Call for papers
CALL FOR PAPERS
Azafea, Vol. 28 (2026)
Monograph: Aristotle and the Theory of Perception
Coordinator: Javier Aoiz Monreal (Universidad de Santiago de Chile)
In the introduction to his influential 1987 book Aisthesis. Grundzüge und Perspektiven der Aristotelischen Sinneslehre, Wolfgang Welsch pointed out that, surprisingly, there was no monograph devoted to Aristotle's theory of perception at the time. Since the publication of Welsch's book, monographs on the topic have multiplied. The articles are innumerable.
If we consider the course of these studies, we can see a progressive textual and thematic broadening that can already be seen in Welsch's book. To the consideration of On the Soul, which traditionally constituted the central reference for the study of perception in Aristotle, the treatises that make up the Parva Naturalia were first added; later, Aristotle's biological works were incorporated. This textual broadening has been accompanied by a thematic broadening that, in turn, has awakened the interest of interpreters of the theory of perception in areas of Aristotelian thought, such as ethics or rhetoric, which had not been carefully considered from that perspective.
Interpreters have tried to do justice to the richness of Aristotle's theory of perception by highlighting how the sensitive faculty constitutes for Aristotle a complex unit in a double sense. On the one hand, the sensitive faculty is made up of three modalities or "subfaculties", if we use the term proposed by Ronald Polansky: the perceptive faculty itself, the desiderative faculty, and the representative or imaginative faculty. On the other hand, the sensitive faculty belongs to the specific whole constituted by the human being and is immersed in multiple intersections and bidirectional connections with the nutritive and intellectual faculties.
From the first point of view, the habitual examination of the plurality of the senses and the typology of the sensibles is shown as an initial analytical moment that opens the way to the consideration of a great variety of achievements oriented towards the survival of animals and, in the case of human beings, to the full deployment of their theoretical and practical capacities. The intra and interspecific discrimination of the sensibles, perceptive reflexivity, pleasure and pain, desire and displacement, memory, experience, sleep and wakefulness, dreams, illusions and hallucinations, the revision of cognitive acts, are some of these notable achievements.
Under the second aspect, the traditional focus on the genetic and epistemic dependence of the intellect on perception has been complemented by the recognition that while the so-called “inferior” faculties are certainly a necessary condition of the “superior” ones, the latter, in turn, enrich and enhance the “inferior” ones, which underlines the need to study the sensitive faculty from the specific unity that animals and human beings form. Given that the sensitive, nutritional and intellectual faculties are made up of various “subfaculties,” it is easy to glimpse the density and complexity of their interdependencies and the effort that interpreters must make to clarify them. It is not surprising, therefore, that they have resorted to and contributed to contemporary debates about perception and have also explored the long and plural Aristotelian tradition to unravel interpretative presuppositions and probe enlightening proposals. It can thus be said that the Aristotelian theory of the sensitive faculty, as has occurred with Aristotle's practical philosophy, has aroused great interest in recent decades, which can also be explained by Aristotle's acumen in the face of a reality such as perception, which he recognized as easy and available to everyone (Metaphysics 982a11-12) but at the same time extremely elusive when it comes to its conceptualization.
In this monographic volume we aim to offer a sample of the richness and current interest of Aristotle's theory of the sensitive faculty and invite reflection on questions such as the following:
-Modalities of perceptual reflexivity
-Desire, fantasy and pleasure
-Ontology of perception
-Perception and survival
-Perceptual deprivations
-Perception and attention
-Errors, illusions and hallucinations
-The typology of sensibles
-Human perception and animal perception
-Realisations of perception and thought
-Perception, concept and judgement
-Connections between the perceptual and nutritional faculties
-Pain
-Memory and experience
-Perception, fantasy and emotion
-Sleep and wakefulness
-Perception and displacement
-Praxis and perception
-Perception of time
All manuscripts received must comply with Azafea's publication standards (https://revistas.usal.es/dos/index.php/0213-3563/about/submissions) and will be evaluated by the double-blind system. Submissions are accepted in Spanish, English, French, Italian and Portuguese.
Javier Aoiz Monreal
The reception of articles is open until 15 January 2026.