The Extension of Senses

The puzzle of how senses extend both inside and outside the body remains unresolved in philosophy and science. Smell, taste, and touch are felt in specific body parts, while sight and hearing extend far beyond, with objective localization showing vast extra-bodily extension. This mystery involves longstanding aporias from ancient philosophy, especially concerning vision: perceiving size, distance, solidity, position, perspectivity, and dioptric phenomena like reflection and refraction. Prevailing internalist theories of perception block acceptance of an objective externalization of the senses, which would resolve these aporias, including the moon illusion. A synthetic unity of material and mental structures points to real, transcendental-subjectively irreducible spatiotemporal structures and the need for a unified philosophical-scientific theory of perception.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The bodily and the extra-bodily extension of sensibility remains a puzzle within the contexts of both the philosophical and the scientific theories of perception. While the sense of smell, taste and touch, as well as sensations of cold, heat, pain, etc., are localized in specific parts of the body, the sense of sight and hearing extend beyond the body, with their objective localization revealing their immeasurably vast extra-bodily extension. The mystery of the bodily and the extra-bodily extension of the senses can be broken down into various aporias that have been handed down in the history of philosophy since ancient times and remain unsolved till date. In particular, the sense of sight paved the way for the genesis of most of these aporias, such as the visual perception of size, distance, solidity and position of objects, perception of perspectivity and visual free space, dioptric virtuality (reflection and refraction), etc. The long-standing and still prevailing internalism in the theories of perception strategically prevents the acceptance and scientific justification of an objective externalization of the senses, which would once and for all resolve the above-mentioned aporias of sensibility and other related aporias such as the moon illusion . By necessarily presupposing a synthetic nexus or rather unity of material and mental structures of the senses , the spatial extension and the temporal simultaneity of the bodily and the extra-bodily sensory perceptions point, on the one hand, to the existence of real, transcendental-subjectively irreducible spatiotemporal structures of sensibility and, on the other hand, to the necessity of a unified philosophical-scientific theory of perception.