Acknowledgements

My interest in the riddles and the philosophical appeal of Aristotle’s account of perception dates back to the period 2012–14. At this early stage, conversations with, and feedback from, Caleb Cohoe, Klaus Corcilius, Pavel Gregoric, Thomas Johansen, Richard King, and Karel Thein helped me the most. The project became more serious as a part of my PhD dissertation written at the Humboldt University of Berlin between 2014 and 2018. During that time, my first supervisor, Stephen Menn, deeply informed my understanding of what it means to do ancient philosophy seriously – paying due attention to the tiny details while never losing sight of the larger historical connections and underlying philosophical issues. He taught me to see the history of ancient philosophy as a serious dialogue among friends genuinely perplexed by aporiai and passionately seeking a way out. Stephen’s profound kindness, unmatched dedication to teaching and supervision, as well as his authentic belief that there is always more to learn, were vital for the development of this project. In 2015 he was the first to report that I may be onto something important with my unorthodox approach to An. 2.5, and his feedback and encouragement over the years (including his Stephen-style, seventeen-page, single-spaced Gutachten) helped me immensely in working out the details of the view presented in this book.

I also owe many thanks to Jonathan Beere, who served as my second supervisor. Conversations with him were enormously helpful thanks to his unparalleled gift for immediately grasping what his interlocutor is up to and what the potential setbacks may be. I profited greatly not only from Jonathan’s detailed report, but also from a seminar on perception and νοῦς taught jointly at the Humboldt University in the summer semester of 2021. During my PhD studies, I received valuable feedback from various presentations and conversations too many to be detailed here – although I am deeply thankful for every single one of them. I am grateful and proud for having been a part of the wonderful Berlin ancient philosophy graduate community. From that time, I would like to single out a long-term conversation with Sean Kelsey, which was particularly helpful despite – or perhaps because of – our respective understandings of the basic issues being very different; feedback from André Martin, who served as my commentator on a rudimentary version of what would become Chapters 4–7 at McGill University in 2016 and who later helped me improve my understanding of the medieval sensus agens discussion; as well as comments from Caleb Cohoe, Philip van der Eijk, Kosta Gligorijevic, Christopher Roser, Barbara Sattler, and Štěpán Špinka. In 2017/18 I benefited from the opportunity to teach the content of the present book at Charles University: thanks to the audience, especially Vojtěch Linka, for excellent questions and discussions. Last but not least, I want to thank warmly my third Gutachter, Thomas Johansen, not only for his generous and probing report, but also for inviting me over to the University of Oslo in 2020 to discuss a rudimentary version of Chapter 2 with the lively ancient philosophy community there.

Major revisions of the dissertation manuscript were undertaken in 2021–2, when I was visiting MUSAPh at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich as an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow. I express my gratitude to the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung as well as the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Charles University for making this stay possible, and to Peter Adamson for being a wonderful host. The work has been supported by Charles University Research Centre program No. UNCE/24/SSH/026. I would like to thank most warmly Jason Carter for intensive discussions of the entire manuscript during the winter semester 2021/2 as well as Michael Arsenault for excellent comments on the penultimate version of the book. I owe a deep sense of gratitude to Andrea Falcon not only for reading and commenting on the entire manuscript, but also for his mentoring support over the years.

I was also helped immensely by further feedback on various parts and ideas of the book. For Chapters 1–3, I single out a long-term conversation about An. 2.5 with Andreas Anagnostopoulos and an intense online reading group on An. 2.5 organized by Jake Rohde over the summer of 2020 and attended by, besides Andreas and Jake, David Charles, Emily Kress, and Mariska Leunissen. I also have fond memories of inspirational conversations about An. 2.5 with David Bronstein. For Chapter 5, I profited particularly from comments by Hendrik Lorenz and Ron Polansky when presenting an earlier version of ‘The Perceptive Soul’s Impassivity in Late Ancient Reception of Aristotle’s De Anima’ at the University of St Andrews in 2019 and during the review process in Ancient Philosophy, respectively. Ideas from this published paper are used as the basis for the argument in Chapter 5. Many thanks to the editor of Ancient Philosophy for his permission. For large issues in Aristotle’s philosophy of perception, but also for how to write a book on Aristotle, the collaboration on Aristotle on the Essence of Human Thought (Oxford University Press 2024) with Klaus Corcilius, Michel Crubellier, Andrea Falcon, and Pavel Gregoric was a source of much inspiration.

In the very final stage, the typescript was greatly improved thanks to detailed and probing comments from two anonymous referees commissioned by Cambridge University Press. Hilary Gaskin was an exemplary editor throughout the entire time, who organized both the review and the production process most efficiently and helped in every way one can think of. I also thank Louise Chapman and Nigel Hope for copy-editing the book and Balamuthukumaran Pasupathy for his assistance throughout the production phase. For their kind and unfailing support over the years, I wish to thank my parents warmly. The deepest gratitude goes to Alena for her friendship, love, care, and many discussions of perception, as well as to our daughters Miriam and Rozálie for all the paintings and amulets intended to help their father do his work more quickly – and for much more. It is to them that this book is dedicated.