Aristotle on the Senses

Plato distrusted the senses. That's at least one of the points he was making in the Allegory of the Cave. In the opening of  Metaphysics Aristotle takes the opposite tack. For him, the senses, and especially the sense of sight, provides evidence of our desire to know, in other words, are the evidence of, if not the basis for, a thirst for knowledge, perhaps even philosophy:  


"ALL men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer seeing (one might say) to everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things." 

Currently listening to Augustine's "Confessions." In Book Ten he writes about the "Lust of Sight," by which he seems to be wary of "the beautiful," which was so much a part of Greek philosophy. The problem for Augustine was that what was good in the physical world might actually take our attention away from the God who created the good. He admitted that he was never sure whether he loved the good or loved the God behind the good. 

This strikes me as an almost impossibly high bar, and Augustine takes the only way out, which is to deny himself goods, or at least too much of any one good, to guard against losing sight of God. For instance, he wrote about taking care only to eat enough to sustain the health of his body. 

His ideas hark back to Plato, since he has made a distinction between what we can see and what we cannot, and what we cannot is better than what we can. His visible is a gift from God, and reflects his goodness, even though not as . . . at question is whether a reflection is a major distinction from an imitation.