noparticular piece of air (or water) needs to travel across the space se-parating sense-object and perceiver in order for perception by smellto occur This account has the advantages already mentioned itaccommodates the temporally extended progressive nature of thechanges wrought in the medium of smell by odour and the pos-sibility of the air becoming odorous As noted it also reflects theunderlying chemistry of the situation as Aristotle understood itan odorous object is dry the medium of smell is moist and it isthe nature of the dry to interact with the moist by drying it at leastin the presence of heat As a result of being dried the medium ofsmell acquires the power to act in the same way on the sense-organThus finally the organ of smell becomes dry in the way the odor-ous object already is

VI

On Aristotlersquos view as I have argued it should be understood boththe organ and the medium of smell become dry when acted on byan odorous object This is an ordinary destructive change not anextraordinary change of the kind the spiritualist admits yet it isalso not the change literalism would lead us to expect As a resultneither literalism nor spiritualism offers us a satisfactory way ofunderstanding Aristotlersquos theory of smell Nevertheless importantquestions remain about the alternative I am proposing In particu-lar we still need a clearer account of the relationship between thedrying of the organ of smell and the activation of our capacity toperceive odour considered merely as such I have argued that thedrying of the organ of smell cannot be dismissed as having nothingto dowith the perception of odour as the spiritualist mustmaintainNevertheless it cannot be all there is to the perception of odour onAristotlersquos account The correct thing to say here it seems to meis that these ordinary changes in the organ and medium of smell

Why couldnrsquot the ordinary material changes in the sense-organs be all thereis to perception on Aristotlersquos account For one thing as is generally agreed Aris-totle was no reductive materialist And even if he had wished to advocate a form ofreductive materialism the changes in question would presumably have been thoseclaimed by the literalist not changes of the kind identified here



represent the material aspect of the perception of odour If this isright we still need a way of understanding Aristotlersquos views on theformal aspect of perception and concerning its connection to thematerial changes I have identified

In fact Aristotlersquos treatment of the sense of smell suggests a plau-sible and interesting way of understanding his views on the formalaspect of perceptionmdashand its relation to the material aspectmdashmoregenerally To see this we should first be clear about the relation-ship between odour and the earthy flavoured dry substances inwhich it resides Aristotle does not identify odour with the flavoureddry Rather he prefers to speak of odours as lsquoderiving fromrsquo the fla-voured dry or as being lsquoofrsquo the dry (using a genitive construction)

We might want to say not that the flavoured dry is odour but ratherthat it has odour To have odour for Aristotle is to have the powerto act on a perceiver so as to activate his or her capacity to perceiveodour Aristotle makes it clear that flavoured dry substancesmdashwhether on their own or after being blended with moisturemdashare

Richard Sorabji also insists that we need to specify a formal aspect of perceptionon Aristotlersquos view in addition to the material aspect Indeed he criticizes SlakeylsquoAristotle on Sense Perceptionrsquo for effectively reducing perception for Aristotle toits material aspect (Sorabji lsquoBody and Soulrsquo ndash) However Sorabji never reallyexplains how he understands the formal aspect of perception for Aristotle Indeedit is not clear what the formal aspect of perception could consist in on his accountor on the basis of what Aristotelian text he could explain it since as a literalist heunderstands all of Aristotlersquos claims about the sense (αἰσθητικόν αἴσθησις) becominglike the sense-object or receiving sensible form exclusively in terms of ordinary ma-terial changes occurring in the sense-organs

As noted above Aristotle defines odour not as lsquothe flavoured dryrsquo but rather aslsquothe nature [φύσις] of the flavoured dry in the moistrsquo (De sensu a) He goes onto write lsquoit is clear that odour is an affection that derives from the flavouredrsquo (ὅτι δ ᾿ἀπ ᾿ ἐγχύμου ἐστὶ τὸ πάθος δῆλον De sensu a) Sea water for example lsquohasrsquo odourbecause it has both flavour and dryness (andash) He also claims that odour iswell likened to a kind of lsquodippingrsquo (βαφή) or lsquowashingrsquo (πλύσις) of the dry in the moistand fluid (De sensu andash) I suggest that the picture that emerges from these re-marks is the following odour is an affection wrought in the moist medium as a resultof its interaction with the flavoured dry and an object is odorous because and in sofar as it contains flavoured dry material which is by its nature capable of producingsuch effects in a moist medium This also finally explains the sense in which odouris lsquoofrsquo the dry (DA a)

Clarity and consistency strike me as especially important here Johansenrsquos ac-count loses both when he shifts in the space of two pages from speaking of odouras being dry to claiming that odour is lsquofound inrsquo air and water to claiming thatodour is lsquoperceived inrsquo air and water to claiming that water is a lsquovehicle forrsquo odourto finally claiming that lsquothe flavoured dryness on its own constitutes odourrsquo (SenseOrgans ndash emphasis added)

Cf Meteor andash where Aristotle claims that in general a thing is whitefragrant noisy and so on in virtue of possessing a certain power (δύναμις)


Mark A Johnstone

what possess this power At the same time as I have argued fla-voured dry substances being dry have the power to act on themoist mediummdashand ultimately on the organ of smellmdashby dryingit to some extent and in some determinate way My suggestionis simply that for Aristotle these two powers are connected Onthis view an odorous object (ie a flavoured dry substance) pos-sesses both the power to dry a moist medium and the power to ac-tivate a perceiverrsquos capacity to perceive odour The object acts ona perceiver materially by drying the sense-organ via the mediumin a manner corresponding to the way in which it is already dryAnd it acts on the perceiver formally by activating his or her capa-city to perceive odourmdashthe power that resides in the sense-organmdashconsidered merely as such

On the interpretation I amproposing Aristotlersquos account of smellwas genuinely hylomorphic an odorous object affects the per-ceiverrsquos sense-organ both by drying it (an ordinary material change)and by activating the capacity to perceive odour that resides in itThe latter change considered in its own right is an extraordinarynon-destructive alteration of the kind described inDA consist-ing of the bare activation of a capacity one already possesses the ca-pacity to perceive odour consideredmerely as such This activationof the capacity to perceive is a non-destructive alteration consistingof the reception of sensible form by the sense-faculty However as

On the relationship between the sense-organ (conceived as a spatially extendedmaterial structure) and the power to perceive that resides in the organ see DA andash Hicksrsquos comments on this passage in his commentary capture the pointwell as I understand it lsquoThe organ and the faculty are one and the same but we canseparate the two in thought If we look at the organ (τὸ αἰσθανόμενον) as a concretething and take account of its matter it is an extended magnitude if we abstract fromthe matter and attend only to the form it is a power or faculty residing in this exten-ded magnitude but itself unextended and immaterialrsquo (R D Hicks Aristotle Deanima (Cambridge ) ) The organ (regarded merely as a material structure)and the power residing in it are one in number but different in being (DA andash)My claim is that the same can be said of thematerial structure and power to stimulateperception in the agent of the change in question the odorous flavoured dry objectof smell

I am well aware that spiritualists and literalists claim that their accounts arelsquohylomorphicrsquo too However according to the spiritualist the only thing that hap-pens when a perceiver encounters an odorous object under suitable conditions isa purely formal change (the material aspect of perception is exhausted by lsquostand-ing conditionsrsquo) while the literalist understands all of the changes Aristotle actuallydescribes in De anima in purely material terms leaving no room for a distinctly spe-cifiable formal aspect to perception

In defence of the idea that the sense or sense-faculty can itself serve as the propersubject of such an extraordinary alteration see Lorenz lsquoAssimilationrsquo



I have argued for Aristotle there is also an essential material com-ponent to the perception of odour consisting of the drying of theorgan and medium of smell This is part of what we need to knowabout if we wish to understand perception by smell hence the at-tention Aristotle gives to explaining the nature of odour especiallyits connection to flavour and dryness and its interaction with themoist medium of smell The true student of nature who wishes toprovide a complete explanatory account of perception by smell willneed to understand both the extraordinary alteration involved in ac-tivating the capacity to perceive odour considered merely as suchand the ordinary material changes wrought in the medium and or-gan of smell by flavoured dry substances

A hylomorphic account of this general kind has a number of sig-nificant advantages over both literalism and spiritualism some ofwhich I note below Nevertheless any such interpretation must facethe challenge of explaining how the material and formal aspects ofperception are related to each other on Aristotlersquos view The dangeris that the ordinary change occurring in the sense-organ and the ex-traordinary change that is the activation of the capacity to perceiveconsidered merely as such become too distinct as if they merelyhappened to occur simultaneously Indeed a critic might objectthat a material change in the sense-organ and the formal changethat is the activation of onersquos capacity to perceive could not possiblylsquohook uprsquo in the appropriate way Even if we set aside this worry

eg EversonAristotle on Perception ndash Burnyeat lsquoDA II rsquo n BothBurnyeat and Everson note that any strict identity view will face the difficulty of ex-plaining how a κίνησις can be identical to an ἐνέργεια for Aristotle I do not think thisis really an issue here According to Aristotlersquos stated view in Metaphysics Θ a dis-tinguishing mark of an ἐνέργεια is that it is always true to say that one has φ-ed evenwhile one is still φ-ing ἐνέργειαι are in this sense complete at every moment in con-trast to κινήσεις However we are surely not to imagine that the sense-organ becomesprogressively drier at every moment an odour is being perceived (in the manner ofan lsquoincompletersquo κίνησις) Rather on the view as I envisage it the sense-organ tem-porarily takes on a determinate form of drynessmdasha change that could happen almostinstantaneouslymdashand remains in this condition for as long as the odour is being per-ceived before subsequently returning to its original state Furthermore the view Iam proposing is less radical than such criticisms typically presuppose It does notrequire for example that Aristotle understood the material and formal changes in-volved in perception as related to each other in precisely the way that matter andform are related in objects Rather the important point is this both ordinary de-structive changes (the drying of the sense-organ and medium of smell) and extraor-dinary non-destructive ones (the activation of the capacity to perceive consideredmerely as such) are centrally and essentially involved in the perception of odour sothat descriptions of both will form part of a complete explanatory account of the


Mark A Johnstone

we might still wonder why the drying of the organ and medium isnecessary to perception by smell on Aristotlersquos account After allwhat does drying have to do with perceiving odour FortunatelyAristotlersquos discussion of the sense of smell suggests an interestingand attractive way of answering this question I conclude this paperby sketching this response

My suggestion stated simply is that when the perceiverrsquos sense-organ takes on the same determinate form of dryness that the odor-ous object possesses the perceiver receives information about thatobject information that is essential to the perception of its odourThis explains how the material changes highlighted in this paperhook up as it were with the formal change that is the activationof the capacity to perceive odour considered merely as such Italso explains why underlying material changes are essential to per-ception for on this view information is transmitted from object toperceiver by means of these underlying material changes Cruciallythis explains why ordinary material changes in the sense-organ andmedium are necessary to perception without reducing perception tothem We might picture by way of analogy the manner in whichthe letters of a written text are necessary to conveying the textrsquosmessage without being identical to that message In much this wayI suggest the drying of the organ of smell underpins the transmis-sion of salient information from sense-object to perceiver it is thevehicle for the transmission of information about the odour of theodorous object in question

On the view I am proposing the perceiver receives informa-tion about the sense-object by undergoing ordinary changes in thesense-organ and in this way is lsquoin-formedrsquo by it This may be allthat needs to be said about the formal aspect of perception and itsrelation to the material aspect on Aristotlersquos account Neverthelessperhaps it is also possible to say more For it may well be that on

phenomenon with the former falling under the heading of lsquomaterial causersquo This isconsistent with various ways of understanding the underlying metaphysics

This account also ascribes to Aristotle an attractive way of explaining a poten-tially puzzling feature of perception namely its intentionality for on this account Iperceive an object existing apart from me because I am caused by it to become like itin such a way as to receive salient information about it Victor Caston in lsquoAristotleand the Problem of Intentionalityrsquo [lsquoIntentionalityrsquo] Philosophy and Phenomenologi-cal Research () ndash and in lsquoSpirit and Letterrsquo who like me advocates aview on which information is transmitted from sense-object to perceiver by meansof ordinary changes in the sense-organs emphasizes this appealing feature of Aris-totlersquos view



Aristotlersquos view the activation of onersquos capacity to perceive consi-deredmerely as such involves not only receiving information aboutthe sense-object but also in addition becoming perceptually awareof that object On this view to have onersquos capacity to perceive odouractivated is at least in part simply to become perceptually aware ofodour On this interpretation Aristotlersquos view of the formal aspectof perception was very much as spiritualists such as Burnyeat havemaintained The chief difference between the present account andthat of the spiritualist is that on the present account this is not allthere is to say for there is also an ineliminable material aspect toperception by smell involving ordinary changes in the sense-organand perceptual medium

The idea that ordinary changes in the sense-organs underpin thetransmission of salient information from the sense-object to theperceiver is by no means new in the interpretation of Aristotlersquostheory of perception Nevertheless it has remained vulnerableto arguments from silence offered by literalists and spiritualistsalike Spiritualists typically argue that Aristotle had nothing to sayabout ordinary material changes in the sense-organs or percep-tual medium and that this silence on his part strongly suggeststhat he did not believe any such changes occur I hope to havesaid enough already to refute this argument from silence at leastin the case of smell Interestingly literalists too sometimes offeran argument from silence in favour of their position For exampleStephen Everson rejects all interpretations of Aristotle of the kindadvocated here on the basis that they are inevitably unsatisfactor-ily vague Against the view that the sense-organs undergomaterialchanges without literally taking on the same sensible quality as the

Variations on an lsquoinformation transferrsquo account have been advanced byModrakPower of Perception Ward lsquoPerception and Logosrsquo Silverman lsquoColourrsquo BradshawlsquoDual-Logos Theoryrsquo and Caston lsquoIntentionalityrsquo and lsquoSpirit and Letterrsquo LearDesire to Understand and Lorenz lsquoAssimilationrsquo also offer hylomorphic interpre-tations of Aristotle on which both ordinary changes in the sense-organs and an ex-traordinary change in the sense-faculty are essential to perception However unlikethe other thinkers listed in this note Lear and Lorenz seek to understand the formalside of perception primarily in terms of becoming perceptually aware of the sense-object (rather than in terms of being informed about it) As I note in the precedingparagraph we may not need to choose between these two interpretations since theactivation of onersquos capacity to perceive may involve both receiving information aboutthe sense-object and becoming aware of it

This kind of argument from silence for spiritualism is especially prominent inBurnyeatrsquos work See eg Burnyeat lsquoHow Much Happensrsquo ndash lsquoDA II rsquo ndash

Everson Aristotle on Perception ndash


Mark A Johnstone

sense-object he raises a simple question what form might thesechanges take While there may be logical space for such a view heclaims there is no evidence for it in what Aristotle actually wroteHe concludes that if perception involves ordinary material changesin the sense-organsmdashwhich as a literalist he believes it doesmdashtheymust be of the kind literalism recommends Aristotlersquos discussionof smell is especially interesting and important because it providesa clear answer to this argument from silence as well Aristotle has agood deal to say about ordinary material changes in the sense-organand medium of smell while these changes involve the organ andmedium becoming dry not eg bitter- or sweet-smelling as literal-ism predicts

In addition to its potential to disarm arguments from silenceAristotlersquos discussion of the sense of smell can also help us under-stand his views on perception in another way On the presentinterpretation the perceiver receives salient information about thesense-object by undergoing an ordinary change in the relevantsense-organ This view requires that there be some systematiccorrelation on Aristotlersquos view between the proper sensible inquestion and the changes the sense-organ undergoes for in the ab-sence of such a correlation the ordinary changes in the sense-organwould be incapable of playing the role they must play in the trans-mission of information In the case of smell this means that theremust be a systematic correlation between the odour of an odorousobject and the determinate form of dryness that characterizes itand that comes to be present in the sense-organ of the perceiverAristotlersquos discussion of the sense of smell is especially interestingin this context because it provides excellent reason to think thatAristotle took just such a correlation to exist Indeed I contendthe ordinary changes that occur in the organ of smell whenever aperceiver encounters an odour under suitable conditions are exactlythe kind we should expect if the interpretation I am proposing werecorrect

To see this we should first recall that Aristotle was operatingwith an extremely rudimentary theory of chemistry On his viewa wide range of the higher-level properties of physical objects areexplicable in terms of the proportions of moisture and dryness theycontain and the manner in which the moist is lsquodeterminedrsquo by thedry Aristotle held that many sensible qualities should be includedin this class and may well have thought that flavour (and hence



odour) was among them After all as we have seen he clearlythought that there was some intimate relationship between drynessand odour while he sometimes explicitly explains odorousness orits lack in terms of the proportions of moisture and dryness a parti-cular substance contains We should also not assume that Aristotlecould not have held such a view on the basis that odours are toocomplex and multi-faceted to be captured by the single spectrumbetween wet and dry For one thing as noted Aristotle was ex-tremely optimistic about the possibility of discovering correlationsbetween the proportions of moisture and dryness that character-ize different bodies and various other properties they possess Fur-thermore he apparently understood particular odours as at leastprimarily existing along a single spectrum between the extremes ofsweet- and bitter-smelling In this respect odours are like all othersensible qualities for Aristotle with the possible exception of tan-gible qualities for example particular colours lie on a spectrumbetween black and white sounds between high and low pitch fla-vours between sweet and bitter If odours too vary along a single

See especially Meteorologica In that chapter Aristotle turns to consider theforms taken by the passive qualities of bodies which he identifies as the moist andthe dry All bodies he claims are compounded of the moist and the dry and which-ever of these elements predominates in the body determines its nature (bndash)The moist is easily determined while the dry is determined with difficulty as a re-sult their relationship to one another is lsquolike that between a dish and its condimentsrsquo(bndash) In particular the moist and the dry are interdependent in determinatebodies with each serving as a kind of lsquogluersquo for the other so that every determinedbody includes both (bndasha) Since earth is especially representative of thedry and water of the moist every determinate body contains both water and earth(bndash) Aristotle goes on to trace such features of bodies as hardness softnessmalleability fragility compressibility divisibility and combustibility back to theproportions of moisture and dryness each substance contains and the manner inwhich the moist and the dry lsquodeterminersquo (ὁρίζειν) each other Homogeneous bodies(eg the various metals together with the substances from which living things arecomposed flesh bone skin and the like) differ in all these ways and also with re-spect to their odour taste and colour (andash) By implication these featurestoo depend on the proportions of moisture and dryness each body contains and themanner in which the moist and dry in these bodies lsquodeterminersquo each other

For example inDe sensu Aristotle claims that kinds of wood that containmorewater are less odorous than those that are drier and traces the relative odorousnessof different metals such as bronze iron silver and tin back to the amount of mois-ture contained in each (andash)

lsquoEvery sense seems to be concerned with one pair of opposites eg sight withwhite and black hearing with high and low pitch taste with bitter and sweetrsquo (DAbndash) Although Aristotle goes on to qualify this remark in the context of hisdiscussion of tangible qualities in other contexts he is happy to treat the proper ob-jects of a particular sense-modality as lying on a single spectrum between a pair of


Mark A Johnstone

dimension there is no barrier to supposing that Aristotle took thereto be a systematic correlation between particular odours and the de-terminate forms of dryness characteristic of different flavoured dryobjects This is not to suggest that odour is identical to drynessfor Aristotle or that it can be reduced to it Rather on the viewI am proposing odour is encoded by dryness in object mediumand organ alike It is this fact about it that makes the drying of thesense-organ and medium relevant to perception by smell

In this paper I have focused on Aristotlersquos views about a singlesense-modality the sense of smell Is an account of the kind I haveoffered generalizable to the other four special senses I believe theprospects for such generalization are good although the case can-not be made in detail here Such a view should it prove general-izable would have significant advantages over both literalism andspiritualism and not only because it promises to be more charit-able to Aristotle To begin with it has the potential to make bet-

extremes as in his lengthy discussion of the different colours as consisting of a mix-ture of black and white in various proportions (De sensu bndashb) cf De sensu andash lsquoas the intermediate colours arise from the mixture of black and whiteso the intermediate flavours arise from the sweet and bitterrsquo

Tobe clear my suggestion is not that sensible qualities such as odours are some-how unreal on Aristotlersquos account or that they are lsquonothing butrsquo material ones Asin Aristotlersquos philosophy more generally at least as I understand it a certain powermay reside in a certain physical structure without being reducible to or straightfor-wardly identifiable with that structure My claim is rather that on Aristotlersquos viewparticular odours are correlated with and in some sense depend upon certain orga-nizational features of the bodies in which they reside namely the determinate formsof dryness that characterize them

The notion of lsquoencodingrsquo information is borrowed from C Shields lsquoIntentio-nality and Isomorphism in Aristotlersquo Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium inAncient Philosophy () ndash at ndash Shieldsrsquos use of the language oflsquoisomorphismrsquo in his paper is also congenial to my interpretation

This generalization would require textual evidence that Aristotle thought or-dinary material changes occur in the sense-organ and medium whenever a per-ceiver encounters a colour sound flavour or other tactile quality under suitableconditions In fact there is good evidence in every case that Aristotle took just suchchanges to occur See below n for suggestions concerning potentially relevantpassages Why is this account more charitable to Aristotle than the major alternatives

Unlike literalism it avoids saddling Aristotle with a crude and empirically implau-sible view of the physiological changes involved in perceiving while merely pushingthe hard questions one step back For example on the literalist account it is unclearwhy my eye jelly turning red explains my perceiving red Eversonrsquos supposition thatfor Aristotle I become mediately aware of the redness of the external object in virtueof becoming directly aware of the redness of my own eye jelly (Everson Aristotle on



ter sense of the full range of salient texts since it can accommodateboth those passages that suggest the occurrence of ordinary mater-ial changes in perception and also those in which Aristotle claimsthat the activation of the capacity to perceive is itself no ordinarychange Second it allows us to avoid some of the radical and po-tentially unattractive implications of the spiritualist interpretationfor our understanding of Aristotlersquos hylomorphism more generallyincluding the unappealing view that Aristotle believed in a worldfull of purely formal changes and processes without any materialcorrelates a lsquophysics of form alonersquo (to borrow Burnyeatrsquos felicitous

Perception ndash) strikes me as textually unsupported and philosophically weak Onthe other hand it offers a way of avoiding the spiritualistrsquos avowed conviction thatAristotlersquos theory of perception and indeed his whole theory of the mind shouldbe lsquojunkedrsquo since it rests on assumptions about changes without material correlatesthat we can barely even understand let alone accept

Various examples have been identified and debated in the literature My claimhere is not that these passages can only be understood as committing Aristotle to theoccurrence of ordinary material changes in the sense-organs andor medium butrather that they all can be read in this way and in most cases are most naturally soread Important examples include the following () Sight in De generatione anima-lium Aristotle claims that blue eyes contain less moisture than brown eyes andfor this reason are more easily set in motion by light and by visible objects both quamoist and qua transparent (andash) If being moved qua transparent constitutes theformal aspect of vision it is difficult to say what being moved qua moist amountsto if not a correlated material change () Hearing in DA Aristotle claims thatair lsquoreboundsrsquo (ἀφάλλεσθαι) from the impact of two solid surfaces and lsquovibratesrsquo (σεί-εσθαι) when it is affected in such a way as to convey sound to the ear of the perceiver(andash) () Smell in addition to the passages already discussed Aristotle ob-serves that even bloodless animals can be damaged or destroyed by strong odourssuch as those of bitumen and sulphur (DA bndash) () Taste in DA Aris-totle claims that the tongue must be potentially moist and that it becomes actuallymoist when it is acted on by a tasteable object (bndash) () Touch in DA Aristotle claims that the organ of touch must already have some of the tangible qua-lities and that it will be unable to perceive the qualities it already possesses since itmust be potentially such as the tangible qualities perceived already are and becomelike them when they act on it (DA bndasha) This claim about lsquoblind spotsrsquo isdifficult to understand unless we suppose that the sense-organ of touch undergoes anordinary material change () In general in DA Aristotle claims that excessesin the objects of perceptionmdashsuch as especially bright lights loud sounds or strongflavoursmdashare capable of damaging the relevant sense-organs and thus destroyingat least temporarily a personrsquos ability to perceive sensibles of that kind (andash) All of these passages create serious problems for spiritualism while some alsoraise difficulties for literalism All could be readily accommodated on an accountwith the basic structure I am suggesting if it should be generalized to cover theremaining special senses (a task I am not attempting here but believe is fully pos-sible)

Especially in DA


Mark A Johnstone

phrase) And finally it offers a way of understanding Aristotlersquostheory of perception that is consistent with his stated views on thestructure of adequate explanations in psychology as illustrated byhis well-known example in DA of anger as both a boiling ofblood around the heart (the material aspect) and a desire for retri-bution (the formal aspect) Although spiritualists can arguemdashandhave arguedmdashthat this discussion is meant to apply only to the pas-sions and not to perception this seems to me a difficult task forthose unpersuaded by such arguments this final point may even bethought decisive in favour of an account with the structure I recom-mend For all of these reasons Aristotlersquos treatment of the sense ofsmell provides a promising model for understanding his views onperception more generally

For Aristotle as I have argued his view should be understood theactivation of our capacity to perceive odour requires and involvesordinary changes in the sense-organs and perceptual medium Theorgan of smell is dried by an odorous (ie flavoured dry) objectacting through the medium in a sufficiently determinate way to re-ceive quite specific information about it information that is essen-tial to the perception if its odour At the same time I have claimedthe perceiverrsquos capacity to perceive odour is activated This activa-tion of the capacity to perceive odour considered in its own rightis a non-destructive alteration of the kind identified by Aristotle inDA involving the assimilation of the sense-faculty (the powerthat resides in the sense-organ) to the sensible quality perceivedIn this way Aristotlersquos account of perception by smell was genu-inely hylomorphic a complete account of smell should specify both

Burnyeat lsquoHow Much Happensrsquo lsquoAquinasrsquo lsquospiritualchange is a change of form alonersquo

DA andashb On Aristotlersquos view although both descriptions of angerare correct in their way each is incomplete when considered in isolation A full andadequate explanation of the phenomenon of the kind a true student of nature shouldseek will make reference to both its material and its formal aspects Note also that ifthis model is taken to apply to perception as well as to emotions such as anger thedivision of labour between De anima and De sensu makes perfect sense the formeras a work on the soul focuses predominantly on the formal side of perception whilethe latter has more to say about its material dimension

Burnyeat lsquoDA II rsquo n dismisses as a lsquowidespread illusionrsquo the claimthat Aristotlersquos methodological remarks in this passage commit him to the view thatperception involves concomitant material changes (so too Johansen Sense Organs) For argument that Aristotle does commit himself here to the view that per-ception like anger necessarily involves concomitant material changes see CastonlsquoSpirit and Letterrsquo ndash



its material and its formal aspects and a true student of naturewill need to know about both in order to understand the pheno-menon This interpretation is more charitable to Aristotle than themajor literalist and spiritualist alternatives for the reasons notedIt ascribes to Aristotle an independently interesting position thatis consistent with his stated views about hylomorphic explanationsin psychology more generally and that fits the text In particu-lar it accommodates the passages describing material changes inthe organ and medium of smell in a way that as I have arguedneither literalism nor spiritualism is able to achieve In this wayAristotlersquos discussion of the sense of smell counts strongly againstboth literalism and spiritualism while providing a template for adifferent and more attractive way of understanding his theory ofsense-perception considered as a whole

McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bradshaw D lsquoAristotle on Perception The Dual-Logos Theoryrsquo [lsquoDual-Logos Theoryrsquo] Apeiron () ndash

Broadie S lsquoAristotlersquos Perceptual Realismrsquo [lsquoPerceptual Realismrsquo] in JEllis (ed) Ancient Minds (Southern Journal of Philosophy supplMemphis ) ndash

Burnyeat M lsquoAquinas on ldquoSpiritual Changerdquo in Perceptionrsquo [lsquoAquinasrsquo]in Perler (ed) Intentionality ndash

lsquoDe anima II rsquo [lsquoDA II rsquo] Phronesis () ndashlsquoHow Much Happens When Aristotle Sees Red and Hears Middle C

Remarks on De anima ndashrsquo [lsquoHow Much Happensrsquo] in Nussbaumand Rorty (eds) Essays ndash

lsquoIs an Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind Still Credible A Draftrsquo[lsquoCrediblersquo] in Nussbaum and Rorty (eds) Essays ndash

Caston V lsquoAristotle and the Problem of Intentionalityrsquo [lsquoIntentionalityrsquo]Philosophy and Phenomenological Research () ndash

lsquoThe Spirit and the Letter Aristotle on Perceptionrsquo [lsquoSpirit and Let-terrsquo] in R Salles (ed) Metaphysics Soul and Ethics in Ancient ThoughtThemes from the Work of Richard Sorabji (Oxford ) ndash

Cohen S M lsquoHylomorphism and Functionalismrsquo in Nussbaum andRorty (eds) Essays ndash

Cooper J lsquoA Note on Aristotle on Mixturersquo in De Haas and Mansfeld(eds) On Generation and Corruption I ndash


Mark A Johnstone

De Haas F and Mansfeld J (eds) Aristotle On Generation and Cor-ruption Book I Symposium Aristotelicum [On Generation and Corrup-tion I] (Oxford )

Everson S Aristotle on Perception (Oxford )Frede D lsquoOn Generation and Corruption I On Mixture and Mix-

ablesrsquo in De Haas and Mansfeld (eds) On Generation and Corruption Indash

Hamlyn D W Aristotle De anima Books II and III (with Passages fromBook I) (Oxford rev edn )

Hicks R D Aristotle De anima (Cambridge )Johansen T K lsquoAristotle on the Sense of Smellrsquo Phronesis ()

ndashAristotle on the Sense Organs [Sense Organs] (Cambridge )

Lear J Aristotle The Desire to Understand [Desire to Understand] (Cam-bridge )

Lorenz H lsquoThe Assimilation of Sense to Sense-Object in Aristotlersquo [lsquoAs-similationrsquo] Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy () ndash

Miller F D Jr lsquoAristotlersquos Philosophy of Perceptionrsquo Proceedings of theBoston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy () ndash

Modrak D Aristotle The Power of Perception [Power of Perception](Chicago )

Murphy D lsquoAristotle on Why Plants Cannot Perceiversquo Oxford Studies inAncient Philosophy () ndash

Nussbaum M and Putnam H lsquoChanging Aristotlersquos Mindrsquo in Nuss-baum and Rorty (eds) Essays ndash

and Rorty A O (eds) Essays on Aristotlersquos De anima [Essays] (Ox-ford repr )

Perler D (ed) Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality [Intentio-nality] (Leiden Boston and Cologne )

Polansky R Aristotlersquos De anima (Cambridge )Price A lsquoAristotelian Perceptionsrsquo Proceedings of the Boston Area Col-

loquium in Ancient Philosophy () ndashRoss W D Aristotle De anima With Introduction and Commentary [De

anima] (Oxford )Aristotle Parva Naturalia A Revised Text with Introduction and Com-

mentary (Oxford )Shields C lsquoIntentionality and Isomorphism in Aristotlersquo Proceedings of

the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy () ndashSilverman A lsquoColour and Colour-Perception in Aristotlersquos De animarsquo

[lsquoColourrsquo] Ancient Philosophy () ndashSisko J lsquoAlteration and Quasi-Alterationrsquo [lsquoQuasi-Alterationrsquo] Oxford

Studies in Ancient Philosophy () ndash



Slakey T lsquoAristotle on Sense Perceptionrsquo Philosophical Review () ndash

Solmsen F lsquoGreek Philosophy and the Discovery of the Nervesrsquo MuseumHelveticum () ndash

Sorabji R lsquoAristotle on Sensory Processes and Intentionality A Reply toMyles Burnyeatrsquo [lsquoReplyrsquo] in Perler (ed) Intentionality ndash

lsquoBody and Soul in Aristotlersquo [lsquoBody and Soulrsquo] Philosophy ()ndash

lsquoIntentionality and Physiological Processes Aristotlersquos Theory ofSense-Perceptionrsquo [lsquoTheoryrsquo] in Nussbaum and Rorty (eds) Essaysndash

Ward J K lsquoPerception and Logos in De anima II rsquo [lsquoPerception andLogosrsquo] Ancient Philosophy () ndash


ARISTOTLE ON ODOUR AND SMELL

MARK A JOHNSTONE

T sense of smell occupies a peculiar intermediate positionwithin Aristotlersquos theory of perception In De anima smell is treatedas the third of the three distance senses like sight and hearing itinvolves perceiving an object at a distance through an externalmedium However in De sensu Aristotle treats odour the properobject of smell as intimately related to flavour the proper object oftaste Taste for Aristotle is a species of touch requiring contactbetween the body of the perceiver and the object perceived Smelltherefore combines features of both distance and contact senses itsmode of operation is like that of sight and hearing while its properobject is closely related to that of a form of touch Largely for thisreason Aristotlersquos discussion of the sense of smell has the potentialto tell us a great deal about his theory of sense-perception moregenerally First it provides invaluable information about his viewson perceptual mediation and the operation of the distance sensesNext it promises to help us understand his distinction betweendistance and contact senses and his views on the ontological statusof the proper objects of perception Finally it provides a crucialtest case for views on the role of ordinary material changes inperception an issue that has received much attention in the recentliterature on Aristotlersquos psychology

In this paper I examine Aristotlersquos claims about odour and smellespecially inDe anima andDe sensu to seewhat light they shedon his theory of perception more generally In the first half of thepaper my goals are predominantly negative In particular I arguethat neither of the two most highly influential recent ways of under-standing Aristotlersquos theory of perception as a whole can adequatelyaccount for what he says about the sense of smell These two viewscopy Mark A Johnstone

I would like to thank Hendrik Lorenz and Thomas Johansen for their helpful com-ments on earlier versions of this paper

This claim is most explicit at DA a Aristotle emphasizes the special intermediate position of smell between the con-

tact and distance senses at De sensu andash


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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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I












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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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I












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II
















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III






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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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II
















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III






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IV









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VI













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Especially in DA


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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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Mark A Johnstone


II
















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III






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IV









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VI













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Especially in DA


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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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Mark A Johnstone


II
















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III






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IV









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VI













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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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II
















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III






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IV









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V













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VI













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Especially in DA


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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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Mark A Johnstone









III






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IV









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VI













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Especially in DA


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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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III






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IV









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Especially in DA


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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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III






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IV









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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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III






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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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III






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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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IV









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V













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VI













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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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Mark A Johnstone














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IV









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V













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VI













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Especially in DA


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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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Mark A Johnstone














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IV









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V













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VI













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Especially in DA


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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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Mark A Johnstone














Mark A Johnstone



IV









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V













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VI













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Especially in DA


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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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Mark A Johnstone














Mark A Johnstone



IV









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V













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VI













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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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IV









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V













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VI













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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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IV









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V













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VI













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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












Mark A Johnstone




































Mark A Johnstone


V













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VI













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Especially in DA


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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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V













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VI













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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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VI













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Especially in DA


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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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VI













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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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Mark A Johnstone



















Mark A Johnstone


VI













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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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VI













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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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VI













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Especially in DA


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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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VI













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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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BIBLIOGRAPHY












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McMaster University

BIBLIOGRAPHY












Mark A Johnstone































Mark A Johnstone







































Documents

OXFORD STUDIES IN ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY - PhilPapers · thattheorganisFinadiﬀerentwayfromthewaytheobjectisF.Indeed,Richard Sorabji,arguablyliteralism’smostwell ... Oxford Studies