ABSTRACT
Did early Greek philosophers have theories about perception and cognition? That depends on what counts as a theory. Nevertheless, some of the thinkers classified as Presocratics had views about the mechanism of sensation and about the nature of thinking. 1 The topics they discussed were connected with their interest in the possibility of human knowledge. Having raised the prospect that human beings can acquire the sort of epistemic security previously reserved for the divine, they were faced with related questions about sensation and cognition. Here, I consider Parmenides, Anaxagoras, and Democritus. As always when working with Presocratics, we must keep in mind the fragmentary nature of the evidence we have, as well as be aware of the role of the testimony of later philosophers and doxographers in shaping our interpretations. Lack of a settled vocabulary for perceptual and cognitive terms also makes for difficulty; it cannot be assumed that a single word or expression will maintain a fixed meaning across the views of the figures considered here.
