Here is a fact about humans: we use our senses to pick up on things around us and our intellect to understand whatever is out there to be understood. In Mind and World in Aristotle’s De Anima, Kelsey argues that this fact is, in Aristotle’s view, in need of an explanation. He finds one in De Anima 3.8’s suggestion that “intelligence [is] form of forms, and sensibility form of sensibilia” (432a2–3; quoted on p. 2). Roughly, his proposal is that our sensibility and intelligence “enter into the very idea” of their objects; they know them because they help make them what they are (20).This is an admirably adventurous thesis, and Kelsey’s arguments for it are likewise so. A particular strength, in fact, is the way the book brings out what is at stake philosophically in familiar and seemingly obscure doctrines alike. Two highlights, which I discuss below, are its discussions of how Aristotle’s engagement with his predecessors shapes his questions (and then makes it hard to answer them) and of how his account of perceptible qualities helps him meet this challenge. This book is therefore a significant contribution to scholarship on the De Anima (DA), and it will be of great value to scholars working on Aristotle’s philosophy of mind. Part of what makes it valuable, moreover, is how it encourages us to ask better questions about core Aristotelian doctrines: while some of Kelsey’s proposals (especially his account of per se causation, which I discuss below) are provocative, they are always productively so.The introduction sets up Kelsey’s core question. It is: “What about” our sensibility and intelligence “makes” them “subject[s] of” some “attribute” (6)? What must they be they like—in their essence (8)—to know what they do? The next three chapters argue that the DA is concerned to answer this question, and, moreover, to do so in a particular way: to show why sensibility and intelligence know “real beings” as they really are—not as they appear.Kelsey’s argument for this claim is a highlight of the book. It takes off from the observation that DA 2.5 answers two foundational questions in a way that, according to DA 3.3, should be problematic. These are: (A) whether perceivers and perceptibles “are like or unlike,” and (B) “whether perceiving is a matter of ‘being affected’ or ‘altered’” (40). The difficulty is that 2.5 wants to answer that perception is (A∗) like-by-like and (B∗) a case of being altered—where 3.3 suggests that those very commitments got Aristotle’s predecessors into trouble. Those thinkers held that “both understanding and judging are held to be like a kind of perceiving” (427a17–b6), apparently because they thought these are (A∗) like-by-like and (B∗) being altered (43).This “diagnosis,” Kelsey argues, is interesting because it “connects” (A∗) and (B∗) to another question: whether “how things are” just is “how they appear” (43). (A∗), for instance, reflects the view that “our judgments are … the mere projecting of a random and fluctuating piece of ourselves,” so that that our “verdicts” are like us, not things as they are (45). And (B∗) expresses the view (roughly) that in acquiring the state in virtue of which we perceive and judge, we come to judge differently (because we get altered), but not better. This puts the resulting judgments—also alterations—all “on a par,” so that all appearances are true (47–49). The upshot is that what lies behind (A) and (B) is the question of whether knowledge and perception get at things as they really are (43).How, then, can 2.5 safely claim that perceiving is like-by-like and a case of being altered? Kelsey’s answer is that it revises (A∗) and (B∗) to avoid the difficulties 3.3 identifies. The improved version of (A∗) turns out to be an application of the view that “having been affected by something is a matter of having become what the affecting agent is in the business of making things be” (53). This principle then does important work: applied to perception, it entails that it belongs “to colors by nature to be seen.” This means that we are like the things we perceive because it is in their nature to make us be like them—and so we perceive them as they are, not as they appear (54–55). (B∗) gets likewise qualified: one way of being altered—which perceivers experience in perception—is “being busy upon [one’s] appointed work” (58).This is an ingenious argument with significant upshots. One is a richer sense of the importance 2.5 attaches to (A) and (B). Another is a clearer sense of the work that Aristotle’s theory of per se causation can do—and the questions that we need to ask about it. This emerges from Kelsey’s discussion of the principle that “having been affected by something is a matter of having become what the affecting agent is in the business of making things be,” which he glosses as the claim that “(accidents apart) the way things interact is in line with their respective natures” (54).Kelsey’s account of this principle is a welcome and important addition to the literature, and it will undoubtedly spark debate. In Kelsey’s formulation, the principle is quite strong—as, indeed, it needs to be in order to justify the claim that it is in the nature of colors to be seen by us. Kelsey’s idea appears to be that the principle lets us take the full specification of the effect of an agent’s exercising some power on a patient and read off it the correct specification of that power. In Kelsey’s example, “pavement does not just happen to afford automobiles a smooth ride, that is what it is for” (54). Pavement’s effect is a smooth ride—because it has in its nature a power for this. (Thus, the agent’s “business” is what it has “a power of making things be”—its “defining work” [53].)If this is right, there is pressure to ensure we specify the effect from which we read off the agent’s power in just the right way. At a minimum, we must find the per se effect. After all, while mudflats do afford cars a smooth ride, their per se effect on cars is something else—for they, unlike pavement, surely do not have a power for affording smooth rides. The lesson is that our specification of the effect should omit things it is not plausible to think the agent has a power for. This sharpening, however, may make us wonder about the idea that in being perceived, a perceptible object exercises a power for “revealing itself” to sentient creatures (55)—a claim that is an important piece of groundwork for Kelsey’s ultimate view that sensibility is part of the form of perceptible objects.Another question concerns how best to characterize the dialectic between Aristotle and his predecessors about (A∗). In Kelsey’s discussion of 3.3, the relata of the likeness are “the qualities of the persons passing judgment” and the “verdicts” they issue (“what judges ‘see’”) (45). In his discussion of 2.5, they are “sentient creatures” and the “objects they perceive”—which “appear as they do thanks in part to something of them” (54–55). These two formulations raise an interesting question about the extent to which Aristotle is maintaining his predecessors’ picture of the explanandum: if the objects’ “appear[ing]” this way is the “verdict” we issue, he will have kept his predecessors’ formulation of the relata and revised his explanation of their likeness—but if it is their effect on sentient creatures while they are perceiving, he will have modified their conception of the relata too.With this groundwork in place, the next two chapters introduce two ingredients in Kelsey’s answer to his original question. The first builds on his account of like-by-like causation; this, he argues, requires “likeness in form” (69). The second expands on those forms, appealing to the notion of a “measure.” Measures, Kelsey argues, are not just like but also “conceptually prior to the objects known by them” (85). Purple, for instance, lies on a spectrum characterized by a “mean” or “middle”; moreover, it is “in the nature of” purple to lie “on one side or the other” of that middle (92–95). But, the next chapter argues, this middle is itself defined with reference to sensibility—which is its measure (see also 434a9; quoted on p. 100). When DA 2.12 defines sensibility as “a kind of ratio” (424a27–28)—itself a middle (424a4–5)—its point is that sensibility is a form that is the measure of perceptible forms (103–17). The upshot is that sensibility knows purple, because sensibility “enter[s] into” purple’s nature (90–91; see also 112–17). Something similar holds in the case of intelligence. The last two chapters therefore argue, roughly, that intelligence is a measure of its objects, insofar as “the clarity and distinctness which characterize its activity are (as it were) the very form” of those objects—what makes them intelligible (154).This section again sheds helpful new light on familiar doctrines. In Kelsey’s hands, Aristotle’s view that sensibility is a “middle” is not just an arcane detail or a convenient explanation of our ability to discriminate a variety of qualities but a reflection of their very nature—one that is well equipped to explain why we perceive them as they are. Kelsey’s book is to be commended not only for sketching a promising new position but for compelling us to get clear on what it would be to answer the question it addresses.Kelsey’s reasoning here, of course, is not uncontroversial. Consider his claim that where qualities lie on a spectrum, “each particular quality” “will lie” either “in the middle” or “on one side of the spectrum,” “by its very nature” (95). Why “by its very nature”? Kelsey’s answer is that it is “composed of” contraries according to a particular “ratio” (94)—one that makes it lie in such a position “in its very own nature” (94). But if this is the evidence that perceptible qualities are defined with reference to the middle, it may be challenging to reject the alternative view that they are “defined by the ‘ratios’” of contraries (95n18).1 For the reason they are defined with reference to the middle is that their ratio gives them the features that situate them with respect to it—and it is hard to see how the ratio can do this if it is not in their nature.Kelsey’s position, as the book’s conclusion emphasizes, is a surprising one: it assigns “a kind of priority—the priority of measure to measured” to sensibility and intelligence to what they perceive and understand (159). This, I would emphasize, is a welcome surprise: by clearly identifying the considerations that might push Aristotle to such a position, Kelsey’s excellent book opens up new questions and makes sure we think hard about what they are asking.Many thanks to Reier Helle for helpful comments on a draft of this review.

中文翻译：

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亚里士多德《论阿尼玛》中的心灵与世界

这是关于人类的一个事实：我们用我们的感官来感知周围的事物，用我们的智力来理解任何需要理解的事物。在亚里士多德的《论阿尼玛》中的《心灵与世界》中，凯尔西认为，在亚里士多德看来，这一事实需要解释。他在《De Anima》3.8 的建议中发现了这一点：“智力是形式的形式，感性形式的感性”（432a2-3；第 2 页引用）。粗略地说，他的建议是，我们的感性和智慧“融入到他们的物体的想法中”；他们了解他们，因为他们帮助他们成为他们自己（20）。这是一个令人钦佩的冒险论文，凯尔西的论点同样如此。事实上，本书的一个独特优势在于它揭示了人们熟悉的和看似晦涩难懂的学说中的哲学问题。我在下面讨论的两个亮点是，讨论了亚里士多德与他的前辈的接触如何塑造了他的问题（然后使回答这些问题变得困难），以及他对可感知品质的描述如何帮助他应对这一挑战。因此，本书是对《De Anima》（DA）学术的重大贡献，对于研究亚里士多德心灵哲学的学者来说将具有巨大的价值。此外，它的价值部分在于它如何鼓励我们对亚里士多德的核心学说提出更好的问题：虽然凯尔西的一些建议（特别是他对本身因果关系的解释，我将在下面讨论）具有挑衅性，但它们总是富有成效的引言提出了凯尔西的核心问题。它是：“我们的感性和智力”如何“使”它们“成为”某种“属性”的“主体”（6）？他们必须是什么样的人——本质上（8）——才能知道他们在做什么？接下来的三章认为，DA 关心的是回答这个问题，而且，以一种特殊的方式来做：展示为什么感性和智力了解“真实的存在”，因为它们实际上是——而不是它们表现出来的。凯尔西的论点因为这一主张是本书的一大亮点。根据观察，DA 2.5 回答了两个基本问题，而根据 DA 3.3，这应该是有问题的。它们是：（A）感知者和可感知物“相似还是不同”，以及（B）“感知是否是‘受到影响’或‘改变’的问题”（40）。困难在于，2.5 想要回答感知是（A*）相似和（B*）被改变的情况——其中 3.3 表明正是这些承诺让亚里士多德的前辈陷入了麻烦。这些思想家认为“理解和判断都被认为是一种感知”（427a17-b6），显然是因为他们认为这些是（A*）相似和（B*）被改变的（43）凯尔西认为，这种“诊断”很有趣，因为它“连接”了（A*）和（B*）到另一个问题：“事物是如何”是否就是“它们如何出现”（43）。(A*)，例如，反映了这样一种观点：“我们的判断……仅仅是我们自己随机且波动的一部分的投射”，因此我们的“判断”就像我们，而不是事物本来的样子（45）。(B*) 表达了这样一种观点：在获得我们感知和判断的状态时，我们会做出不同的判断（因为我们被改变了），但不是更好。这使得由此产生的判断——以及改变——全部“同等”，因此所有的表象都是真实的（47-49）。结果是，(A)和(B)背后的问题是知识和知觉是否能如实了解事物的本来面目(43)。那么，2.5如何安全地声称知觉是相似的和被改变的情况？凯尔西的答案是，它修改了(A*)和(B*)以避免3.3中指出的困难。(A*) 的改进版本被证明是“受到某物影响就是成为影响事物的因素”这一观点的应用（53）。这一原则发挥了重要作用：应用于感知，它意味着它属于“本质上是可见的颜色”。这意味着我们就像我们所感知的事物一样，因为它们的本质使我们变得像它们一样——所以我们感知它们的本来面目，而不是它们的外表（54-55）。(B*)同样得到限定：一种被改变的方式——感知者在感知中体验到的——是“忙于[一个]指定的工作”(58)。这是一个巧妙的论点，具有重要的结果。一是对 2.5 中 (A) 和 (B) 的重要性有了更丰富的认识。另一个是对亚里士多德本身因果关系理论可以做的工作以及我们需要提出的问题有更清晰的认识。这源于凯尔西对以下原则的讨论：“受到某物的影响就是成为影响事物的因素”，他将其解释为这样的主张：“（除了意外之外）事物的方式相互作用符合它们各自的性质”（54）。凯尔西对这一原则的解释是对文献的欢迎和重要补充，毫无疑问会引发争论。在凯尔西的表述中，这一原则非常有力——事实上，为了证明颜色是我们所看到的颜色的本质这一主张的合理性，它需要如此。凯尔西的想法似乎是，该原则让我们能够全面了解代理人对患者行使某种权力的效果，并读出该权力的正确规范。在凯尔西的例子中，“人行道不仅仅是为了让汽车平稳行驶，这就是它的用途”（54）。人行道的效果是平稳行驶——因为它本质上具有实现这一点的力量。（因此，代理人的“业务”就是它拥有“使事情成为现实的力量”——它的“定义工作”[53]。）如果这是正确的，那么就有压力确保我们指定我们读出的效果以正确的方式发挥代理人的力量。至少，我们必须找到其本身的效果。毕竟，虽然泥滩确实能让汽车平稳行驶，但它们本身对汽车的影响却是另一回事——因为它们与人行道不同，肯定不具备让汽车平稳行驶的能力。教训是，我们对效果的说明应该忽略那些认为代理人拥有权力的事情是不合理的。然而，这种锐化可能会让我们对这样一个想法感到好奇，即在被感知时，可感知的物体行使了向有感知力的生物“展示自己”的能力（55）——这一主张是凯尔西的最终观点的重要基础，即感性是可感知对象形式的一部分。另一个问题涉及如何最好地描述亚里士多德和他的前辈之间关于（A*）的辩证法。在凯尔西对 3.3 的讨论中，相似性的关系是“做出判断的人的品质”和他们发布的“裁决”（“法官‘看到’的东西”）（45）。在他对 2.5 的讨论中，它们是“有感知的生物”和“它们感知的物体”——“它们的出现部分归功于它们的某些东西”（54-55）。这两个表述提出了一个有趣的问题，即亚里士多德在多大程度上维持了他的前辈对被解释物的描述：如果物体以这种方式“出现”是我们发布的“裁决”，那么他将保留他的前辈的解释。关系的表述，并修改了他对它们相似性的解释——但如果这是它们在感知时对有知觉的生物的影响，他也会修改他们对关系的概念。有了这个基础，接下来的两章介绍两个成分凯尔西对他原来的问题的回答。第一个建立在他对相似因果关系的解释之上。他认为，这需要“形式相似”（69）。第二个扩展了这些形式，诉诸“措施”的概念。凯尔西认为，测量不仅与他们所知道的物体相似，而且“在概念上先于他们所知道的物体”（85）。例如，紫色位于以“中间”或“中间”为特征的光谱上；此外，紫色的“本质”是位于中间的“一侧或另一侧”（92-95）。但是，下一章认为，这个中间本身是根据敏感性来定义的——这是它的衡量标准（另见 434a9；第 100 页引用）。当DA 2.12将感性定义为“一种比率”（424a27-28）时——它本身就是一个中间值（424a4-5）——其要点是感性是一种形式，是可感知形式的度量（103-17）。结果是感性认识紫色，因为感性“进入”紫色的本质（90-91；另见112-17）。智力方面也存在类似的情况。因此，最后两章粗略地认为，智力是其对象的一种衡量标准，因为“表征其活动的清晰度和独特性（可以说）正是这些对象的形式”——是什么使它们变得可理解（154） .本节再次对熟悉的学说提供了有益的新见解。在凯尔西的手中，亚里士多德认为感性是“中间”的观点不仅仅是一个神秘的细节或对我们区分各种品质的能力的方便解释，而且反映了它们的本质——它很好地解释了为什么我们感知它们的本来面目。 。凯尔西的书值得赞扬，不仅因为它勾勒出一个有前途的新立场，而且因为它迫使我们弄清楚如何回答它所提出的问题。当然，凯尔西在这里的推理并不是没有争议的。考虑一下他的主张，即当品质位于一个范围内时，“每种特定品质”“将位于”“中间”或“在范围的一侧”，“就其本质而言”（95）。为什么“就其本质而言”？凯尔西的回答是，它是根据特定的“比例”（94）由对立物“组成”的——这个比例使其“以其自身的本质”处于这样的位置（94）。但如果这是可感知的品质是参考中间来定义的证据，那么拒绝另一种观点，即它们是“由相反的‘比率’定义的”（95n18）1，可能会具有挑战性。 1 因为它们被定义的原因与中间的关系是，他们的比例赋予了他们相对于中间的特征——如果不符合他们的本性，很难看出这个比例如何做到这一点。凯尔西的立场，正如书的结论所强调的那样，令人惊讶的是：它将“一种优先权——测量的优先权”分配给他们感知和理解的敏感性和智力（159）。我要强调的是，这是一个令人欢迎的惊喜：通过清楚地确定可能将亚里士多德推向这样的立场的考虑因素，凯尔西的优秀著作提出了新的问题，并确保我们认真思考他们所提出的问题。非常感谢赖尔·海勒（Reier Helle）对本次审查的草稿提出了有用的评论。1 因为它们是参考中间来定义的，因为它们的比例赋予了它们相对于中间的特征——如果不符合它们的本性，很难看出比例如何做到这一点。凯尔西的立场正如该书的结论所强调的那样，这是一个令人惊讶的问题：它将“一种优先权——衡量的优先权”分配给他们感知和理解的敏感性和智力（159）。我要强调的是，这是一个令人欢迎的惊喜：通过清楚地确定可能将亚里士多德推向这样的立场的考虑因素，凯尔西的优秀著作提出了新的问题，并确保我们认真思考他们所提出的问题。非常感谢赖尔·海勒（Reier Helle）对本次审查的草稿提出了有用的评论。1 因为它们是参考中间来定义的，因为它们的比例赋予了它们相对于中间的特征——如果不符合它们的本性，很难看出比例如何做到这一点。凯尔西的立场正如该书的结论所强调的那样，这是一个令人惊讶的问题：它将“一种优先权——衡量的优先权”分配给他们感知和理解的敏感性和智力（159）。我要强调的是，这是一个令人欢迎的惊喜：通过清楚地确定可能将亚里士多德推向这样的立场的考虑因素，凯尔西的优秀著作提出了新的问题，并确保我们认真思考他们所提出的问题。非常感谢赖尔·海勒（Reier Helle）对本次审查的草稿提出了有用的评论。