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Book I Chapter 48

5.5 · Intellect turns toward itself

With intellect, however, apprehension does not occur in this way, but through its turning into itself and contemplating itself. For if it ceased to behold its own activities and to be the eye of its own activities ⟨producing⟩ the sight, it would think nothing. As there were perception and the perceptible, then, so there are intellect and the intelligible.¹²³⁰

5.6 · Intellect and imagination distinguished

Perception contemplates by extending outward and finding the perceptible situated ⟨in⟩ matter; intellect does so by gathering into itself, without extending outward at all. Some also took it in this way, ⟨not even⟩ making a distinction of name between the subsistence of intellect and ⟨that⟩ of imagination.¹²³¹ For they had judged imagination in a rational living creature to be thinking. But [if], for those who made everything depend on matter and corporeal nature, it was consistent to make intellect depend on these too.¹²³²

5.7 · Intelligibles have no external place

But our ⟨intellect⟩ contemplates incorporeal and different substances: where, then, will it find them situated when it apprehends them? Since they are outside matter, these things would be nowhere. It is clear, ⟨then⟩, that as intellectual things they will be gathered together by thinking. [And] accordingly, if intellectual things ⟨enter⟩ intellect, [and the intelligible,] it will also contemplate itself when it thinks the intelligibles; and in entering itself it thinks because it enters them.¹²³³

5.8 · The conclusion: unity precedes multiplicity

If the intelligibles [too] are many (for intellect thinks many things, and not one), intellect itself too must necessarily be many [also]. But the One is prior to the many; hence the One must be prior to intellect.¹²³⁴

6.1 · Archytas: the measures of things

From Archytas, from On Intellect and Perception.

Perception occurs in body, intellect in soul. The former is a principle for perceptible things, the latter for intelligibles. For number is the measure of multitude, a foot of length, a balance of downward inclination and weight, and a rule, a plumb line, and a right angle of uprightness and straightness. So too perception is the principle and measure of perceptibles [measure], and intellect of intelligibles.¹²³⁵

6.2 · The purposes of perception and intellect

Intellect is a principle for things intelligible ⟨and⟩ primary by nature; perception for things ⟨secondary by nature and those in relation to⟩ us. For the former is a principle for soul, the latter for body. Intellect judges the most worthy things, perception the most useful. Perception is constituted for the sake of the body and the service directed to it; intellect ⟨for the sake of soul⟩ and the resourceful understanding directed to it.¹²³⁶

6.3 · Knowledge, opinion, and their objects

Intellect is the principle of knowledge, and perception of opinion; for the latter has its activity from perceptibles, the former from intelligibles. Among things, the perceptibles share in motion and change, while intelligibles share in rest and eternity.¹²³⁷

6.4 · Variable seeing and unvarying understanding

Perception and intellect stand in corresponding relations: perception to the perceptible, which moves and changes and never remains still in the same condition. Hence it is possible to see ⟨the perceptible⟩ more or less, better or worse. Intellect stands in relation to the intelligible, which is unmoving in its very being; hence one cannot understand the intelligible more or less, better or worse.¹²³⁸

6.5 · Paradigm and image

⟨And⟩ just as intellect beholds what is primary and the paradigm, so perception beholds the image and what is secondary. For intellect beholds heaven without qualification ⟨or art⟩, while perception simply beholds the sun’s sphere or those of craftsmen.¹²³⁹

6.6 · The indivisibility of intellect and form

Further, intellect is without parts and indivisible, like a unit and a point, and likewise the intelligible. For form is neither a body’s limit nor its boundary, but solely an impress of what is, insofar as it is. Perception, however, has parts and is divisible.¹²⁴⁰

6.7 · Four classes of objects

For among things that are, some are perceptible, some objects of opinion, some objects of knowledge, and some intelligible. Bodies, which have a certain resistance, are perceptible. Objects of opinion are things that participate in forms as images do, as a particular human being participates in human being, and a ⟨particular⟩ triangle in triangle. Objects of knowledge are the properties that necessarily belong to forms, as in geometry those that belong to figures. Intelligibles are the forms themselves and the principles of the objects of knowledge, such as circle itself, triangle, and sphere.¹²⁴¹

6.8 · Four kinds of cognition

In our own souls too there are four kinds of cognition: intellect, knowledge, opinion, and perception. Two are starting points of reason, namely intellect and perception; the other two are its completions, namely knowledge and opinion. Like always has the capacity to know like. It is clear, ⟨then⟩, that intellect in us knows intelligibles, knowledge knows objects of knowledge, ⟨opinion knows objects of opinion,⟩ and perception knows perceptibles.¹²⁴²

1230.Intellect’s activities themselves produce what it sees. Wachsmuth’s intraword restoration energ- changes ousōn, “being,” into energousōn, “producing” or “enacting”; the English marks the whole participle because its word structure cannot reproduce the Greek supplement. The rejected article [hē] has no separate English equivalent. The analogy pairs each power with its object without erasing the different relations just described.

1231.The transition beginning “Some also took it in this way” is strained: what “it” refers to is not secure. The next sentence clearly describes thinkers who identify imagination in a rational creature with thinking. The English retains this uncertain connection instead of silently reversing the preceding denial of outward extension. The marked “not even” follows Wachsmuth’s supplement oud’.

1232.“If” is bracketed for deletion in the Greek; the remaining sentence explains the consistency of a materialist account on its own assumptions. Apartan means to make dependent or suspend from, continuing the vocabulary of causal dependence in excerpt 4.

1233.“Our intellect” means intellect as understood in the account being defended. Wachsmuth prints “incorporeal,” corrected by Usener from “bodies,” and retains “different” rather than Usener’s proposed “more divine.” The restored verb chōrei allows the intellectual things to “enter”; the subject then shifts to intellect. The disconnected words [kai to noēton] remain visibly rejected. “Nowhere” denies a material location, not the objects’ existence.

1234.The conclusion returns to the opening claim of excerpt 5 after arguing for intellect’s identity with its objects. The two bracketed kai are rejected in the printed Greek; their English equivalents remain bracketed, with the second moved to the end of its clause for readability. The following unbracketed kai is retained as “too.”

1235.This Doric work is transmitted under Archytas’s name but belongs to the Pseudo-Archytan writings; see De Cesaris and Horky, “Hellenistic Pythagorean Epistemology” (2018). The Greek retains its dialect. The compressed list of measuring tools follows Wachsmuth, including words Meineke proposed deleting. “Principle and measure” governs both faculties in the English; the earlier redundant metron, rejected by Wachsmuth, remains bracketed.

1236.The substantial supplement after “perception” is Usener’s, printed by Wachsmuth; it restores the contrast between what is primary in nature and what is accessible to us. The soul’s purpose-clause is also supplied. Polyphradmosynē denotes breadth or resourcefulness of understanding. The contrast concerns the objects and purposes of the faculties, not an assertion that sensory service is worthless.

1237.The masculine ho de points back to intellect, paired with the feminine perception. The English therefore takes “the latter” and “the former” as those faculties, though the preceding knowledge/opinion pair also makes a conceptual contrast. Epistama (Attic epistēmē) is knowledge; doxa is opinion. The opposition between changing and unchanging objects will ground the comparison that follows.

1238.The elliptical Greek gives “perception of the perceptible” and “intellect of the intelligible,” with Doric genitives; the English makes these relations explicit. The perceptible object is a printed supplement. The wording about degrees of seeing is compressed, and admits a stronger emphasis on the object’s changing visibility. The translation takes ginetai horēn as “it is possible to see”; the contrast remains with intellect’s unvarying object. Wachsmuth records a suspected gap after “being” but prints no gap there.

1239.The printed ouranon, “heaven,” is Wachsmuth’s correction of corrupt wording; he also supplies “or art.” The final phrase, literally “the [feminine plural] of craftsmen,” lacks its noun. “Those” leaves that ellipsis visible: spheres or crafted works may be intended, but the text does not securely decide. De Cesaris and Horky (2018), pp. 248-249, discuss the uncertainty. The restored Greek article ho before “intellect” has no separate English equivalent.

1240.Monas is a unit, and stigma a geometrical point. Typōsis, “impress,” is a difficult description of form: the text contrasts it with a bodily outline or boundary rather than defining it as a physical imprint. The supplied Greek article is retained on the facing page. Meineke proposed adding an analogy between perception and a dyad and line; Wachsmuth does not print that addition, and it is not inserted here.

1241.Antitypia is resistance or impenetrability, a characteristic of bodies. The distinction between a particular triangle, its necessary properties, and triangle itself illustrates the successive kinds of object. “Participates” is carried forward from the opening participle to clarify the compressed examples. The printed neuter auto before “circle” is retained in Greek and rendered “itself”; it is not silently changed to an agreeing masculine form.

1242.The four kinds of cognition correspond to the preceding four kinds of object. Archai and telea distinguish starting points from completed results of logos, “reason.” The clause about opinion and its objects is supplied by the editor from Canter’s restoration; it completes the parallel structure. The dialectal connective ōn corresponds to oun, “then.”