Baltussen, J.2009-08-252009-08-2520009004117202978-90-04-11720-4http://hdl.handle.net/2440/50619This study offers a new and stimulating interpretation of Theophrastus' De sensibus, a treatise unique in content and method, as it reports and criticizes the theories of sense perception of the Presocratics and Plato. Most of the material on the Presocratics is found nowhere else, which explains why many passages can be found scattered over the Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. As an antidote to this fragmented approach the Presocratics are here studied in context, a text informed by a distinctly Peripatetic perspective. The analysis of the reports and (long neglected) criticisms of Plato (ch.4) and the Presocratics (ch.5) offers new insights into Theophrastus' exegetical procedure by succesfully using Peripatetic dialectic as a heuristic tool. The Epilogue outlines some implications for the role of the treatise in the doxographical tradition.enTheophrastus, Aristotle, dialectical method, Plato, Presocratics, sense perception, doxographyBook00300012142009082509595495 Cultural Understanding9505 Understanding Past Societies950504 Understanding Europe's Past22 Philosophy and Religious Studies2202 History and Philosophy of Specific Fields220207 History and Philosophy of the Humanities65220Baltussen, J. [0000-0002-8262-1833]