The Internal Senses in Context

Abstract

The aim of this volume is to contribute to the discussion of the internal senses in the Aristotelian tradition. Since the Aristotelian tradition covers more than 2000 years of interpretation, commentary, criticism and innovation, and since it spans many languages, including Arabic, Greek and Latin, it would be impossible to offer an inclusive and comprehensive account of the internal senses in the Aristotelian tradition. We attempt no such thing in this volume. Our scope is limited to a handful of questions on the existence and identity conditions of the internal senses in their historical contexts and some case studies about particular internal senses, namely compositive imagination/thinking (mutahayyila/mufakkira) and estimation (wahm), on the one hand, and the relationship between memory and the theories of mixtures and motion and the logic of non-existent objects of imagination, on the other hand. The selection of cases has been based on the current research interest of the authors. The chapters are divided into two main parts: I. Central Questions in Their Historical Contexts and II. Case Studies: From Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.