The last thing: perception of value in Aristotle

This thesis defends the view that, for Aristotle, perception is a mode of cognition capable of grasping particulars, including (and especially) under value descriptions. It begins by identifying the Two Worlds Problem that motivates Aristotle’s repeated deference to perception. Deliberation alone will never reach the concrete individual captured in a demonstrative thought standardly expressed as ‘This loaf here’. But without such a cognition, we would never be able to act in the world. I then defend the view that perceptual content includes kind properties and so is sufficient to provide the object acquaintance necessary for demonstrative thought. I do this by showing that Aristotle is committed to the Conscious Attention Thesis, which entails the Content View, the view that our perceptual experiences have structure and content and, therefore, contain kind properties since to attend to something is to grasp it as a such-and-such. I then argue that perceptual content also includes value properties. I do this by showing that Aristotle’s account of the passions entails a commitment to the Perception of Value Thesis. Therefore perception can grasp not only that this is a man or that is a loaf but it can also grasp that this man is brave or that loaf is baked just right. This is how Aristotle avoids his own Two Worlds Problem: we have two modes of cognition that can be coördinate. I confront a major objection to this picture, which is that the psychic faculty of phantasia performs the work of grasping evaluative appearance (and appearance more generally). I reject this interpretation and argue for a deflationary view of phantasia. Finally, I show a major advantage to my view, which is that it solves a riddle in Aristotle’s account of akrasia in NE 7.3.