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Perception and senses

Sense-specific discrimination

τὰ ἀλλήλων κρίνειν (ta allēlōn krinein); τὸ αἰσθητόν (to aisthēton)

Krinein is to distinguish or judge; here the phrase concerns a sense's capacity to judge objects belonging to another sense.

From the book

Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II

Empedocles of Acragas · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordKrinein is to distinguish or judge; here the phrase concerns a sense's capacity to judge objects belonging to another sense.
  • In this workTheophrastus reports that senses cannot judge each other's objects because their passages are too wide or too narrow for the alien perceptible.
  • In this edition“Judge” should not be read as conscious inference added to sensation.
  • A place to readExplains why each sense cannot judge the objects of the others.

Meaning

Krinein is to distinguish or judge; here the phrase concerns a sense's capacity to judge objects belonging to another sense. “Sense-specific discrimination” is an English organizing headword, not an ancient compound supplied by the source.

Use in the book

Theophrastus reports that senses cannot judge each other's objects because their passages are too wide or too narrow for the alien perceptible. This explains specificity through the relation of receiver and entrant, rather than by positing an additional judgment exercised after reception. Too-small material passes without touching; too-large material cannot get in.

At §15 this explanation becomes evidence against likeness as an independent principle. The report has specified differences of size, Theophrastus says, without further specifying whether the effluent is like or unlike. Thus sensory exclusivity and the general likeness thesis may pull in different directions. At §19 he asks more concretely how sound, smell, and flavour could be judged by a like quality already present in their respective organs. The entry concerns the distribution of sensory powers and their objects, not a theory of intellectual discrimination in general.

Places to read

  1. A 86 §§ 7–8 (testimony)2Theophrastus, On the Senses 7. Explains why each sense cannot judge the objects of the others.
  2. A 86 §§ 14–15 (polemical)Theophrastus, On the Senses 15. Uses the size-based explanation to question the role of likeness.
  3. A 86 §§ 18–19 (polemical)Theophrastus, On the Senses 19. Asks what judging by likeness would mean for the nonvisual senses.

Translation in this edition

“Judge” should not be read as conscious inference added to sensation. It renders a witness's verb for sensory discrimination within a physical account.