59. Touch as the Foundational Sense and Animal Life

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Necessity of Touch for Animal Life #

• Touch is the most basic and necessary sense for all animals
• All other senses (sight, hearing, smell) operate at a distance through an exterior medium
• Touch alone operates directly through contact with the sensible object
• Loss of touch means death; loss of other senses does not
• Every ensouled body (every animal) is a tangible body and must have the sense of touch

Why Simple Bodies Cannot Be Animals #

• Simple bodies (pure fire, air, or earth) cannot possess the sense of touch
• Touch requires a sense organ that is a mean between extremes (hot/cold, hard/soft, wet/dry)
• Fire is excessively hot and lacks this mean
• Air lacks the tangible qualities necessary for touch
• Earth is too dense and earthy; plants have no sense because they are purely earthy
• Therefore, Platonic creatures made of simple elements (like Ariel in Shakespeare’s Tempest) cannot exist as living beings

The Hierarchy of Senses #

• Touch and taste: Senses of necessity and interior knowledge; tied to animal survival
• Taste as intermediate: A kind of touch because it requires contact with food (a tangible body), but more spiritual than touch
• Distance senses (sight, hearing, smell): Senses of beauty and well-being; necessary only for animals that move from place to place to hunt
• Stationary animals: Need only touch, since food comes to them
• Mobile animals: Need distance senses to detect prey and enemies from afar

The Nature of Sensibles and Their Effects #

• Excessive sensibles destroy the sense organ but not necessarily the animal
• Excessive light can blind; excessive sound can deafen; excessive taste can burn the sense of taste
• Excessive tangibles (extreme heat/cold) destroy not only the sense organ but the animal itself
• This shows that touch is fundamentally tied to the conditions of life itself
• The sense organ must receive the form as “other,” not as the organ’s own quality

Touch as the Sense of Certitude and Interior Knowledge #

• Touch is the sense of certitude (the “touchstone” of certainty)
• Example of doubting Thomas: he trusts his sense of touch more than his sense of sight
• Touch is the sense of the interior and the interior knowledge of things
• Taste (metaphorically) means interior knowledge of God: “Taste and see how sweet is the Lord”
• Touch and taste give us our first experience of good in nature

The Nature of the Sense Organ #

• The sense organ must be composed of mixed elements, not a simple body
• It must be a mean between the extremes of the qualities it perceives
• Bones are too hard; hair is too earthy; neither can be the seat of touch
• The skin is the proper organ of touch because it achieves this mean

Key Arguments #

Why Touch Is Before Other Senses in Being #

• One can have touch without having sight, hearing, or smell
• One cannot have sight, hearing, or smell without having touch (this is implied by the necessity of touch)
• Therefore, touch is “before” the other senses in being (being can exist without the other; the other cannot exist without it)

Why Simple Bodies Cannot Have Touch #

• Touch requires the sense organ to be a mean between extremes (e.g., between hot and cold)
• A simple body like fire is itself an extreme (excessively hot)
• Therefore, a simple body cannot be the proper organ of touch
• Since all animals must have touch, and touch requires a mixed body, no simple-bodied creature can be an animal

Why Mobile Animals Need Distance Senses #

• Animals that must move to find food and shelter cannot rely on touch alone
• They must be able to perceive objects at a distance to hunt effectively
• Nature does nothing in vain; mobile animals have eyes, ears, and noses for a purpose
• These distance senses operate through a medium (air or water), allowing perception without direct contact

Why Excessive Sensibles Harm Senses But Not Intellect #

• The senses are bodily powers and are affected by excess of their objects
• Too much heat or cold can damage the sense organ or the animal itself
• The intellect is immaterial and is not harmed by understanding very intelligible things (like God)
• In fact, understanding very intelligible things helps one understand lesser things better
• This shows the fundamental difference between bodily and immaterial powers

Important Definitions #

The Tangible (τὸ ἁπτόν / tactile) #

• What is sensible by touch
• Includes qualities like hot/cold, hard/soft, wet/dry
• The most fundamental sensible quality for animal life
• Excessive tangibles can destroy not just the sense but the animal itself

The Sense Organ as a Mean #

• The organ of a sense must be in mean between the extremes of the qualities it perceives
• It must be receptive to both extremes without being itself extreme
• Example: the organ of touch must be neither excessively hot nor excessively cold

Taste as “a Kind of Touch” (κατά τι ἅπτη) #

• Taste is intermediate between touch and the distance senses
• Like touch, it requires contact with the sensible object (food is a tangible body)
• Like the distance senses, it is more “spiritual” and concerned with knowing
• This is why “taste” is metaphorically extended to aesthetic and intellectual appreciation (“good taste in music”)

Interior Knowledge (κατά τι ἔσω γνῶσις) #

• Knowledge gained through touch and taste that is intrinsic rather than external
• Contrasted with knowledge through sight and hearing, which are more external
• Related to the biblical metaphor: “Taste and see how sweet is the Lord”
• Touch gives certitude; the interior senses give intimate knowledge

Examples & Illustrations #

The Cat on the Stove #

• A cat jumps on the mother’s stove, smelling something good cooking
• The cat is singed and falls to the ground
• This is the sense of touch saving the cat’s life, not the sense of smell
• The cat must sense the heat through touch to flee the danger

Sensory Overload from Spicy Food #

• Eating extremely spicy food (like hot Indian restaurant food) burns out the sense of taste temporarily
• After several bites of very hot food, one cannot taste anything else—only a burning sensation remains
• This shows how excessive sensibles destroy the sense organ
• Contrast: understanding something very intelligible (like God) helps one understand lesser things better

Pepperoni Pizza and Wine Pairing #

• Too much pepperoni on pizza destroys the sense of taste temporarily
• One cannot taste wine properly with a heavily spiced pizza
• One must pair food and wine carefully so that neither overwhelms the sense of taste
• Excessive salt, pepper, or mustard can permanently damage the sense of taste over time
• In contrast, understanding very intelligible things enhances understanding of lesser things

The Factory Workers’ Hearing #

• Factory workers exposed to loud machinery over 20-30 years lose their hearing
• They no longer perceive the loud noises that once bothered them
• Their ears have been “burned out” by excessive noise
• This illustrates how excessive sensibles damage the sense organ

Ink Stain Deception #

• As a child, Berquist saw a metal piece that looked like a pool of spilled ink
• When he touched it, he realized the deception
• This shows that the sense of touch is more reliable than the sense of sight
• Touch is the “touchstone” of certitude

Baby Development and Touch #

• Hospitals discovered that babies whose mothers died failed to develop physically
• Babies required being held and hugged by nurses to develop physically and emotionally
• This shows the fundamental importance of touch for life and growth
• Touch is not merely sensory pleasure but necessary for survival and development

The Third Man (Film) #

• In the merry-go-round scene, Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton look down at tiny people below
• The distance of sight creates emotional distance; people become mere specks
• This contrasts with the sense of touch, which creates sympathy and connection
• The scene illustrates how distance senses (sight) can create moral detachment

Vision and Blindness from Torture #

• During the Spanish Civil War, prisoners were tortured by having their eyes propped open with toothpicks and bright light shined in them
• This excessive light causes blindness
• Similarly, people in mountains without eye protection can be blinded by sunlight
• These examples show how excessive sensibles destroy the sense organ but not necessarily the animal

Smoking and Loss of Taste #

• A man who smoked for years lost much of his sense of taste
• After quitting smoking, his senses gradually returned
• He rediscovered the taste of food like a child tasting for the first time
• This illustrates how excessive stimulation (smoking) can damage the sense organ

Women’s Superior Sense of Taste #

• Women often have a better sense of taste and smell than men
• This may be because men tend to burn out their sense of taste with excessive salt, pepper, or spices
• The sense of taste is more sensitive in those who do not subject it to excessive stimulation

Questions Addressed #

Can there be animals made of simple elements like fire or air? #

Answer: No. Simple bodies cannot have the mean between extremes necessary for the sense of touch. Since all animals require touch for survival, and touch requires a mixed body, simple-bodied creatures cannot be animals. Platonic creatures like Ariel (Shakespeare’s air-creature) cannot exist.

Why do some animals have distance senses and others do not? #

Answer: Mobile animals that hunt need sight, hearing, and smell to detect prey from a distance. Stationary animals whose food comes to them (like sea creatures attached to rocks) need only touch. Nature does nothing in vain; each animal has the senses it requires for its mode of life.

Why is taste called “a kind of touch”? #

Answer: Taste requires contact with food, which is a tangible body. Like touch, it involves direct contact with the sensible object. However, taste is more “spiritual” than touch because it is more concerned with knowing rather than mere sensation. Taste is intermediate between the purely necessary sense of touch and the higher distance senses.

Why does excessive touch destroy the animal but excessive sight or hearing does not? #

Answer: Touch is tied to the tangible qualities (hot/cold, hard/soft) that are basic to life itself. Excessive tangibles (extreme heat or cold) can destroy the animal because the very life of the animal depends on maintaining a mean of tangible qualities. Excessive light, sound, or smell destroys the sense organ but not the animal because these are senses of well-being, not survival.

Why is touch the “sense of certitude”? #

Answer: Touch gives direct, immediate knowledge of things through contact. Doubting Thomas would not believe in the Resurrection until he could touch the wounded side of Christ and feel the nail holes. Touch is interior and immediate in a way that sight and hearing are not. We say things “make sense” when they are intelligible, and we trust touch more than any other sense.