Thinking Through the Senses
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21792524Keywords:
Philosophy of Perception, Hierarchy of the Senses, Embodiment, Epistemology, Sixth SenseAbstract
The senses occupy a paradoxical place in the history of philosophy. They are our primary means of engaging with the world, yet they have frequently been treated as inferior to reason and regarded with suspicion as unreliable sources of knowledge. In this paper I trace the philosophical history of the senses from antiquity to the present, examining how different traditions have understood the relationship between sensation, cognition, and the body. I explore the enduring hierarchy that privileges vision and hearing as ‘cognitive’ or distal senses while relegating taste, smell, and touch to a lower, more bodily status. I also examine a number of historical debates over whether humans possess more than the traditional five senses, considering proposals ranging from speech and sexuality to proprioception, intuition, and extrasensory perception. By bringing together philosophical, historical, and anthropological perspectives, I argue that the number and status of the senses are not fixed biological facts but reflect broader assumptions about reason, embodiment, knowledge, and cultural values. Rather than treating the senses as passive channels through which information reaches the mind, the chapter invites readers to reconsider them as active participants in human understanding and to question the philosophical commitments that have shaped sensory hierarchies for more than two millennia.
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