Sense Perception and Illusion in Aristotle and Ibn Sina

Abstract

The perception is one of the new fields of contemporary philosophy, which focuses on the main object of perception and the possibility of ordinary conception of perception. The core of the problem of perception is illusion and hallucination; In such a way that the response to the problem of illusion and hallucination is considered to determine our response to the true object of perception. Aristotle and Muslim Peripatetic Philosophers, especially Ibn Sina, paid attention to sensory error, but they did not consider it as a basis for the theory of perception. In this paper, relying on the argument of sensory error, we show that there are two meanings of sensory error in Aristotle, which lead to two conceptions of perception: The meaning that requires the sense data interpretation leads to the acceptance of indirect realism, and the meaning that requires the material object interpretation leads to the acceptance of direct realism. Commentators and philosophers after Avicenna, especially Tousi, often considering something similar to sense data interpretation, have promoted a kind of indirect realism interpretation from Avicenna’s views, which has finally been accepted as the theory of mental existence. We show that according to Razi’s considerations, it is possible to interpret a material object interpretation for sensory error in Ibn Sina, just like Aristotle, and therefore, a kind of direct realism can be attributed to Ibn Sina, which is consistent with sensory and imaginary perception being material in Ibn Sina’s philosophy.

Keywords

• aristotle
• ibn sina
• sensory perception
• error
• sense data interpretation
• material object interpretation
• indirect realism
• direct realism