On Appearance and Reality in Aristotle. Marcelo Boeri’s Interpretation

Abstract

In his recent work on the concepts of appearance and reality in ancient Greek thought, Marcelo Boeri offers a detailed account of the role Aristotle assigns to the phantasiai, both in our moral and cognitive assessments. In the light of this somewhat unitary account of moral and epistemic mistakes, this paper takes further some of Boeri’s suggestions, which seem to point in the direction of an inchoate Aristotelian “criteriology”. The virtuous person provides the “canon and measurement” of the morally trustworthy appearances; in much the same way, the joint exercise (and suitable training) of our sensory and intellectual discriminatory abilities assures the reliability of perceptible appearances. A brief account of the Aristotelian “dissolution strategy” against radical skepticism closes this paper.