In virtually every public institution of learning we are taught that man has five senses: sight, taste, touch, smell, hearing. This is the traditional five senses that have come to us through Aristotle. While they are all certainly real senses, what we are not taught is that this is but a tiny subset of the ways humans interact with and absorb knowledge of their environment.
The myth: Man has five senses
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 sight to almost everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things. — Aristotle
In addition to the five senses we are all taught at school, man also has the following extra:
Equilibrioception: This is the sense of motion – acceleration, deceleration, and balance. This sense also allows us to feel the effects of gravity. It is controlled by the inner ear.
Thermoception: This is the sense which enables us to feel heat and its absence (cold) as well as noticing fluctuations on the internal and external body.
Nociception: This is the sense that tells us that we have nerve or tissue damage. Effectively, this is the sense of pain.
Proprioception: This is the sense that allows us to have a concept of location without the use of our other senses. For example, when closing your eyes and touching your nose with your finger you use this sense to direct your hand.
In addition to these external senses, there are even more internal ones that control such things as the feeling of a full bladder, fullness in eating, internal organ distension, etc.
Interesting Fact: Interestingly, a traditional philosopher could argue that the various other senses named above are actually all part of the sense of touch, as it is our sense of touch that causes us to feel the interaction with such things as heat and air. Nevertheless, for the sake of this article we are conforming to the current view of modern science.
Related Video
Related Books
 A Natural History of the Senses  |
 The Metaphysics  |
 Human Biology  |
 The Senses: Classic and Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives  |
Further Reading
Listverse: 9 Extraordinary Human Abilities
Listverse: Yet Another 10 Commonly Believed Myths
Google WDYL: Human Senses
Wikipedia: Sense
Wikipedia: Philosophy of Perception
Wikipedia: Metaphysics (Aristotle)
Discovery Education: Human Senses
11 Comments
Wait…is this from…THE FUTURE
It is from the past now
Wouldn’t all these fall under “touch” ? I went to school in Isreal and we were taught that all the above fall under “touch” . They didn’t call it “touch” , more like ” the ability to physically feel or sense your surroundings”. Coming to the States I have always assumed that this what ” touch” meant.
Rikarudo if you asked Aristotle he would say yes
If you ask a modern scientist, they would say no.
Modern scientists are so technical!! and I pretty sure that feeling warmth has to fall under “touch” , because your nerve endings are the ones picking up on temperature, the same if they were feeling a bumpy textured wall.
In Aristotelean philosophy heat is considered to be a body – therefore it is your sense of touch (being touched by the body which is heat) that makes you feel the absence of cold. Sometimes I think we would be better off back with Aristotle
I’m not so sure. Maybe the word touch is misleading. But a lot of these are triggered by something happening to nerves. Pain and temperature transfer? Has something to do with being able to “touch.”
I bet that if one were unable to “feel” that would include texture, pain, and heat.
Still, I suppose it could be considered different enough to be a separate sense… I dunno.
My daughter has autism and sensory processing disorder so I’ve learned quite a bit about all these senses we never learned about in school!
One of her weekly therapies focuses on proprioception. Many children with this issue may be considered “clumsy” but it’s much more than that.
That’s interesting – I wonder if I had that as a kid! Everyone called me clumsy
There are four types of scientifically classified ‘touch’ receptors: Merkel, Meissner, Pacinian and Ruffini types that all lie in the dermis and epidermis in strategic places. These are responsible for tactile touch and noticing shape and texture of objects. Heat and pain actually use completely separate nerve fibers than listed above (free nerve endings included). Also, certain senses such as equilibrioception and proprioception cannot be considered a subcategory of a broad ‘touch’ category because the nerves responsible for equilibrioception respond only to position of the head and proprioceptive neurons respond only to position of the body (they do not respond to air movement across skin to give you a ‘hint’ as to where your arm is moving). Finally, there are even nervous receptors in muscle and tendon that supply you with deep tendon reflexes like the classic ‘knee jerk’. These provide yet another sense, the sense of how much tension is in a specific muscle or tendon.
Ah, so heat and pain do actually use different nerves? There you go, I was wrong!