Perception

Use in the book

At 159a the virtue's presence is said to supply a perception from which an opinion about what it is and what it is like could arise. This modest sequence is significant: possessing, being aware, opining and articulating are distinguishable steps. Socrates does not say that feeling temperate already amounts to an adequate philosophical definition. Indeed, the sequence immediately produces answers that fail examination.

The direction of inquiry becomes explicitly inward at 160d, when Charmides is invited to look into himself. One may connect that instruction to the earlier aisthēsis, but the connection is interpretive; Plato does not develop an account of introspection in sensory physiology.

At 167c–d sight and hearing supply separate examples, followed by the general question whether any perception perceives perceptions and itself while perceiving none of the normal perceptible objects. The final restriction is essential. This is stronger than asking whether a perceiver can notice that he perceives. Socrates later suspends judgment about the possible self-relation of sight and hearing (168e). Consequently the negative answers here do not establish a finished Platonic denial of awareness of perception.

Places to read

1. 156cSocrates asks whether Charmides has noticed the doctors’ practice
2. 158e–159aAisthēsis mediates between possession of virtue and opinion
3. 160dInward-looking instruction
4. 167c–dGeneralized perception-of-perception analogy
5. 168d–169aSelf-perception would require the relevant sensible character; judgment remains qualified

Translation in this edition

The edition uses “some sense” at 159a and “sense” in the generalizing question at 167d. Neither rendering warrants silently substituting “sense-datum”, a modern category absent from this inquiry.

αἰσθάνομαι

Attested: ᾔσθησαι / αἰσθάνονται / αἰσθανομένη (ēisthēsai / aisthanontai / aisthanomenē). To notice or perceive: Charmides is asked whether he has noticed the doctors’ practice; later the verb specifies what a hypothetical sense would perceive, namely other senses rather than their ordinary objects. References: 156c, 167d. Lexical identification: lemma: αἰσθάνομαι. See Perception.

αἴσθησις

Attested: αἴσθησίν / αἰσθήσεων / αἴσθησις / αἰσθήσεις (aisthēsin / aisthēseōn / aisthēsis / aisthēseis). A sense or awareness, initially of temperance supposedly present within oneself; later sensory perception, whose normal objects distinguish it from the proposed perception of perceptions. References: 159a, 167d. Lexical identification: lemma: αἴσθησις. See Perception.

Use in the book

The royal comparison aims to make Alcibiades perceive how far he falls short and where he stands. At 122c–d the same verb covers shame at inferior resources and recognition of his position. These perceptions can motivate care, but they are still tied to the competitive framework from which Socrates begins.

At 127d–e the focus changes to Alcibiades' shameful lack of understanding. Socrates says his present age is the right time to perceive that condition. Alcibiades asks what the person who perceives it must do. The answer is to keep responding and examine self-care. Perception of the defect is therefore a beginning, with practical and intellectual work still ahead.

At 135c Alcibiades says he perceives his condition very keenly. That awareness culminates in a promise to attend Socrates and care for justice. The ending does not establish that intensity of recognition guarantees endurance. Socrates' final fear about the city's power leaves the distinction between present awareness and sustained change intact.

Places to read

1. 122c–122dThe comparison is intended to make Alcibiades perceive his deficiencies and position
2. 127d–127ePerception of one’s condition creates an opportunity for care
3. 135c–135e2Keen awareness leads to commitment, whose endurance remains uncertain

Translation in this edition

The edition generally uses “perceive,” keeping it distinct from the “notice” involved in escaping notice. In the comic description at 121d, however, αἰσθάνονται is naturally “notice”: even the neighbors barely notice an ordinary birth.

αἰσθάνομαι

Attested: αἰσθανόμενον (aisthanomenon; 127e); αἰσθάνῃ (aisthanēi; 135c). At 127e: The person aware of his condition, who asks what he must now do to improve it. At 135c: Perceive one's present unfree condition, a recognition that leads to Alcibiades' promise of continued care. Lexical identification: lemma: αἰσθάνομαι. See Perception.

Use in the book

The report under Epicurus’s name uses the word for both capacity and experienced activity. The Philebus excerpt describes a shared movement of soul and body. Other notices distinguish perceptions from impressions or join perception to assent and apprehension.

Places to read

1. I.50.1Perception names both capacity and activity in the Epicurean report.
2. I.50.2bA shared bodily and psychic movement is called perception.
3. I.50.20A Stoic report distinguishes perceptions from impressions.
4. I.50.21.1The truth of perception is distinguished from the truth of belief.
5. I.49.25.3A claim about virtue requires assent to be in our control.
6. I.49.24.6The perceptive capacity is distinguished through its use of organs.
7. I.1.34bPerceptual activity is coordinated with thought and assent.

Translation in this edition

“Perception” is the usual singular rendering; “senses” suits the enumeration of faculties. “Sensation” should not be assumed to exhaust the word’s cognitive range.

Truth and the several senses

The Epicurean report assigns truth to every perception and impression while allowing beliefs to be false. The discussion of assent asks a different question: can perception share in virtue unless assent belongs among things in our control? The chapters on individual senses then examine material conditions such as incoming images, striking air, inhaled odors, and intervening liquids. A general definition of perception does not settle these separate questions about truth, responsibility, and physical mechanism.

The perceptive capacity

Aisthētikon names the perceptive capacity, while related forms describe perceiving or being affected perceptually. I.49.24.6 explicitly contrasts the faculty’s use of organs with imagination without them. In I.1.34b the adverb aisthētikōs describes being moved in perception, alongside thought and assent. These grammatical forms describe related activities without requiring identical classifications.

Use in the book

Against the reported claim that perception produces attention, Joubert replies that attention prepares perception and often precedes it in a formed person. He acknowledges the objection concerning the first perception and first attention, but the final reply breaks off. No completed solution should be supplied. Another paragraph inserts distance and an interval between senses and perceptions, impacts and responses: the repeated calming verbs resist a simple picture of immediate reaction. Elsewhere perception can be present without clarity, warmth, movement or feeling. In the Malebranche note, however, perceiving premises belongs with intuition, in contrast to reasoning toward a conclusion. These uses show why perception need not mean merely registering an external sensation.

Places to read

1. I, p. 282, entry 1, ¶1Attention can prepare perception, but the reply remains unfinished.
2. I, p. 290, entry 10, ¶1An interval separates sensory impact from perception and determination.
3. II, p. 605, entry 7, ¶2Perception is allowed without clarity or feeling.
4. II, p. 776, entry 1, ¶1Perception of premises differs from reasoning or conclusion.

Translation in this edition

The English translation keeps perception in all four contexts. “This can... otherwise” preserves the unfinished response to Condillac. The interval paragraph retains all five spatial and temporal nouns rather than supplying a physiological mechanism. Self-evidence renders évidence in the Malebranche note, where perception is explicitly intellectual.

Use in the book

Theophrastus begins by arranging theories of perception around likeness and opposition, then credits Empedocles with extending likeness to the individual senses. His positive account adds a mechanical requirement: something must fit the passages of the relevant sense. Perception therefore needs to be read at two explanatory levels, elemental affinity and the geometry of access. Sight, hearing, and smell receive different descriptions, while taste and touch receive no separate mechanism in his account.

The objections are indispensable to understanding the limits of that exposition. Theophrastus asks why the same fit should not make lifeless things perceive, why inner fire is the perceiver rather than outer fire, and how perception begins if passages are always occupied. These are consequences he draws, not admissions attributed to Empedocles. Later he argues that a single mechanism cannot adequately distinguish perceiving, thinking, pleasure, pain, and ignorance. He also insists that reproducing a sound inside the ear does not yet explain hearing it.

A lexicon must accordingly preserve distinctions that the polemic alleges have collapsed. Perception is not simply identical with mixture in an unqualified Empedoclean statement; that identification is a reductio at §12. Nor does the report of near-identity between thought and sensation settle every use of knowing in the chapter. The dossier presents a reconstruction under sustained critical pressure, not a neutral textbook of an intact system.

Places to read

1. A 86 §§ 1–2 (testimony)Theophrastus, On the Senses 1. Places Empedocles among thinkers who explain perception by the like.
2. A 86 §§ 7–8 (testimony)2Theophrastus, On the Senses 7. Explains perception through fitting and sense-specific passage widths.
3. A 86 §§ 12–13 (polemical)Theophrastus, On the Senses 12. Infers that mixture, growth, and perception become indistinguishable without an added difference.
4. A 86 §§ 22–23 (polemical)Theophrastus, On the Senses 23. Charges the account with collapsing cognitive and affective states.

Translation in this edition

The English translation alternates “perception,” “sense,” and “perceiving” according to context. The introduction's praise of Theophrastus must not erase the difference between his report (§§7–11) and objections (§§12–24).