Leo's Food Bowl

In this paper, I will explain the event of a dog, Leo, hearing the sound of my pouring his dog-food into his food-bowl. I will explain this in an Aristotelian fashion using Aristotle's framework of explanatory schemata - the four causes - and by citing evidence from his theories of (a) hearing from De Anima II.8, (b) perception from De Anima II.12, and (c) potentiality and actuality from De Anima II.5. I will begin with an analysis of the event of Leo's hearing the pouring of the dog-food, and follow that with an examination of why he was able to hear it using the four causes. Aristotle says that sound may exist in either a state of actuality or of potentiality, with the case of the reception of the sound being the discriminatory factor between the two. Sound in potentiality is sound that created and not heard, and sound in actuality is sound that is created and received. Furthermore, sound only arises from two smooth and solid objects impacting one another across a space lying between them - "there must be a body impinging and a body impinged upon". (De Anima II.8 419b 9-12) In our case, these "bodies" are the multiple bodies of dog-food impinging upon one another and impinging on Leo's food-bowl. This action of impingement of these bodies upon one another only …show more content…
The moving mass of air created by the dog-food impacting both itself and the bowl enters into the outer ear, impacts the membrane, and then is trapped within the ear allowing the movements to continue and be interpreted into sounds. This is where the potential of the dog-food's sound becomes actualized - this is the perception of hearing and the sense of