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In an act of perceiving the attributes of the substance are abstracted from it. Likewise sense organs have abstract functions: an eyeball sees not qua eye but qua seeing; it feels the eyelash not qua seeing but qua touching.The properties special to a particular sense are all accidents of their substances: the shapes and colors of seeing; the sounds of hearing etc. When they are in the relation of perceiving, they are relata abstracted from these accidents and are not fully determinate. What is perceived represents the attributes of the substance but not in a perfect reflection.Common perceptibles like shape and motion are perceived through the special sense organs but in another capacity: an eyeball perceives motion not in virtue of the visual sense but in virtue of the common sense . They are perceived per accidens but not fallaciously so. Common perceptibles like motion are constructed by both abstracting and then combining perceptions. Aristotle allows for error in perceiving, less so with special perceptibles than with the common ones; more so in perceiving per accidens than in perceiving per se. He recognizes two sorts of per accidens perception : one where the special perceptibles are used in constructing the common perceptibles , like motion ; the other based on collateral information, as with identifying the hooded man as the son of Diares. The fallacy of accident can come about typically in the latter case.Perceptions provide the material from which universal concepts are abstracted. Universals exist in re; science is of these universals.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-04759-1_5

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