Aristotelian Epistemology Part 2

Relationality as the Possibility of Knowledge

As we concluded in Part 1:

Mind knows form because mind is form and is related to object formally. The metaphysical movement of form differentiating potential matter is mirrored in cognition itself: “Actual knowledge is identical with its object: potential knowledge in the individual is in time prior to actual knowledge but in the universe it [is the opposite] for all things come into being arise from what actually is.”¹

Formal Contact:

Form→ Matter/Object | Sensation→ Image/Perception→ Idea/Form

For Aristotle the ‘problem-of-contact’ is precisely the solution: knowledge is possible because the senses do not admit matter, but quality-in-ratio which the mind can infer ‘form’ which is indeed the truly substantive reality of the object itself. In the mind, knowledge is not perception because it is reality itself that is known.