Abstract

This chapter begins the structural analysis of Aquinas’s theory of sensation and perception, which is divided into two segments: the first concerns the objects of sensation and perception, and the second concerns the faculties of sensation and perception. In Aquinas’s analysis of sense knowledge, all four categories—dispositions (powers), faculties, acts, and objects—are necessary conditions for awareness. This chapter develops an analysis of the proper and common sensibles in Aquinas’s theory of perception, and notes the distinction between sense organ and sense faculty. It also discusses the importance of the inner sense of the _vis cogitativa_ and its connection with the incidental object of sense, which is the primary substance in Aristotelian metaphysics.