Plato's Theory of Perception

Abstract

This dissertation defends the view that in a number of later dialogues (Theaetetus, Philebus, Timaeus, Sophist, as well as, incidentally, the earlier Phaedo) Plato articulates a coherent and systematic account, and thus a theory, of perception. The theory, I argue, is made up of the following three claims: (1A) The perceiving subject is not the individual sense organs, but rather the unified soul, and (1B) this is the very same subject as the subject of thought. (2A) The objects of perception are simple sense qualities only, (2B) the objects of perception are not, at least immediately, external to the perceiver, but these internal objects of perception are, at least in many cases, causally related to external objects. (3) Although, according to Plato, perception, as cognitive act, is carried out by the soul, Plato develops an account of the physiology of perception, and in particular of how the body and the sense organs are involved in the causal perceptual process.