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MARMODORO, Anna, Aristotle on Perceiving Objects. Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York, 2014. X,291p. Hard bound with dust wrps. 'The book begins with a long and detailed discussion of Aristotle’s theory of potentiality. This first chapter, 'The Metaphysical Foundations of Perception', is extremely interesting not only because of the light it sheds on Aristotle’s theory but also because of Marmodoro’s detailed discussion and use of contemporary 'power ontology' as a hermeneutic for understanding Aristotle’s own language of dispositional properties. On Marmodoro’s account, Aristotle regards efficient causation as a function of the interaction of active and passive relative pairs, for example, 'capable of heating' and 'capable of being heated'. The metaphysics of change is thus reducible to properties that interact with each other in terms of active and passive modes: the change from not-hot to hot is reducible to the co-instantiation of the active power of heating and the passive power of being-heated. In every case of change there will be two such properties, each property being ontologically independent of the other yet neither occurring in the absence of the other. (...) Chapters 2 and 3 present Marmodoro’s main interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of perception. (...). Aristotle is thus a realist about the proper objects of perception because the capacities to be seen, to be heard, to be felt, etc. are not merely subjective qualia but are in fact real features of the external world that have an independent existence whether or not they are being experienced by some perceiving subject. However, on Marmodoro’s account the distinction between first and second actuality marks the intimate connection that nevertheless exists between a proper sensible and the perceiving subject. Sounding, she says (p. 131), is an object’s capacity to produce an instance of hearing in a perceiving subject - this is the second actuality of the capacity that is sounding. But a sound can also exist - as a first actuality - when it is not actually heard. So it turns out that the tree falling in the forest when nobody is there to hear it does make a sound: in the form of a first actualization of the capacity to produce an instance of hearing when somebody is there to hear it. The remainder of the book (Chapters 4 through 7) applies this interpretation of Aristotle’s overall theory of perception to the specific problem of complex perceptual content, that is, content that is mixed in terms of its perceptual origins but that is perceived as an integrated whole. (...). Marmodoro has done exemplary work in bringing us closer to understanding the details of Aristotle’s theory of perception even if she has left us hungry for more. Her work will be necessary reading for anyone interested in the philosophy of perception, and by putting it into the context of contemporary power metaphysics she has made Aristotle’s theory of more than antiquarian interest.' (SCOTT CARSON in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2016.04.39). € 69.50 (New) ISBN: 9780199326006