ABSTRACT
Is it possible to hear just sound, that is, sound stripped bare of its accompanying pleasures, pains and memories? What would such a sound sound like? The question is posed to Aristotle and his On the Soul (as well as other treatises). After overviewing his account of sound, from sounding object to hearing subject, and exploring the role of phantasia in such hearing, the conclusion is offered that for Aristotle no animal, not even the simplest one, has ever heard “just” sound. Sound is necessarily enmeshed with pleasure, pain and other such experiences: this is the very makeup of the experience of “sound”.
