One of the main purposes of De Anima III.1 is to show that there can be no sense in addition to the five familiar ones — that is, sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Aristotle supplies an argument in which he concludes for the common perceptibles — such as change, shape, or magnitude — ‘we have an aisthesin koinen’. This is usually taken to imply that the common perceptibles are perceived by the common sense. The logic and the terminology of Aristotle's argument is analysed in this chapter, and it is shown that the phrase does not in fact refer to any higher-order perceptual capacity, but rather it describes an aspect of properly functioning individual senses, namely their sensitivity to the common perceptibles. This interpretation respects the logic of Aristotle's argument and accommodates the facts that the key phrase occurs without the definite article and in reverse word order.
Keywords: De Anima, common sense, senses, common perceptibles, perception, aisthesis koine