Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
Having completed his general account of the nature of mind and the way this makes thinking possible, Aristotle considers in some detail the basic objects of thought: those about which we think truly as the special sensibles are those perceived truly. His treatment of intellect further resembles the inquiry into sense perception, since, after treating the nature of sense in ii 5, he discusses the various sensible objects in some detail in ii 6, and now after dealing with mind in iii 4–5, he takes up the objects of thought in iii 6. As in ii 5 there is some preliminary consideration of the sensible objects (see 417b19–28), so in iii 4.429b10–22 there is brief attention to the objects of intellection, though the fuller treatment occurs here in iii 6. Also the way thought draws its objects together as one will receive attention in iii 6, somewhat comparable to sense's drawing things together as he discusses in iii 2. Aristotle has been speaking rather as if all knowledge were the theoretical knowledge of essences. Thought may be about these primarily, but it also extends to more objects. Presumably he supposes all thinking explicable, much as all sense-perceiving, if he can account for its most basic kinds and objects. In addition, by showing the possible breadth of thought, he begins to justify his initial assumption from iii 4 that thought can think all things.
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