Abstract
In my comment on Katerina Ierodiakonou’s paper, I outline my understanding of the programme of De anima and how it bears on Aristotle’s discussion of the transparent in De anima 2.7, in contrast with his discussion of the transparent in De sensu 3. I then explore Aristotle’s notion of transparency and sketch an alternative to Ierodiakonou’s interpretation of Aristotle’s views as to how colours are generated in physical objects. At the end, I raise two objections to Alexander’s interpretation of the transparent as discussed by Ierodiakonou.
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Notes
- 1.
The capacity to move the animal from one place to another turns out to belong essentially to the perceptual part of the soul, and thus does not merit the status of a part of the soul.
- 2.
See what Aristotle says about the division of labour between De anima and De sensu on the subject of perception, in De sensu 3, 439a12–17.
- 3.
Hamlyn’s translation slightly modified. I take it that the examples listed by Aristotle are not themselves members of the nameless class, but things which exhibit items of the nameless class. For instance, it is not the “head of fish” that belongs to the nameless class, but the characteristic greenish phosphorescence exhibited in the dark by heads of a certain kind of fish.
- 4.
He leaves us with a promissory note at 419a6–7: δι’ ἣν μὴν οὖν αἰτίαν ταῦτα ὁρᾶται, ἄλλος λόγος.
- 5.
See the passage from De generatione animalium 5.1, 779b28–33, quoted by Ierodiakonou on p. 84.
- 6.
One obvious objection to this suggestion is that snow would need to have a lot of fiery element in it, but I suppose there are ways to defuse this objection, for instance, by adding air as another colour-generating element; cf. De generatione animalium 2.2, 735b19–21.
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Gregoric, P. (2018). Aristotle’s Transparency: Comments on Ierodiakonou, “Aristotle and Alexander of Aphrodisias on Colour”. In: Bydén, B., Radovic, F. (eds) The Parva naturalia in Greek, Arabic and Latin Aristotelianism. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26904-7_5
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