Sense Perception between Psychology and Elemental Physics

Abstract The southern Italian translations of the second half of the eleventh century represent a turning point in the understanding of human nature in the Latin West. Their account of sense perception offers a comprehension of how the outer world, the body, and the mind interact. The interaction is based on the concepts of elements and their qualities, on the one hand, and immaterial powers of the soul, on the other. The present article investigates how this interaction, including the physiology and psychology of perception, was explained in two widely received translations: Alfanus of Salerno’s Premnon physicon and Constantine the African’s Pantegni . It also underlines the salient aspects in which these explanations differ from the Aristotelian and the Augustinian views of perception, offering to some extent a Galenic-based alternative to them.