Rainbows are visions, but only illusions …
Kermit T. Frog
∵
1 Introduction
Aristotle introduces a peculiar case of a man who sees an image of his own face in his discussion of rainbows in Meteorologica. Aristotle has just stated that the rainbow is a reflection and aims to explain what kind of reflection it is, how its special characteristics emerge, and the causes of these characteristics. Aristotle tells us that vision is reflected from all smooth surfaces, including air and water. He then provides this striking illustration:
Air reflects when it is condensed; but even when not condensed it can produce a reflection when the sight is weak. An example of this is what used to happen to a man whose sight was weak and unclear: he always used to see an image [eídōlon] going before him as he walked, and facing towards him. And the reason why this used to happen to him was that his vision was reflected back to him; for its enfeebled state made it so weak and faint that even the neighbouring air became a mirror and it was unable to thrust it aside.1
Aristotle’s description is likely the oldest extant diagnostic description of autoscopia (literally, “self-observation”).2 In contemporary psychiatry, autoscopy is classified as a hallucination of one’s own visual appearance located in external space. One may doubt whether Aristotle’s description really corresponds to an authentic case of hallucination in the modern clinical sense, yet Aristotle’s explanation of the phenomenon includes a non-hallucinatory case of ‘self-observation’ by means of a mirror. However, if we assume that recent descriptions of autoscopy in the psychiatric literature reflect a universal condition that existed before it was described by modern psychiatry, it does not seem too far-fetched to suppose that the case that Aristotle considers corresponds to what is currently described as a certain type of hallucination. Of course, the report may be fabricated – perhaps there really was no man who saw a face before him as the report has it. Nevertheless, while there are many uncertainties in the relevant passage, the distinct nature of the condition suggests an autoscopic hallucination as described in contemporary psychiatric literature.3
This paper illuminates two intertwined themes related to this peculiar case of self-observation. First, we will show that the correspondence between Aristotle’s description of the phenomenon and the attested psychiatric condition is valid and provocative. Second, we will examine the commentary tradition on this passage, particularly the claim regarding ‘weak perception,’ in order to show how the Aristotelian tradition dealt with aberrant or confusing cases of sense perception. By examining these themes together, we can make some progress towards disambiguating mental disorders from perceptual errors, both theoretically and in the textual tradition. For although Aristotle endorsed no distinction between somatic and mental illnesses, later theorists had to contend with such categorical distinctions: see, for example, Alwishah’s contribution to this volume (chapter four).
Since, as is common practice in contemporary psychiatric literature, such experiences are referred to as ‘hallucinations,’ we might be tempted to associate them with conditions of mental illness or (preferably) the effects of psychedelic intoxication. Nevertheless, regardless of their causes, hallucinations are habitually described as false perception-like experiences that occasionally are mistaken for cases of veridical perception. Thus, hallucinations sometimes appear in the form of trustworthy perceptions from their observer’s point of view, even if they are not. So, even if they are not perceptual errors in the form of common perceptual distortions that occur in everyday life, but rather symptoms of a disordered mind, they can still be (and are, diagnostically) described as sensory errors that appear as perceptual states.4
Moreover, as we shall see in section two, contemporary discussions in literature on sensory illusions make it clear that it is difficult to maintain a principled distinction between ‘hallucinations,’ ‘illusions,’ and ‘misperceptions’ in terms of perceptual errors involving external objects, on the one hand, and pure hallucinations, which occur in the absence of external stimuli, on the other. In fact, ‘hallucination’ as well as ‘illusion’ are often used in different ways in the modern theoretical literature.
The ambiguity pervading discussions of hallucinations, that is, as to their origins in sensory or mental deficiencies, also informed ancient and medieval commentators, who rejected Aristotle’s explanation in Meteorologica, turning instead to Aristotle’s account of sensory errors in the De insomniis in order to explain this case of self-observation. This move involved consideration of the internal factors in the mind, anticipating modern explanations of sensory illusions and hallucinations, as well as later attempts to distinguish between misperceptions, illusions (including persistent systematic perceptual illusions), and hallucinations.
Even when it is taken to indicate a special case of false perceptual awareness, rather than a symptom of mental illness, applying the term “hallucination” to the Aristotelian framework is problematic for a number of reasons. Aristotle does not use any straightforward equivalent of the term hallucination in the Greek. Instead Aristotle uses the term pseûdos (falsehood) as a generic word for sensory errors (e.g. Insomn. 1, 459a6), but it is not applied in this case. Further, Aristotle does not distinguish between misperception, illusion, and hallucination in a way that reflects divisions in modern literature. For example, he does not make any kind of distinction between ‘illusion’ and ‘hallucination’ such as that attributed to Aretaeus of Cappadocia (c.150 CE) and later developed by Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol (1722–1840), according to which illusions are understood roughly as sensory distortions of perceived objects, whereas hallucinations are taken to be perception-like experiences in the absence of any corresponding external object.5 In any event, it is clear that the case of autoscopy is not part of Aristotle’s general account of sensory errors that occur because of conditions that restrain the working of the mind (illness, intoxication, sleep,6 or strong emotion) – states in which the observer may be aware of false sensory occurrences as errors and, if the conditions are severe, in which such errors are not noticed (delusional awareness).7 The term “hallucination” is also ambiguous in relation to some of the perceptual errors Aristotle explicitly discusses. For example, he asserts that a person who is affected by disease may perceive cracks in the wall as animals (De insomniis 2, 460b11–13): this may be characterised as a borderline case between misperception and hallucination because of the radical change in the awareness of the perceived external reality.
Nor does the case of autoscopy completely match any of the cases of misperception that Aristotle gives in De insomniis or other sensory errors mentioned elsewhere. Such cases include: (1) sense organs that remain active when the object that caused their movement is no longer present (afterimages and other perceptual after-effects) (Insomn. 2, 459b7–23); (2) illusions of size (Insomn. 2, 460b18–19); (3) misidentification of persons and objects (Insomn. 2, 460b6–7; 460b11–13); (4) misapprehension of the reality of a phántasma (Insomn. 3, 461b1–7; Mem. 1, 451a8–12); (5) atypical perceptual circumstances, e.g., touching with crossed fingers (Insomn. 2, 460b20–22; 3, 461b2–3), or a single finger pressed beneath the eye appearing as two (Insomn. 3, 461b30–462a1). The case of autoscopy most resembles (5), that is, a perceptual error that emerges in atypical perceptual circumstances, due to the sense organ’s particular interaction with the perceived environment.
Aristotle characterises the autoscopic case as a mirror-phenomenon that occurs when the visual ray is unable to penetrate the air in front of the observer, and therefore becomes reflected. The failure of weak sight to penetrate dense air seems to be the main cause of the phenomenon. The same phenomenon is said to occur for those with normal sight in especially dense air, which seems to imply that a perceiver with strong sight may “see through” some portion of dense air, whereas a perceiver with considerably weaker sight will have his visual rays reflected when they encounter the same concentration of dense air.
In this chapter, we will examine (§2) Aristotle’s description of autoscopia against the backdrop of contemporary psychiatric theorising, insofar as it harmonises with descriptions of the phenomenon found in contemporary psychiatric case reports. Then (§3) we will consider an odd feature of Aristotle’s explanation: namely, that it involves an extramission theory of visual perception – a type of theory that is rejected in Aristotle’s major works on perception, that is, in De anima and De sensu. Aristotle’s seemingly ad hoc acceptance of the extramission theory will be one major reason why alternative accounts of autoscopy are developed in the commentary tradition. The rest of this chapter (§§4–6) will be devoted to the vicissitudes of that tradition, as successive commentators grappled with the example. It will be shown that Alexander of Aphrodisias challenges Aristotle’s explanation and further alters Aristotle’s articulation of the explanandum. Special attention is given to the Arabic translation of the Meteorologica, which presents further interpretive difficulties, both in the Arabic tradition itself and in the Latin reception of the Arabic translation.
Finally, we will consider Peter of Auvergne’s description and explanation of autoscopy, which combines elements from Aristotle and Alexander; Appendix 2 contains the first edited version of the relevant passage in Peter’s commentary on the Meteorologica.8 Peter’s contribution is basically an elaboration of Alexander’s account, but unlike Alexander he remains faithful to Aristotle’s original description of the phenomenon. Moreover, both Alexander and Peter construe the case of autoscopy as a special case of illusion as characterised by Aristotle in the De insomniis. This particular move makes the conceptualisation of autoscopy more modern, as it were, but less faithful to Aristotle’s original account, while remaining Aristotelian in essence: that is, it is a case in which the commentary tradition deviates from Aristotelian doctrine while staying faithful to Aristotelian methodology. However, as was common among ancient and medieval scholars, no commentator or translator questioned the account as a viable report of some human experience: the explanations were contested, the properties of what was seen were debatable, but the phenomenon was taken for granted.
2 Autoscopic Phenomena in Modern Psychiatric Literature
The term “autoscopic hallucination” was introduced by the French physician and mesmerist Charles Féré (1852–1907).9 The condition (sometimes also known as specular hallucination) is basically a hallucination of one’s own visual appearance. There is no general agreement on how the phenomenon should be conceptualised.10 The most common use of the designation autoscopy refers to a visual experience where the subject observes a visual image of him/herself in external space, viewed from within his/her own physical body.
A closely related phenomenon is the so-called doppelgänger phenomenon, that is, the sense of one’s own double being present, with or without an accompanying visual image.11 Yet another related but distinct condition is the so-called out-of-body experience, where there is an experience of being separated from one’s own physical body, and at times the body is observed from a distant position in space.12
In typical reports of autoscopy, however, the subject feels himself to be located within his own body and there is an apparent image of oneself that often has a distinct mirror quality. Brugger notes that:
It is typically reported by patients with occipital lesions who describe it as the experience of ‘seeing oneself as in a mirror’. Therefore, the autoscopic hallucination has also been labelled a ‘mirror hallucination’, especially in the French psychiatric literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g., Féré, 1891; Naudascher, 1910; Sollier, 1903). This term is entirely appropriate, since the hallucinated image exhibits all the properties of a mirror image (i.e., it is naturally coloured and wears clothing identical to and has the same facial paraphernalia as the real self). The most important characteristic in the present context is the left-right reversal, as if the patient were actually standing in front of a real mirror.13
Autoscopic phenomena may appear in delusional as well as non-delusional forms, that is, the patient may respond to the image as something real or be aware of the image’s illusory nature. The observed double can be hostile but also friendly.14 Note that Aristotle’s description does not provide any clue as to whether the individual described reacted to the image as an illusion (e.g., a mere mirror image) or as a physically present double.
Aristotle refers to the autoscopic image as an eídōlon, which is his standard term for figures seen on reflecting surfaces (mirrors and liquids at rest; see, e.g., Insomn. 3, 461a14–15; Div.Somn. 2, 464b8–15). Note also that Aristotle seldom, if ever, describes mirror images as illusions (cf. phantásmata qualified as illusions in Insomn. 1, 459a6–8). Moreover, he on no occasion refers to mirror images as phantásmata, unlike Plato who seems to use eídōlon and phántasma interchangeably.15 Aristotle’s consistent description of mirror images as eídōla makes good sense considering the external origin of mirror images; that is, they are not apparitions produced by phantasía. Even if the relevant (autoscopic) image, according to Aristotle, is not classified as a phántasma, eídōla are illusions of a sort, since the term in its traditional use strongly connotes ghostly appearances that imitate the superficial characteristics of real-world objects or living beings.16
3 The Extramission Theory of Vision
Aristotle’s reference to autoscopy is worth exploring for other reasons besides its documentation of a rare experience acknowledged in contemporary psychiatry. Notably, Aristotle’s explanation of the phenomenon relies on the so-called extramission theory of visual perception. By that model, sight is possible by means of visual rays that emanate from the eyes and reach out to external objects.17 So why does Aristotle endorse a theory of perception in the Meteorologica that he rejects elsewhere in his major works on sense perception?18 Before introducing the case of autoscopy, Aristotle says that he relies on the idea that our vision is reflected from the air and other smooth surfaces because this is what is accepted in the established field of optics (Mete. 3.2, 372a29–32), which is at odds with the intromission theory of vision that is endorsed in De anima and De sensu. In fact, Aristotle argues that the two rival accounts of perception make no explanatory difference when explaining, for instance, perception of distant objects (GA 5.1, 780b34–781a12) or the apparent quivering of the fixed stars (Cael. 2.8, 290a18–24).19
However, if the mirror reflection is caused by poor eyesight, as Aristotle maintains, it is difficult to see how the two rival theories of perception could be equivalent in this particular case. It may be that Aristotle endorses extramission in order to make his point about reflecting surfaces clearer while downplaying the reasons for preferring one theory over the other. Meteorologica is just the sort of work to make such digressions from the preferred view since it does not set out to explain the mechanisms of perception in general.
Alexander of Aphrodisias (second century CE) (along with other commentators) makes it clear that Aristotle’s true view of perception is presented in De anima and De sensu. Alexander then goes on to highlight the idea that the two opposing views are virtually of equal worth when it comes to explanations of how mirror images appear on smooth surfaces. Alexander adds that Aristotle “avails himself of the doctrine of rays, as being both more widely received and approved by the mathematicians.”20 Thus, Alexander roughly repeats the reasons Aristotle gives for using the extramission theory in Meteorologica (3.2, 372a29–32).
Later, Olympiodorus (sixth century), just like Alexander, observes the inconsistency with the view of perception that Aristotle defends in De sensu and De anima. Olympiodorus also identifies the views expressed in De sensu and De anima as Aristotle’s genuine position on the matter. He adds that when Aristotle’s account is presented in a sort of digression, then it will follow the majority view. So, according to Olympiodorus, Aristotle discards the extramission theory in most cases, but in some exceptional cases he will follow the received view, for instance, when stressing some particular point.21
4 Alexander of Aphrodisias and the Greek Commentary Tradition
4.1 Alexander of Aphrodisias
As we have seen, Aristotle explains the phenomenon of autoscopy as an effect of weak sight (that is, a weak visual ray) that is unable to penetrate the surrounding air. Thus, the visual ray bounces back, which explains the emergence of the reflected image.
It is quite clear that Alexander is uncomfortable with Aristotle’s application of the extramission theory for theoretical reasons. Alexander rejects the extramission theory but also takes on the challenge of explaining the phenomenon in an alternative way which downplays the mirror-like qualities of the “seen” image. We will present his analysis of the problem in full here because it illustrates the lengths to which he is willing to apply his alternative explanation:
But since we claim that it is not possible for a visual ray to be reflected, one may inquire what experience it was that befell Antipheron. [It could be the case that,] just as it seems to those who have a scar in the area of the pupil owing to severe inflammation of the eye or some injury, and indeed to those who are about to develop a cataract, that a gnat is hovering before their eyes, since they see what is inside the pupil itself and imposed on it against nature as if it were outside, on account of the habitude of the sense. For it is habitual for it [sc. the visual sense] to see what is outside, and in the end it sees all objects of vision as if they were outside. For in a sense these objects, too, are outside it, since they are externally imposed on it against nature. An indication that it is from some affection of this kind that the appearance of a gnat arises is that those who see it do so especially at times when an evaporation from things that remain undigested in the stomach is brought up from the mouth of the stomach. For when the blood-vessels in the area of the pupil are filled with unclean and unprocessed refuse, they counteract the transparency of the sense-organ, and the visual sense sees this thing which occludes it as if it were in front of the eyes and outside. The same affection also arises when a cloud-like formation taking shape in the area of the pupil is not yet sufficient to block it and prevent it from seeing but already possesses thickness, as is wont to happen prior to the emergence of cataracts. For to those who are so afflicted the light presents this kind of affection and the visible object thus imposed, together with the external visible objects, as something external. Accordingly, just as it appears to these people that something similar to a gnat is hovering before the visual organ, sometimes equipped with wings (when the blood-vessels are distended) and sometimes without this kind of appendage (when there is less repletion in the blood-vessels), in the same way it seemed to Antipheron, who had poor and dull eyesight on account of the spread of some rather extensive formation over his pupils, that a larger object was leading the way in front of his visual organ, which he likened to a face, as the previously mentioned people [liken what appears to them] to a gnat. Their experience is similar to that of those who liken the formations and reliefs of clouds to satyrs or shapes of certain wild animals on the basis of a small similarity.22
Alexander’s account is complex but also highly innovative, involving several crucial explanatory moves which deserve special consideration. First, there is the possible explanation that a scar or some other injury on the pupil gives rise to a gnat phenomenon or some observed cloud-like phenomenon. These ‘internal objects’ on the pupil are present in different sizes and the appearance of a face presumably involves a larger injury than the appearance of a hovering gnat.
Alexander claims that visual perception, by habit, tends to externalise its objects. When some digestive condition leads to something like ‘unprocessed refuse’ (poop) in the eye, the visual sense will naturally project it as an external object of observation. Indeed, Alexander seems to assume that visual perception always involves the externalisation of perceived objects. So even if some objects are internal to the eye, the perceiver tends to see such objects as belonging to the perceived environment. Alexander not only suggests that an object in the eye is misapprehended as being located in external space, he also suggests that the internal object would be fused with genuine external objects of perception. Thus, some internal object may partly cover the external object, appearing as though it were in front of the proper external object.
The man to whom Aristotle attributes the autoscopic experience is identified by Alexander as Antipheron of Oreus. This identification is not as arbitrary as it may appear at first glance. Aristotle mentions ‘Antipheron of Oreus’ in Mem. 1, 451a9 in a passage usually interpreted as explaining how false memories emerge. The fundamental distinction that Aristotle refers to is between the apprehension of a picture, as such, (zôón, that is, ‘the animal’ or picture) and the same picture conceived as a likeness (eikṓn) in relation to a real-world object (Mem. 1, 450b20–451a2). The distinction aims to illuminate two ways of apprehending phantásmata, either as something in themselves or as resembling real-world objects or events. However, before introducing the special case of false memory, which adds a temporal dimension, Aristotle mentions the general case where he says that some people “spoke of their images as having actually happened” (Mem. 1, 451a10).23 Now, if Aristotle first considers the general case in which people misapprehend imagined content as real happenings and later the special case of false memories, it becomes natural to identify the man who suffers from autoscopy as Antipheron.24 So, if Antipheron is a man who is assumed to see things that are not really there, he might also be the very man that Aristotle refers to in the Meteorologica. Even if Alexander does not faithfully follow the point that Aristotle highlights in De memoria, that Antipheron and his ilk mistake phantásmata for real happenings, he explains how an internal phenomenon (an injury in the eye, not a phántasma) is misapprehended as an externally perceived object. Accordingly, there is a loose correspondence between Alexander’s account of the autoscopic vision described in Meteorologica, and the cognitive errors that Aristotle attributed to Antipheron and other unstable people like him.
Even if Alexander offers an alternative account, like Aristotle he assumes that the man has poor sight. However, in Alexander’s account, the poor eyesight does not depend on the weakness of the visual rays but is caused by a scar or some other injury of the eye, or by some thickening formation on the pupil (cf. Peter of Auvergne below).
Finally, Alexander accepts Aristotle’s description of the case as involving a man who sees a face in front of him, but he does not accept Aristotle’s explanation in terms of visual rays that become reflected. Thus, according to Aristotle’s explanation the man sees his own face, and not just any face. By contrast, Alexander explains the appearance of a face and does not allow any explicit claim regarding the identity of the face, which is understandable if Alexander rejects Aristotle’s explanation of the phenomenon as a mirror-phenomenon.
It is a face because it is a misperception based on what the interfering entity in the eye resembles. The entire explanation centres upon such flaws in the eye, and how they lead Antipheron to see a discernible figure in front of him, located in external space. The main idea here is that ambiguous perceptual content is determined in terms of what it resembles. Alexander argues that the case is analogous to one in which people liken cloud-formations to certain animals or satyrs (cf. Insomn. 3, 461b19–21). Alexander assumes that it is basically the same mechanism that explains the presence of a moving speck before one’s eyes (the gnat phenomenon) and the presence of a face. The speck is identified as a gnat and the “rather extensive formation” as a face simply because they resemble such objects. This means that Alexander’s explanation goes beyond the assumption of weak sight (due to an injury in the eye), so he must complement it with a cognitive account.25
As noted, Alexander does not provide an explanation of autoscopy, strictly speaking, but rather explains how a perception-like appearance of a human face emerges. However, both Alexander’s and Aristotle’s accounts explain the illusory appearance of a face located in external space. For Aristotle, it is a reflection of sorts; Alexander’s explanation involves a misidentification of the perceived object, paving the way to treat the error as a special case of perceptual misidentification as explained in De insomniis.
In sum, Alexander’s account presents a number of potential internal conditions that, when combined with the visual sense’s tendency to project its objects into an external field, could give rise to various misperceptions: scars, inflammations, evaporated stomach-stuff, “cloud-like formation[s] in the area of the pupil,” and finally, in the case of Antipheron, “the spread of some rather extensive formation over his pupils” – any or all of these could be the culprit. The observer may register a gnat, or in this case, a face, insofar as it resembles the internal defect.
On the other hand, Alexander’s alternative account draws substantially on Aristotle’s theories of illusion as presented in the De insomniis. Alexander’s suggestion to view the image of a face as a misperception of some other object reclassifies the phenomenon from a literal mirror reflection (as in Aristotle’s original account) to an illusion proper, in line with the wider Aristotelian framework. As we shall see later, Peter of Auvergne is likely to have profited from Alexander’s account: he stays faithful to Aristotle’s description of the mirror experience while discarding the assumed mirror mechanism. Thus, Peter may be said to defend a position between Aristotle’s and Alexander’s.
4.2 Sextus Empiricus and Michael of Ephesus
At this point it may be worthwhile to take a look at two additional Greek sources that consider Aristotle’s case of autoscopy in Meteorologica. First, Sextus Empiricus (second century CE) makes a brief reference to Aristotle’s description of autoscopy. Sextus does not have much to say about the phenomenon qua autoscopy. He reports: “Aristotle describes a Thasian who thought that the image of a man was always preceding him.”26 The object is not a specific man; Sextus does not mention that the case involves an image of the perceiver’s own face or that the face appears in the form of a mirror image. In any event, it is clear from the context that Sextus’ main business is not to explain why the man sees an image of a face before him. He rather uses Aristotle’s report of the phenomenon in order to highlight the particular point that perceptual conditions may vary for different observers. Nevertheless, as we shall see, Sextus contributes substantially to the confusion as regards the origin of the mentioned man by describing him as originating from Thasos.
Another relevant source is Michael of Ephesus’ twelfth-century commentary on the Parva naturalia, which offers a quite original explanation:
For Antipheron of Oreus, whom he [sc. Aristotle] also mentions in the Meteorologica on account of the weakness of his eyesight, used to suppose, when he saw a person moving opposite him, that he was not seeing this now, but he had seen this person previously and was now remembering it.27
As in Alexander, the subject is Antipheron of Oreus, and the object is not his own image. Antipheron, in this account, mistakes a presently perceived object for a memory image. At any rate, Michael’s reference to Antipheron does not reflect the particular point Aristotle makes about Antipheron and his ilk. Aristotle’s point is that such people erroneously speak of their phantásmata as if they were real external objects. This does not seem to be Michael’s point at all.28
5 The Arabic Tradition – Text and Interpretations
5.1 Arabic Interpretations
The Meteorologica (Ar. Kitāb al-Āthār al-ʿulwiyya) was translated into Arabic early, around 800 CE, by Ibn al-Biṭrīq (d. 830).29 This version survives and was the basis for several commentaries as well as a Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona (see below). It seems to be based, however, on a later redaction of Aristotle’s text; Paul Lettinck, following the analysis of Endress, argues for a “Hellenistic” version of Aristotle’s treatise from which the Syriac and Arabic traditions proceeded, rendering Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s text “distorted, incomplete, and sometimes confused.”30 A later version by Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, dubbed a ‘compendium,’ also seems to have been based on the supposed Hellenistic intermediary.31 Translations from the Greek commentary tradition are well-attested in Arabic: Alexander’s and Olympiodorus’ commentaries are lost, although something purporting to be the latter’s commentary, translated again by Ḥunayn and corrected by his son Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn, is extant – but it seems to have been based on a paraphrase of the original.32 The Alexander commentary was known in Arabic at least as late as Averroes, who made use of it in his Middle Commentary (see below).33
Lettinck’s exhaustive study of the Arabic reception of the Meteorologica provides further details on all of these sources, and describes in detail the original Arabic compositions that made use of the Aristotelian material. The Arabic commentary tradition is robust, culminating in two extant texts by Averroes (both based on Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s text, although Averroes is demonstrably familiar with other versions and/or commentaries). The Arabic reception of the sections of the work that are on rainbows is particularly rich, exhibiting an increasingly sophisticated application of theories of optics to the core material. As in the Greek tradition, much was made of Aristotle’s ambivalence concerning extramission in this treatise (as opposed to his position in the other canonical texts).34
The Arabic version of the autoscopy passage (together with its interpretation by Averroes) presents some interesting issues. In Ibn al-Biṭrīq, the passage is as follows:
Now that we have reported about ‘haloes’ and rainbows and the cause of their occurrence – namely their being polished and gleaming, we must describe their way of being. I say that this state of being polished and gleaming is only observed in air and water when they are at rest, for then they are receptive to the ray and can return it to bodies. There was an ill man whose vision was weakened by his illness, who, while he was walking, would see a figure in front of him, shining opposite him, also walking. This is because bodies were represented as their forms in the air and the water while there was wetness in his eye, such that they were represented to him as such.35
The case described deviates slightly from Aristotle’s version: the man is now “ill,” the image is “shining” (muḍīʾan), and what is observed is a human figure (shakhṣ) rather than an unspecified image. The explanation, as one of the earlier editors of the Arabic text noted, is quite different from Aristotle’s: it concerns the wetness of the perceiver’s eye, an explanation to which we will return below. Of immediate interest, however, is the use of the term shakhṣ for eídōlon here. The term is used for ‘individual,’ as in a human individual. When Avicenna discusses the gradual refinement of an infant’s ability to pick out individuals in the Physics of The Healing, for example, he distinguishes between (1) the image of a “vague individual,” like the infant’s impression of any human or an individual (form) “imprinted upon sensation from a distance” such as some sort of animal, before it is seen more clearly, and (2) the image of a concrete individual, for example, this man. (Actually, Avicenna is distinguishing between an imagined human and a human observed under conditions that make his individuality unclear, but here we are trying to describe how a ‘vague individual’ becomes an object of perception generally.) The image, that which should be the eídōlon in the Aristotelian tradition, is al-khayāl in this case, that is, imaginary content. The individual (shakhṣ) is considered as vague or indeterminate (muntashar and ghayr muʿayyan), but it is a human-like shape.36 As a technical term, shakhṣ usually denotes logical individuality (shakhṣiyya), not an instance of perceptible content; it is comparatively rare to find it used in such a way.37
Averroes’ Short Commentary hews more closely to the Aristotelian explanation for the instance of autoscopy:
Aristotle related [the case of] a man afflicted by a weakness of vision. He always saw in front of him his own ‘blurry apparition’ in the air, because the air, in relation to his vision, was like a mirror (bi-manzilat al-mirʾāh) for healthy vision.38
The “shining” aspect of the image is absent, and the mirror-like element of the explanation is reinstated. If there is any indication here that Averroes may have noticed Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s shakhṣ, it is only in the use of yet another term for the eídōlon: namely, shabaḥ. Immediately prior to this passage (59–60), Averroes had presented haloes, rainbows, (mock) “suns,” and rods as visions and imaginings (ruʾya; takhayyul), and had even given the example of the appearance of heavenly bodies in water as ashbāḥ al-kawākib. This expression for ‘blurry apparitions’ most commonly denotes ghosts, but it would certainly have been familiar to Averroes from Avicenna’s treatment of meteorology in al-Shifāʾ. Avicenna calls the same phenomena (haloes, etc.) khayālāt, imaginary things (this is another Arabic word for eídōla), describing the phenomenon as a transposition of forms in the subject: we see “the visual image (shabaḥ) of a thing together with the form of some other thing in the way that we come across the form of a man together with the form of a mirror.”39 Although this is not cloud/shape conflation, but rather superimposition, it follows the same rules to produce a single image.
In the so-called Middle Commentary (Talkhīṣ), Averroes specifies shakhṣ, following Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s preference for eídōlon, while affirming the original Aristotelian explanation (mirror-like) and reiterating the ghostly appearance of the figure:
This is like what occurs to a man who is afflicted by a weakness of vision due to some illness; he always sees in front of him a figure (shakhṣ) like him walking with him. Thus, because of this weakness of this man’s vision, it happens that the air with respect to its relation to his vision [becomes] like a mirror with respect to its relation to strong vision; thus he sees his ‘blurry apparition’ in the air, just as a man would see his ‘blurry apparition’ in a mirror across from him.40
In the surrounding text, Averroes has done some systematic re-working of the material. This quote, for example, comes within an overall explanation of ‘reflection’ (inʿikās). There are three explanations for reflection: the smoothness and density of the object, weakness of vision (where this example occurs), and weakness of the colour itself. Weakness of vision (the inability of vision to penetrate dense air) and ‘intervening objects’ were both presented as causes of the ‘visions’ in the Short Commentary as well.41 It should also be noted that the Short Commentary proceeded with a discussion of reflection after the example, whereas in the Talkhīṣ the example is presented within an exposition of the nature of reflection.
Comparing the Arabic tradition to the Greek, then, several difficulties arise. Recall that in Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s version, wetness in the eye is assumed to play a vital role in the emergence of the image. The idea concerning some quantity of wetness in the eye recalls elements of Alexander’s account, but it is difficult to substantiate any direct influence from Alexander. Yet, other commentators in the Arabic tradition seem to have conflated wet eyes with weak vision: Ibn Suwar (d. c.1030 CE), for example, suggests that people see haloes around lamps when they “have moisture in their eyes or […] weak sight.”42 In Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s version, it remains obscure by what mechanism the image of the observed figure appears as such, as opposed to as a featureless blob, given (i) the observation that motionless quantities of air function as mirrors, (ii) the acceptance of the extramission theory (if assumed to be correct), (iii) the presupposition of weak sight, and (iv) claims about some quantity of wetness in the eye.
The text refers to an observed figure (shakhṣ), but there is no explicit description of the seen image as necessarily resembling the observer’s own (or anybody else’s) face.43 (That ‘resemblances’ like Alexander’s gnats and clouds do not enter the Arabic tradition also suggests that his commentary was not in use.) However, allusions to the extramission theory suggest a mirror phenomenon of the kind Aristotle proposes; the mirror likeness is invoked explicitly in Averroes and in a nearby passage in Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s translation.
By and large, Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s version of Aristotle’s Meteorologica appears to combine scattered pieces from both Aristotle and Alexander’s commentary. For instance, the passage on reflection and smooth surfaces sounds Aristotelian, whereas the part about the wetness in the eye sounds like a rough paraphrase of Alexander’s account. Given the current state of the text, it is very difficult to formulate a consistent and coherent interpretation of the content.
5.2 The Latin Translation of the Arabic Translation
Further oddities emerge when we consider the corresponding Latin translation of the Arabic text:
As we have now dealt with the roundness and the arch, and told that the cause of their being is polish and shine, then it is necessary that we tell how their being is. I say, then, that polish and shine are not seen in air and water except when they are at rest, because then both of them receive the ray and return it to bodies. A man fell ill and his eye-sight was weakened. *** And while he was walking, because he saw before him a light in his face, he walked, which is because bodies are formed in air and water such as are their forms. So, because there is humidity, which is in his eyes, this is formed for him. And maybe it is seen when the air is clean and the eyesight similarly, and maybe it is not seen; which is due to one of two causes: either because of turbulence of the air, or because of weakness of the eyesight, or because of weakness of the colour and lack of a strong impression of the body in the air.44
The Latin text of the relevant passage basically follows the Arabic version; there is a short lacuna in the Arabic after the ‘wetness in the eye’ explanation, but the Latin version includes additional explanatory sentences in which the author seems to dwell on the circumstances by which the image is not visible. Thus, turbulence in the air and weak sight explain why the image would not be seen even if it is there. This particular emphasis on the role of weak sight does not correspond to Aristotle’s account. Aristotle introduces the condition of weak sight as one of two related conditions (the other being dense air) in order to explain how the visible image (eídōlon) emerges in the first place. Cf. Peter of Auvergne below, who uses the condition of weakened sight as a counterargument against Aristotle’s explanation.45
6 Peter of Auvergne on Autoscopic Phenomena
Peter of Auvergne (d. 1304) provides a rather interesting commentary that combines some elements from Aristotle and Alexander’s accounts of the phenomenon.46 Here is what Peter has to say about the phenomenon under discussion in his commentary on the Meteorologica:
(1) Next, when he says [3.4, 373b1–2] “It happens from air,” he first explains in what state air must be for there to occur a reflection from it, next, when he says [373b13–14] “But from water” in what state water must be. Concerning the first, he first states two ways in which reflection occurs from air, and next, when he says [373b10] “Because of which” he explains the second one. In the first part he says that reflection from air occurs when the air has become thick, either by being mixed with some earthy and thick exhalation or by being gathered by cold, for thickened air becomes like something dark, which has the property of preventing the alteration of light (lumen) in a straight line. Moreover, sometimes reflection from air occurs even when it has not been thickened, because of the weakness of [somebody’s] sight, which is not capable of penetrating the air, and consequently uses it as a mirror, as it were – as happened to some person whose sight was weak and not sharp, whom he [i.e. Aristotle] in On memory calls Antiphoron47 Oreites: for as he walked, an image (idolum) of himself appeared to him in the air just in front of him, and it always went in front of him and looked back at him. He suffered this because the rays that proceed from his sight and body were reflected by the air towards himself due to his having, because of an illness, such a weak and slight sight that it could not push forward and penetrate the air next to it. Hence it became like a mirror to him, from which there was reflection, just as thickened air at a distance becomes a mirror to a healthy eye in a good state.48
Peter accurately describes Aristotle’ account in Meteorologica but adds that the man who sees an image of himself is Antipheron, whom Aristotle mentions in De memoria. Aristotle’s explanation is judged to be unreasonable because of its unlikeliness. But why, more precisely, is Aristotle’s explanation rejected? Peter writes:
(2) It should, however, be understood that the cause that the Philosopher seems to assign to the aforementioned affection does not seem reasonable, nor in accordance with his own view. For what is reflected when something is seen through reflection is light generated by a shining body and its attendant colours, but there is no need for the sight to be reflected †due to the need to see†,49 as shown earlier. Therefore reflection of the sight by the air cannot be given as the cause of the aforementioned appearance. Moreover, if his face was reflected by the air next to it, it is obvious that this reflection was very weak, because the less dense the body from which the reflection occurs, the weaker the reflection and alteration to the opposite. Therefore, the pupil of the eye was only altered very weakly by it, so that the sight inside would not sense this sort of alteration, in particular as it was weak and slight; and the weaker the sight is, the less it senses small alterations, so [even] given that his sight and picture (imago) were reflected by the air, still no image (idolum) of himself would appear to him.
Peter rejects the extramission theory, arguing that it is not Aristotle’s true view. However, the theme of extramission seems to be a minor point, and the main reason for discarding Aristotle’s view is that the offered explanation does not make good sense. The very idea that the image (eídōlon) occurs on the basis of weak sight is not convincing for Peter. His point seems to be that, provided that the subject’s sight really is weak, he would not be able to see the image at all, even if there really were a faint mirror image in front of him.
So, an alternative explanation has to be put forward:
(3) So, a different explanation must be assigned: the principle of vision is inside in the eye and not in the exterior part of the pupil (this is stated by the Philosopher in the book On Sense and the Sensed).50 Now, the exterior part of the pupil is like an internal medium in vision, and therefore, just as vision is modified by an unnatural state of the external medium, so it is by an unnatural state of the pupil, and even more, as the pupil is of greater consequence to vision. For if it is sprinkled with some unnatural spirit or humour, and [then] is altered by some external visible object, it will be altered in its own way, and will alter the interior power of vision51 with the altered intention of the object of vision and according to its own state. Therefore, when thus altered, the power of vision will judge the colour to be in-between the colour of the object of vision and the colour of the pupil. If, however, the affection of the pupil is strong and great, and the power of vision weak, it will happen that the pupil by itself will alter the sight internally, and the sight will apprehend the colour of the pupil as [if it were] something external and distant from itself, firstly because such an affection is like something that is external and unnatural, secondly because it is accustomed to see all things it sees as being located outside, and thirdly because this is more reasonable, since the alteration of the power of vision internally by the pupil in such a state is very weak, partly because the weakness of the agent of change with respect to the external objects of vision, partly because of the weakness of the sight itself due to the illness. Now, things that alter the sight in a rather weak way seem to be more distant, and those that alter it rather strongly to be closer, other things being equal, for sight seems to judge closeness or distance according as it is altered strongly or weakly. Therefore, such an affection of the pupil seems to be something external or distant. A similar phenomenon is seen in people who have a scar on their pupil or suffer from ophthalmia, for to them it seems as if something is standing before their eyes like a web, whereas in reality it is in the pupil itself in an unnatural way, being, that is, an unnatural humour which is diffused in it.
Peter, like Alexander, suggests that something on the eye is mistaken for a perceived external object, and Aristotle’s assumption of weak sight is also taken into account.52 Why then does the individual see his own face in the translocated object? Peter tells us why:
(4) It sometimes also happens because of weakness of the power [of vision] that something is judged to be something else because of some tenuous similarity to it either in colour or in shape. For instance, if a wall exhibits some lines that somehow resemble the shape of some animal, persons who are ill with a fever or mad judge that this is an animal; and someone affected by fear or love judges at a minor rustle of a leaf or the like that his enemy or his beloved is present, as the Philosopher says in On Sleep and Waking [2, 460b3–7].
The idea here seems to be that weak sight blurs the objects of observation to some extent, and makes the observer prone to identify perceptual content in terms of what it resembles. So, if the indistinct object before me in some way resembles a face, I will identify it as a face. Here Peter alludes to a passage in De insomniis 2, 460b3–16 where Aristotle discusses different types of illusions. For instance, a diseased person may see distinct lines on a wall as a present real animal. Further, the emotionally aroused individual typically misperceives objects in a way that matches his present emotional state. Thus, the coward tends to see his enemy in the face of a stranger, just as the amorous man tends to see the person he desires.53
By contrast, there is nothing in Aristotle’s text on autoscopy that suggests that weak sight, as such, makes the perceiver prone to determine perceptual content in terms of what it resembles. On the other hand, Aristotle’s reference to the watching of cloud-formations in relation to the real things they may resemble (De insomniis 3, 461b19–21) lends support to the idea that vague sensory content is determined by means of similarity. It may be worth pointing out that Peter does not explicitly refer to Aristotle’s example of cloud-watching (whereas Alexander does); rather, he calls attention to conditions in which illusions are probable, that is, in states of disease, sleep, and intoxication. Now, recognising what cloud-formations resemble as a cognitive strategy to reduce ambiguous perceptual content hardly compares to the particular states Aristotle highlights as causes of illusion, namely disease, intoxication, sleep, and strong emotional arousal. The only cognitive anomaly that Peter presupposes in his account is weakened sight. So, this leaves us with an ambiguity in Peter’s account and also Alexander’s account; should the appearance of a face be understood as an illusion on par with Aristotle’s clear-cut examples of illusions, or should it be understood, perhaps in a looser way, in line with how one recognises the appearance of familiar objects in the shapes of clouds?
Peter then explains how the appearance of a face becomes identified as the observer’s own face. People are disposed to see their own face, rather than some unknown face, because they are familiar with their own face from frequent experiences of mirror reflections. Peter sums up his account:
(5) This, then, is the way to explain what happened to Antiphoron: there was an unnatural and thick humour or spirit diffused over his pupil that, as it changed the internal power of vision (weak and slight due to illness), was judged to be something external for the aforementioned reasons; and due to some tenuous similarity in colour and outline between the affection appearing to him and his own image (idolum), which, presumably, he was accustomed to see often in a mirror, he judged it [i.e. the appearance] to be his own image. This, then, seems to be the real reason of the aforementioned affection. The reason that Aristotle proffers in the text is the one on which the mathematicians [of his day] generally agreed, and he follows it here for the aforementioned reason.
In order to provide an overview, let us highlight some details in Peter’s account:
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(1) Aristotle’s account of the apparent image of a face as based on physical mirror reflection, as well as the extramission theory, are both judged to be flawed (the latter recognised as not being in accordance with Aristotle’s true view). Peter is chiefly attacking the mirror-explanation, not the assumption of the extramission theory of vision. The idea of weak sight is criticised for not being able to do the explanatory job that Aristotle believes it does.
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(2) Peter offers an alternative explanation that strikingly recalls Alexander’s account; if something covers the pupil, for instance a spirit or a humour, it will affect the way proper external objects are perceived (cf. Alexander).
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(3) A rather elaborate account is offered of why the “seen object” in the eye becomes externalised. Externalisation of internally observed items depends on the following conditions: first, the affection of internal things must be like the affection of some external thing. Second, there must be a habit of seeing things beyond the very border of the eye. Finally, the alteration of the sight internally by the pupil in such a state must be very weak, since there is a weakness of sight itself due to the illness. Peter here assumes that things that alter the sight weakly by default seem to be more distantly located in the environment. Accordingly, the weak alteration makes it natural to ‘project’ the observed object at some considerable distance away from the perceiver. So, generally speaking, there is a strong inclination to externalise even those objects of perception that happen to be internally located.
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(4) The tendency to determine perceived things in terms of what they resemble is assumed to be caused by weak sight. Peter gives an explicit reference to the De insomniis 2, 460b3–16. Even so, it is not clear whether Peter believes that the appearing face has the same status as the illusions that occur in sleep, disease, intoxication, and emotional arousal, or whether it is a matter of, more loosely, determining what something looks like in a way similar to cloud gazing.
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(5) Finally, Peter tells us why the individual sees his own face in the externalised image. The image is identified as the perceiver’s own face because the perceiver is assumed to be very familiar with his own face from previous experiences of mirror images.
At this point we may note that Peter’s account exhibits some overlap with Alexander’s account, even if there also are important differences. However, Alexander and Peter employ basically the same type of explanation. A damaged pupil or humour/cloud-like entity covers the eye. This internal injury (or ‘object’) becomes externalised and appears as an ordinary perceived object in the environment.
In Alexander’s version, the face is not described as having familiar features, as it were, whereas in Peter’s version, the subject perceives the image of his own face.
We may now highlight the main anomalies in relation to Aristotle’s account. Aristotle describes the phenomenon as a kind of apparition that occurs on the basis of mirror reflection. The phenomenon is an illusion of sorts, just like any other reflected figure, although phantasía and other higher cognitive capacities play no part in the production of this illusion in Aristotle’s account. By contrast, in Alexander’s and Peter’s explanations, an Aristotelian explanatory framework is assumed, and the error is characterised as a perceptual error involving a misapprehension of an observed object, either as a face, as such, or as a particular face. In fact, the account advocated by Alexander and Peter is more or less in line with Aristotle’s discussion of illusions in the De insomniis. Both authors suggest an alternative kind of Aristotelian solution that involves the occurrence of a phántasma rather than a mirror image (eídōlon).
Roughly, Aristotle and Alexander do set out to explain the same type of phenomenon. Peter, however, wishes to stay faithful to the detail that the man sees an image of himself, as presumed in Aristotle’s account. Thus Peter, who basically adopts Alexander’s explanation, which does not imply mirror reflection, makes some adjustments to Alexander’s explanation in order to capture the autoscopic quality of the phenomenon. Thus, Peter explains the presumed mirror-qualities in the observed face without assuming that it is a mirror phenomenon in a literal sense.
7 Conclusion
We have examined a set of distinct explanatory strategies in relation to Aristotle’s description of autoscopy in the Meteorologica. It seems likely that Aristotle documents an authentic case of autoscopy that matches descriptions of the phenomenon in the modern psychiatric literature. Aristotle explains autoscopy as a mirror phenomenon, which accounts for the occurrence of an externalised image in the guise of the observer’s own face. Further, Aristotle uses an extramission theory of perception to explain reflections. Thus, weak sight prevents the visual rays from penetrating the air in front of the observer, and they are reflected back to the perceiver, just as in an ordinary mirror.
Alexander seems to link Aristotle’s acceptance of the extramission theory with the particular mirror explanation that Aristotle presents. Alexander not only offers a radically different explanation, he also reinterprets Aristotle’s original explanandum. There are two central features in Alexander’s description of the phenomenon that diverge from Aristotle’s; Alexander does not presuppose that (a) the image represents the perceiver’s own face or that (b) the image appears in the guise of a mirror reflection, or some other specific feature, for instance walking. Alexander finds an alternative explanatory strategy in De insomniis’ discussion of perceptual illusions. Basically, Alexander borrows Aristotle’s idea that on some occasions perceptual content is determined by what the observed object resembles.
The Arabic tradition faithfully presents the example in the context of the issue of reflection, according to which ‘weak vision’ is characteristically vulnerable to illusions. Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s apparent introduction of ‘wetness in the eye’ is clearly a departure from the text, and looms oddly before a lacuna in which a more convincingly Aristotelian explanation may have been found. Averroes was clearly aware of Alexander’s concern about the externalisation of internal blemishes, but presented this as one of two possibilities for the experience of illusions (the other is explicitly ‘weakness of vision,’ which is unable to penetrate dense air). The introduction of the peculiar term shakhṣ for eídōlon in the Arabic tradition is notable: at the very least, it suggests a certain diagnostic awareness of the autoscopic case, since it implies that the image is a (human) figure. The perceived human figure may be illusory, but (as we see in Averroes’ commentaries) it is his blurry apparition, or at least it is a figure like him.
Peter of Auvergne offers an explanation that preserves both Aristotelian and Alexandrian elements. Peter stays faithful to the original Aristotelian explanandum, that is, that the perceiver’s face appears in the form of a mirror image. Nevertheless, Peter discards the Aristotelian account based on extramission and instead outlines his version of a ‘projective account.’ Given the correspondences between the two accounts, Peter clearly had access to Alexander’s commentary, which had been translated into Latin a decade or more before Peter wrote his.54 Two points in particular support this claim. First, Peter offers an explanation of perceptual projection that largely seems to be an elaboration of Alexander’s account. Further, Peter identifies the man who suffers from the autoscopic illusion as Antipheron of Oreus, and Alexander seems to be the source of this particular piece of information. Finally, the general impression is that Alexander’s account strongly influences the later Arabic and Latin commentary tradition in the sources discussed in this work.
Appendix 1
Appendix 2: Peter of Auvergne (Petrus de Alvernia), Commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorologica 3.4, 373b1 sqq. Edited and Translated by Sten Ebbesen
Text
The text has been established on the basis of (1) the early fourteenth-century manuscript W = Wien, ÖNB, lat. 2302, fol. 69rb, and (2) the incunabulum S = Expositio magistri Petri de Aluernia super quattuor libros metheorum Aristotelis, Salamanca 1497: fol. m.viva–n.Ira. Differences between the texts of W and S are indicated in curly brackets. If nothing else is indicated, the variant regards the immediately preceding word. Thus “quidem {quid W}” means that W reads quid instead of quidem, and “vel {om. S}” that S omits vel. The orthography and the punctuation are the editor’s.
(1) Consequenter, cum dicit ⟨3.4, 373b1⟩ Fit autem ab aere {S continues the lemma until 373b10} declarat. Et primo quomodo se habente aere fit ab ipso refractio {a.i.r.: r.a.i. S}, secundo, cum dicit ⟨373b13⟩ Ab aqua autem qualiter se habente aqua. Circa primum primo ponit duos modos quibus ab aere fit refractio, secundo cum dicit ⟨373b10⟩ propter quod quidem {quid W} declarat alterum. In prima parte dicit quod refractio fit ab aere cum ingrossatus fuerit, vel per immixtionem exhalationis terrestris et grossae vel {om. S} per congregationem a frigido; aer enim ingrossatus accedit ad dispositionem opaci, cuius est prohibere alterationem luminis secundum rectum. Item fit refractio ab aere eodem non ingrossato interdum propter visus debilitatem, qui non potest penetrare ipsum aerem, et ideo utitur eo sicut speculo, sicut accidit cuidam habenti visum debilem et non acutum, quem in libro De memoria appellat Antiphorontem Oreitem {A.O.: antiphorantem orientem S}; ipso enim procedente apparebat ei in aere propinquo ante ipsum idolum ipsius semper praecedens ipsum, et ex opposito respiciens ad eum. Hoc autem patiebatur {a.p.: p.a. S} quod radii procedentes a visu et a corpore eius refrangebantur ab aere ad ipsum propter hoc quod visus ita debilis et tenuis erat propter infirmitatem quod non poterat propellere et penetrare aerem sibi propinquum, unde fiebat ei speculum a quo refringeretur, sicut aer ingrossatus et distans fit speculum oculo {occulto S} sano et bene disposito.
(2) Est autem intelligendum quod causa praedictae passionis quam videtur assignare Philosophus non videtur esse rationabilis nec secundum intentionem suam. Illud enim quod refrangitur in hiis quae videntur secundum refractionem est lumen generatum a corpore fulgido et colores qui cum eo sunt. Visum autem non necesse est refrangi †propter necessitatem videndi†, sicut ostensum est. Propter quod non potest assignari causa praedictae apparitionis ex refractione visus ab ipso aere. Adhuc autem, si facies eius ab aere {Adhuc – aere om. S} propinquo existente refringebatur, manifestum {medium S} est quod refractio ista valde debilis erat: quanto enim corpus a quo fit refractio rarius est, tanto debilior est refractio et alteratio in contrarium. Quare {quia S} pupilla oculi valde debiliter alterabatur ab ea, ita ut visus interius existens non sentiret huiusmodi alterationem, maxime cum esset debilis et tenuis. Et quanto visus est debilior, tanto minus sentit parvas alterationes. Quare dato quod visus et imago eius refringeretur ab aere, adhuc non appareret ei idolum ipsius.
(3) Propter quod aliter {alter S} videtur esse dicendum quod principium visivum est {om. W} interius in oculo, et non in exteriori parte pupillae, sicut dicit Philosophus libro De sensu et sensato. Pars autem pupillae exterior est sicut quoddam medium intrinsecum in visu. Et propter hoc, sicut propter innaturalem dispositionem medii extrinseci variatur visio, ita propter dispositionem innaturalem pupillae, et multo amplius quanto pupilla consequentialior est visui; si enim fuerit respersa aliquo spiritu vel humore innaturali et alteretur a visibili extrinseco, alterabitur secundum modum suum et alterabit visivum interius intensione {intentione W} visibilis alterata et ad dispositionem suam. Quare {quia S} visivum alteratum sic iudicabit colorem medium inter colorem visibilis {medium – visibilis: visibilem S} et colorem pupillae. Si autem passio pupillae fuerit fortis et multa, et virtus visiva debilis, continget {contingeret S} quod pupilla secundum quod huiusmodi alterabit visum interius, et visus apprehendet colorem pupillae velut aliquid extrinsecum et remotum ab eo, primo quia huiusmodi passio quasi aliquid extrinsecum est et contra naturam, secundo quia consuevit omnia quae videt ut extra existentia {extrema S} videre, tertio quia magis rationabile est {om. W}, quia alteratio visivi {visui SW} interius a pupilla sic disposita debilis est valde, tum propter debilitatem alterantis respectu extrinsecorum visibilium, {tum – visibilium om. S} tum propter debilitatem ipsius visus ab infirmitate. Quae autem debilius alterant visum remotiora videntur, quae vero fortius propinquiora reliquis existentibus paribus; propinquius enim vel remotius videtur iudicare visus propter hoc quod fortius vel debilius alteratur, propter quod huiusmodi passio pupillae videtur aliquid extrinsecum vel remotum. Et huius simile videtur in habentibus cicatricem in pupilla aut {vel S} patientibus ophthalmiam in oculo, quibus videtur aliquid prae oculis stare ad modum telae, quod secundum veritatem est in ipsa pupilla praeter naturam, sc. aliquis humor innaturalis diffusus in ipsa. (4) Contingit autem aliquando quod {om. W} propter debilitatem virtutis propter modicam similitudinem vel in colore vel etiam secundum figuram ad aliquid diversum iudicetur esse illud, sicut febricitantes aut phrenetici ad aliquam pertractionem linearum in pariete similem aliquo modo figurae alicuius animalis iudicant illud esse animal, et existens in passione timoris vel amoris ad modicum sonum folii aut huiusmodi iudicant adesse hic quidem hostem, ille vero dilectum {dilectam S}, sicut Philosophus dicit libro De somno et vigilia ⟨Insomn. 2, 460b3–7⟩. Per hunc igitur modum dicendum de {om. W} passione accidente circa Antiphorontem, quod {quia S} sc. per pupillam eius erat humor seu spiritus innaturalis et grossus diffusus {om. W}, qui, alterans visivum {visum S} interius debile et tenue existens propter infirmitatem, iudicabatur quasi aliquid extrinsecum {intrinsecum S} propter causas praedictas et per aliquam modicam similitudinem in colore et lineatione {limitatione S} passionis apparentis ad idolum proprium, quod forte saepe consuevit videre in speculo, iudicabat idolum proprium. (5) Haec igitur videtur esse causa secundum veritatem praedictae passionis, causam autem quam Aristoteles ponit in Littera ponit secundum communem opinionem mathematicorum quam sequitur hic propter causam dictam {praedictam S}.
Translation
(1) Next, when he says ⟨3.4, 373b1⟩ “It happens from air,” he first explains in what state air must be for there to occur a reflection from it, next, when he says ⟨373b13⟩ “But from water” in what state water must be. Concerning the first he first states two ways in which reflection occurs from air, and next, when he says ⟨373b10⟩ “Because of which” he explains the second one. In the first part he says that reflection from air occurs when the air has become thick, either by being mixed with some earthy and thick exhalation or by being gathered by cold, for thickened air becomes like something dark, which has the property of preventing the alteration of light (lumen) in a straight line. Moreover, sometimes reflection from air occurs even when it has not been thickened, because of the weakness of ⟨somebody’s⟩ sight, which is not capable of penetrating the air, and consequently uses it as a mirror, as it were – as happened to some person whose sight was weak and not sharp, whom he ⟨i.e., Aristotle⟩ in On memory calls Antiphoron55 Oreites: for as he walked, an image (idolum) of himself appeared to him in the air just in front of him, and it always went in front of him and looked back at him. He suffered this because the rays that proceed from his sight and body were reflected by the air towards himself due to his having, because of an illness, such a weak and slight sight that it could not push forward and penetrate the air next to it. Hence it became like a mirror to him, from which there was reflection, just as thickened air at a distance becomes a mirror to a healthy eye in a good state.
(2) It should, however, be understood that the cause that the Philosopher seems to assign to the aforementioned affection does not seem reasonable, nor in accordance with his own view. For what is reflected when something is seen through reflection is light generated by a shining body and its attendant colours, but there is no need for the sight to be reflected †due to the need to see†,56 as shown earlier. Therefore reflection of the sight by the air cannot be given as the cause of the aforementioned appearance. Moreover, if his face was reflected by the air next to it, it is obvious that this reflection was very weak, because the less dense the body from which the reflection occurs, the weaker the reflection and alteration to the opposite. Therefore, the pupil of the eye was only altered very weakly by it, so that the sight inside would not sense this sort of alteration, in particular as it was weak and slight; and the weaker the sight is, the less it senses small alterations, so ⟨even⟩ given that his sight and picture (imago) were reflected by the air, still no image (idolum) of himself would appear to him.
(3) So, a different explanation must be assigned: the principle of vision is inside in the eye and not in the exterior part of the pupil (this is stated by the Philosopher in the book On Sense and the Sensed). Now, the exterior part of the pupil is like an internal medium in vision, and therefore, just as vision is modified by an unnatural state of the external medium, so it is by an unnatural state of the pupil, and even more, as the pupil is of greater consequence to vision. For if it is sprinkled with some unnatural spirit or humour, and ⟨then⟩ is altered by some external visible object, it will be altered in its own way, and will alter the interior power of vision57 with the altered intension of the object of vision and according to its own state. Therefore, when thus altered, the power of vision will judge the colour to be in-between the colour of the object of vision and the colour of the pupil. If, however, the affection of the pupil is strong and great, and the power of vision weak, it will happen that the pupil by itself will alter the sight internally, and the sight will apprehend the colour of the pupil as ⟨if it were⟩ something external and distant from itself, firstly because such an affection is like something that is external and unnatural, secondly because it is accustomed to see all things it sees as being located outside, and thirdly because this is more reasonable, since the alteration of the power of vision internally by the pupil in such a state is very weak, partly because the weakness of the agent of change with respect to the external objects of vision, partly because of the weakness of the sight itself due to the illness. Now, things that alter the sight in a rather weakly way seem to be more distant, and those that alter it rather strongly to be closer, other things being equal, for sight seems to judge closeness or distance according as it is altered strongly or weakly. Therefore, such an affection of the pupil seems to be something external or distant. A similar phenomenon is seen in people who have a scar on their pupil or suffer from ophthalmia, for to them it seems as if something is standing before their eyes like a web, whereas in reality it is in the pupil itself in an unnatural way, being, that is, an unnatural humour which is diffused in it. (4) It sometimes also happens because of weakness of the power ⟨of vision⟩ that something is judged to be something else because of some tenuous similarity to it either in colour or in shape. For instance, if a wall exhibits some lines that somehow resemble the shape of some animal, persons who are ill with a fever or mad judge that this is an animal; and someone affected by fear or love judges at a minor rustle of a leaf or the like that his enemy or his beloved is present, as the Philosopher says in On Sleep and Waking ⟨2, 460b3–7⟩. This, then, is the way to explain what happened to Antiphoron: there was an unnatural and thick humour or spirit diffused over his pupil, which, as it changed the internal power of vision (weak and slight due to illness), was judged to be something external for the aforementioned reasons; and due to some tenuous similarity in colour and outline between the affection appearing to him and his own image (idolum), which, presumably, he was accustomed to see often in a mirror, he judged it ⟨i.e., the appearance⟩ to be his own image.
(5) This, then, seems to be the real reason of the aforementioned affection. The reason which Aristotle proffers in the text is the one on which the mathematicians ⟨of his day⟩ generally agreed, and he follows it here for the aforementioned reason.
Acknowledgements
We would like to express our gratitude to David Bloch, Börje Bydén, Laurent Cesalli, Sten Ebbesen, Henrik Lagerlund, Mika Perälä, Luciana Repici, and the members of the Representation and Reality programme for their comments and suggestions.
For earlier work that links Aristotle’s account of self-observation to the condition of autoscopy as described by the modern psychiatric tradition, see especially Peter Bicknell, “Déjà Vu, Autoscopia, and Antipheron: Notes on Aristotle Memory and Recollection I, 451a 8–12 and Meteorologica III, 4.373b1–10,” Acta Classica 24 (1981): 156–59.
Peter Brugger, Marianne Regard, and Theodor Landis, “Illusory Reduplication of One’s Own Body: Phenomenology and Classification of Autoscopic Phenomena,” Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 2.1 (1997): 19–38 report that autoscopic hallucinations often occur with a short duration, i.e., in the range of seconds. Note that Aristotle asserts that the man always used to see this image.
This phenomenon is also discussed in Alwishah’s contribution to this volume.
The distinction between ‘illusion’ and ‘hallucination’ is unclear in many cases. Oliver Sacks writes: “If I see someone cross the room from left to right, then see them crossing the room in precisely the same way again and again, is this sort of repetition (a ‘palinopsia’) a perceptual aberration, a hallucination, or both? We tend to speak of such things as misperceptions or illusions if there is something there to begin with – a human figure, or example – whereas hallucinations are conjured out of thin air. But many of my patients experience outright hallucinations, illusions, and complex misperceptions, and sometimes the line between these is difficult to draw.” (Hallucinations (London: Picador, 2012), x–xi.) For attempts in the modern literature to define ‘illusion’ and ‘hallucination,’ see Jan Dirk Blom, A Dictionary of Hallucinations (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), for a great variety of suggestions.
The condition of sleep not only enables dreams, but also makes the dreamer disposed to mistake dreams for present real-world objects. See Insomn. 3, 461b7–30.
‘Delusional’ in this context means that the subject is unaware of the illusory nature of the appearance, that is, he/she is responding to the observed image as if it was a perceived real physical object. On delusions perpetuated by emotional states, see Insomn. 2, 460b3–16.
We are especially grateful to Sten Ebbesen for preparing this edition exclusively for this inquiry.
Blom, A Dictionary of Hallucinations, 52.
See here for instance Tom R. Dening’s and German E. Berrios’ remarks in “Autoscopic Phenomena,” British Journal of Psychiatry 165 (1994): 809: “Autoscopy belongs within a range of ill-classified symptoms involving the boundaries of the self. There is disagreement as to whether autoscopy refers to a hallucination, an illusion, a delusion, a disorder of the body image, a disorder of the self, or a form of vivid imagery. The term ‘autoscopy’ is used ambiguously, and the phenomena included are heterogenous (Jaspers, 1963). In addition, after Menninger-Lerchental (1935), the term ‘heautoscopy’ is sometimes used, emphasising that the self-image is seen at a distance (i.e. separate from one’s body). However, we see no advantage in this term; it is pedantic, almost unpronounceable and not widely used in ordinary practice.” The references in the quote are to Erich Menninger-Lerchental, “Das Truggebilde der eigenen Gestalt (Heautoskopie, Doppelgänger),” Abhandlungen aus der Neurologie, Psychiatrie, Psychologie und ihren Grenzgebieten 74 (1935): 1–196, and Karl Jaspers, General Psychopathology, trans. J. Hoenig and M. W. Hamilton (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1963). The claim that ‘heautoscopy’ is used to emphasise that the self-image is seen at a distance is likely to be a misunderstanding on Dening’s and Berrios’ part. The adjustment is most likely intended to do justice to the fact that ‘oneself’ is the object, not the subject, of the seeing: think of ‘autopsy’ (‘to see with one’s own eyes’). Thus, the use of the term “heautoscopy” may be understood as an attempt to introduce a more precise term than “autoscopy” (unqualified as ‘self-observation’).
Andrew Sims, Sims’ Symptoms in the Mind, 4th ed. (Edinburgh: Saunders/Elsevier, 2008), 225: “The ‘double’ or doppelgänger phenomenon is an awareness of oneself as being both outside, alongside, and inside oneself: the subjective phenomenon of doubling. In the discussion that follows, the description is of a symptom or phenomenon and not a syndrome or diagnosis; the experience occurs with different conditions or with no mental disorder at all. It is cognitive and ideational rather than being necessarily perceptual.”
See, e.g., Susan J. Blackmore, Beyond the Body: An Investigation of Out-of-the-Body Experiences (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1982, reprinted 1992).
Peter Brugger, “Reflective Mirrors: Perspective-Taking in Autoscopic Phenomena,” Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 7 (2002): 181. The references in the quote are to Charles Féré, “Note sur les hallucinations autoscopiques ou spéculaires et sur les hallucinations altruistes,” Comptes Rendues Hebdomedaires des Séances et Mémoirs de la Société de la Biologie 3 (1891): 451–53; M. G. Naudascher, “Trois cas d’hallucinations spéculaires,” Annales Médico-Psychologiques 68 (1910): 284–96; Paul Auguste Sollier, Les phénomènes d’autoscopie (Paris: Alcan, 1903).
See Ronald K. Siegel, Fire in the Brain: Clinical Tales of Hallucination (New York: Plume, 1993), or, for instance, Dostoyevsky’s novella The Double, trans. R. Pevear and L. Volokhonsky (New York: Knopf, 2005), which portrays a man and his malicious double.
For instance, reflections in water are referred to by Plato as phantásmata in Republic, ed. and trans. C. Emlyn-Jones and W. Preddy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 6.510a, but described as eídōla in Rep. 7.516a and Timaeus, trans. R. G. Bury (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 71b5.
Cf. other references to eídōla, e.g., in Insomn. 3, 462a11–15. The term eídōlon carries strong visual connotations in Aristotle’s use and in other traditional applications.
Cf. Plato’s theory of perception, as described in Timaeus, 46a–b.
Cf. Bicknell, “Déjà Vu,” 159: “One thing is certain; we must avoid reading into the text a temporary adherence by Aristotle to the Platonic theory that he attacked at Sens. 2, 437b9ff., of visual rays proceeding from the eye.” However, a temporary adherence to an extramission theory, of the kind that Plato endorses (or other kinds, for that matter), is exactly what it looks like in this case. One may ask whether Aristotle wholeheartedly endorsed the extramission theory in Meteorologica or whether he used it for pedagogical purposes, to put forward convincing explanations. For a discussion of assumed Aristotelian expository principles, see William Wians and Ronald Polansky, Reading Aristotle: Argument and Exposition (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 1.
Aristotle claims that the visual ray becomes weak when reaching out to faraway stars; this explains the twinkling of the fixed stars and the absence of the twinkling in the perception of planets (since they are closer).
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Alexandri in Aristotelis Meteorologicorum libros commentaria, ed. M. Hayduck (Berlin: Reimer, 1899), 141.29–30. Börje Bydén has provided translations of Alexanders’ text exclusively for this inquiry.
Olympiodorus, Olympiodori in Aristotelis Meteora commentaria, ed. W. Stüve (Berlin: Reimer, 1900), 4.27–5.10. For a recent account of Aristotle’s ambivalence regarding intromission and extramission theories of visual perception, see Sylvia Berryman, “‘It Makes No Difference’: Optics and Natural Philosophy in Late Antiquity,” Apeiron 5 (2012): 201–20.
David Bloch remarked in conversation that the passage about Antipheron in De memoria can be read as regarding the general case of mistaking phantásmata for real events followed by the specific case of false memory.
Note that the text is rather unclear about whether it is Antipheron that sees things that are not really there, or whether he is the man who supposedly undergoes episodes of false memories. However, it is clear that Antipheron exemplifies a man who mistakes phantásmata for real events.
This explanatory move raises further questions about which cognitive capacities are involved in the assumed case of perceptual misidentification. Aristotle’s view on the matter is not explicit. For a thorough discussion of his view on these matters, see Mika Perälä’s contribution to this volume (chapter two).
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism, trans. J. Annas and J. Barnes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 1.84.6–8.
As we have seen, there are various assumptions made about the identity and geographical origin of the man who undergoes the alleged autoscopic experience in Meteorologica. As mentioned, Sextus Empircus refers to the man as a citizen of Thasos (Outlines 1.84). On the other hand, Alexander says that the man is Antipheron of Oreos, the man who is mentioned in Mem. 1, 451a9 (In Mete. 147.28–32). Further, Olympiodorus (In Mete., 230.13–18, 232.10–14) also identifies the man as Antipheron, albeit as a citizen of Tarentum. Olympiodorus adds (ibid., 232.14–15) that the same Antipheron is mentioned in the Ethics. However, there is no reference to Antipheron in the Nicomachean Ethics or any other extant ethical work by Aristotle. Bicknell suggests “it is tempting to suppose that Olympiodoros was merely guilty of two slips of memory. Recalling Alexander’s comment he misrecollected Antipheron’s ethnicity; he then referred Aristotle’s specific allusion to Antipheron to the wrong work.” (“Déjà vu,” 158; see also Bicknell’s attempts to link Antipheron in De memoria with the man who sees his own image in Meteorologica by means of particular traits common to autoscopy and déjà vu.) As suggested above, Alexander’s identification of the man as Antipheron in De memoria may rely on a superficial resemblance between the man who sees his own face and the cognitive errors that Aristotle attributes to Antipheron and people like him in De memoria.
The latest edition of this text is presented in Pieter Schoonheim, Aristotle’s Meteorology in the Arabico-Latin Tradition: A Critical Edition of the Texts, with Introduction and Indices (Leiden: Brill, 2000), hereafter referred to as “Schoonheim,” which includes on facing pages Gerard’s Latin. Note that Ibn al-Biṭrīq was also named as the translator of the (sadly lost) Timaeus.
Paul Lettinck, Aristotle’s Meteorology and its Reception in the Arab World (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 7.
Hans Daiber, ed., Ein Kompendium der aristotelischen Meteorologie in der Fassung des Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq (Leiden: Brill, 1975). This text does not include our autoscopic moment.
Lettinck, Aristotle’s, 9.
Lettinck, Aristotle’s, 13.
Again, this is discussed at length in Lettinck, Aristotle’s, 243–300.
Schoonheim, 131 (all Arabic passages trans. D. Bennett unless otherwise indicated):
Avicenna, The Physics of The Healing, ed. and trans. J. McGinnis (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2009), 1.8–9.
In a tenth-century report on a conversation set contemporaneously with Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s composition, that is, at the end of the eighth century, two practitioners of kalām are imagined to discuss the perceptive operation of the ‘spiritual power’ (al-quwwa al-rūḥiyya) governing humans once it is disembodied: the objects of its perception are ashkhāṣ (plur. shakhṣ) and ashkāl, “shapes.” This report is found in al-Maqdisī, Kitāb al-Badʾ wa-l-taʾrīkh, ed. C. Huart (Paris: E. Leroux, 1899–1919), 2:123. Modern commentators have been perplexed about this usage of ashkhāṣ as primary objects of perception, but its appearance here suggests common ground. The rest of this text is interesting for several reasons: it involves a dialectical analysis of perception, its necessity, and its relationship to material forms and a faculty of imagination. Terms for the internal process of imagination (takhayyul, tawahhum) are discussed, but it is unclear whether these are added by al-Maqdisī or present in the original discourse.
Averroes, Rasāʾil (Hyderabad: Dār al-Maʿārif al-Uthmāniyya, 1947), 4:60:
Cited in Nicolai Sinai, “Al-Suhrawardī on Mirror Vision and Suspended Images (muthul muʿallaqa),” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 25 (2015): 284.
Averroes, Talkhīṣ al-Āthār al-ʿulwiyya, ed. J. E. Alaoui (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1994), 153:
See Rasāʾil, 4:60.
Lettinck, Aristotle’s, 324 (Arabic text), 325 (Lettinck’s translation).
There may be a clue in the wording in Ibn al-Biṭrīq, who has the figure muwājahan, literally ‘facing’ him. As in English, the root term is the same in both cases: the noun ‘face’ in Arabic is wajh.
“Quia ergo iam narravimus de rotunditate et arcu, et quod causa esse eorum est tersio et splendor, tunc necesse est nobis, ut dicamus qualiter est esse eorum. Dico ergo quod tersio et splendor non videntur in aere et aqua, nisi quando sunt quieti, quoniam tunc utrique recipiunt radium et reddunt ipsum ad corpora. Vir autem infirmatus fuit et debilitatus fuit visus eius * * * Et dum iret, quia vidit ante se lumen coram facie sua, ambulavit, quod est quoniam corpora formantur in aere et aqua, sicut sunt formae eorum. Quia ergo est umiditas, quae est in oculis eius, formatur illud ei.
Et fortasse videtur, quando aer est mundus et visus similiter, et fortasse non videtur, quod est propter unam duarum causarum, aut propter turbulentiam aeris, aut propter debilitatem visus, aut propter debilitatem coloris et paucitatem impressionis corporis in aere.” (Schoonheim, 965.8–23, trans. S. Ebbesen.)
The Hebrew version of the text basically follows the Latin text (although it is a translation from the Arabic), including the lines that are missing in the Arabic version, plus some remarks regarding the accuracy of translation. Cf. the following section from Otot Ha-Shamayim: “I say the smoothness and luminosity are visible in air and water when these are calm and quiet, for in such conditions they can receive the sunshine and reflect it to objects. It happened to a man who was sick, his sight having become weak by his illness, that as he walked he used to see his image walking before him with his face towards him, for objects are represented in the air as their forms, and this image was imagined by him because of the moisture in his eyes. Sometimes it is seen when the air is clear and the vision too, and sometimes they are not seen, which is due to one of two causes: either density of air or weakness of sight or colour or because of the small impact of the object on the clarity of the air. Samuel Ibn Tibbon [i.e., interjecting here as editor of his own translation] says: I have not found these two lines from the words ‘sometimes it is seen’ up to there in the commentary of Alexander and their explanation has not become clear to me. Therefore, I was forced to translate one Arabic word in two different ways, namely the word I have translated as ‘it is seen’ but [could also be read as] ‘they are seen’. The Arabic word admits of these two meanings.” (Samuel Ibn Tibbon, Otot Ha-Shamayim, Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew Version of Aristotle’s Meteorology: A Critical Edition, with Introduction, Translation, and Index, ed. and trans. R. Fontaine (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 169.) This is interesting and confusing. The two lines Samuel identifies are the ones missing from Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s translation, but Ibn Tibbon seems to be identifying that text with Alexander’s commentary. Perhaps he was using a recension of Ibn al-Biṭrīq’s translation similar to that used by Gerard and simply notes that the added passage – which looks like an interpolated scholion on the previous passage – is not in Alexander’s lemmata or commentary (to which he must obviously have still had access).
Peter presumably used William of Moerbeke’s translation of the Meteorologica. William of Moerbeke finished his translation of Alexander’s commentary on the Meteorologica on April 24, 1260 according to a colophon found in seven manuscripts: see Willy Vanhamel, Bibliogiographie de Guillaume de Moerbeke, in Guillaume de Moerbeke, ed. J. Brams and W. Vanhamel (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1989), 309. There is also extensive discussion of the dating of William’s translations of the Meteorologica itself in Gudrun Vuillemin-Diem, ed., Aristoteles Latinus X.2.1: Meteora (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), 30–32 and 340–49. Albert the Great also comments on this passage, and explicitly mentions Alexander’s commentary: see Albert the Great, Meteora, ed. P. Hoßfeld (Münster: Aschendorff, 2004), 189–90. (We are grateful to Sten Ebbesen for presenting this passage to us.)
William of Moerbeke translated correctly “ut accidit Antipheronti Oreite,” but the name was soon mangled a bit.
Peter of Auvergne, Expositio magistri Petri de Aluernia super quattuor libros Metheorum Aristotelis, on Mete. 3.4, 373b1ff., edited by Sten Ebbesen in the appendix of this chapter; all translations from this source are by Ebbesen. The translated passages are numbered (1) to (5) to correspond to the numbered sections in the edition.
propter necessitatem videndi: the editor suspects that the text is corrupt.
Cf. Sens. 2, 438a9–15, 438a25–27.
power of vision] visivum.
The idea seems to be that the externalisation of perceived objects is not something that is learned, but is hard-wired into visual perception.
As noted above, this raises the problem of which cognitive capacities are involved in perceptual misidentification. Is it phantasía or dóxa that is responsible for the misidentification? Note Peter’s reference to ‘judgements’ in this context.
See the scholarship cited in note 46, above.
Antipheron of Oreus is mentioned in Mem. 1, 451a9. William of Moerbeke translated correctly ut accidit Antipheronti Oreite, but the name was soon mangled a bit.
propter necessitatem videndi. I suspect the text is corrupt.
power of vision] visivum.