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The long-standing presumption in Western thought has been that vision and audition are more objective than the other senses, serving as the basis of knowledge a

The long-standing presumption in Western thought has been that vision and audition are more objective than the other senses, serving as the basis of knowledge and understanding, whereas touch, taste, and smell are crude and of little value. Uhh... citation needed? Off the top of my head, certainly Proust would disagree.

gnat 8y ago
The paper makes citations for these claims. For example: "Modern reworkings of the Aristotelian hierarchy give primacy to sight followed by hearing, touch, and then taste and smell (20, 21). Regardless of the precise characterization, the distal senses of vision and audition are privileged at the expense of the lowly proximal senses of touch, taste, and smell (22)." The relevant citations are: [20] Viberg Å (1984) The verbs of perception: A typological study. Explanations for Language Universals, eds Butterworth B, Comrie B, Dahl Ö (Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin), pp 123–162. http://www.pnas.org/lookup/google-scholar?link_type=googlescholar&gs_type=article&author[0]=%C3%85+Viberg&title=The+verbs+of+perception:+A+typological+study&publication_year=1984&pages=123-162 http://www.pnas.org/lookup/google-scholar?link_type=googlesc... [21] San Roque L, et al. (2015) Vision verbs dominate in conversation across cultures, but the ranking of non-visual verbs varies. Cogn Linguist 26:31–60. http://www.pnas.org/lookup/google-scholar?link_type=googlescholar&gs_type=article&author[0]=L+San%20Roque&title=Vision+verbs+dominate+in+conversation+across+cultures,+but+the+ranking+of+non-visual+verbs+varies&publication_year=2015&journal=Cogn+Linguist&volume=26&pages=31-60 http://www.pnas.org/lookup/google-scholar?link_type=googlesc... [22] Howes D (2005) Empire of the Senses (Berg, Oxford). http://www.pnas.org/lookup/google-scholar?link_type=googlescholar&gs_type=article&q_txt=(2005)+Empire+of+the+Senses+(Berg%2C+Oxford) http://www.pnas.org/lookup/google-scholar?link_type=googlesc....
- glibgil 8y ago
  We got him
realusername 8y ago
Even the concept of Western thought is dubious itself, there's not much in common culturally between "western" countries. There's no common language, values or vision of society.
- tokyodude 8y ago
  Maybe I don't know what the definition of "Western" countries is but if there's one thing that seems common to me across them it's Christianity. Every western country I've been to is full of churches. There's clearly a lot of thought influenced by those churches. It wasn't until I moved to the other side of the world did I have the experience of cultures not nearly as influenced by Christian thought. I don't have concrete examples of the top of my head but I've read academic papers trying to put forth ideas about universal human behavior that clearly have never lived outside a Christian influenced culture. Even if the author was atheist they didn't seem to notice how those influences shaped their conclusions.
  - realusername 8y ago
    Christianity spread far far more than just "Western" countries, just have a look at Africa or South America, you even have a lot of Christians in Asia. There's probably more christians outside the West than in it.
  - xte 8y ago
    Try looking at how missionary shape south America and Africa... I bet they are not "western" countries, also in Europe "church" power vary from country to country, for instance in France it have both little presence and power, in Spain or Italy have far more presence and power. Christianity itself steal many aspect of ancient religions from Egyptian one to Celtic and Romans one. Just as an example in ex-Celtic area of Europe christmas symbol's are mostly ex-celtic like "decorated fir tree", santa claus (a male dressed with heavy winter clothes red because of the blood of animals he have killed being a hunter), a big wooden log to be burning in the night etc. In ex Viking part of EU santa claus is a female with more "Viking" dress, in the southern christmas nativity scene are far more common while still remain winter/snowy scene certainly not possible in ancient Lebanon etc. Substantially all Christianity events Christmas, all saints, Easter etc are Celtic or Roman or Greek events. Think only about our time measure: ancient Roman count days starting with "ora prima" (first hour) in the morning, Celts use midnight as we use today (an ancient Roman phrase "the Celts are a strange population that count days starting from the nights"). Religions are political means to subjugate populations so their history mostly follow political/military history of the world.

gnat 8y ago

The paper makes citations for these claims. For example: "Modern reworkings of the Aristotelian hierarchy give primacy to sight followed by hearing, touch, and then taste and smell (20, 21). Regardless of the precise characterization, the distal senses of vision and audition are privileged at the expense of the lowly proximal senses of touch, taste, and smell (22)." The relevant citations are: [20] Viberg Å (1984) The verbs of perception: A typological study. Explanations for Language Universals, eds Butterworth B, Comrie B, Dahl Ö (Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin), pp 123–162. http://www.pnas.org/lookup/google-scholar?link_type=googlescholar&gs_type=article&author[0]=%C3%85+Viberg&title=The+verbs+of+perception:+A+typological+study&publication_year=1984&pages=123-162 http://www.pnas.org/lookup/google-scholar?link_type=googlesc... [21] San Roque L, et al. (2015) Vision verbs dominate in conversation across cultures, but the ranking of non-visual verbs varies. Cogn Linguist 26:31–60. http://www.pnas.org/lookup/google-scholar?link_type=googlescholar&gs_type=article&author[0]=L+San%20Roque&title=Vision+verbs+dominate+in+conversation+across+cultures,+but+the+ranking+of+non-visual+verbs+varies&publication_year=2015&journal=Cogn+Linguist&volume=26&pages=31-60 http://www.pnas.org/lookup/google-scholar?link_type=googlesc... [22] Howes D (2005) Empire of the Senses (Berg, Oxford). http://www.pnas.org/lookup/google-scholar?link_type=googlescholar&gs_type=article&q_txt=(2005)+Empire+of+the+Senses+(Berg%2C+Oxford) http://www.pnas.org/lookup/google-scholar?link_type=googlesc....

glibgil 8y ago
We got him

realusername 8y ago

Even the concept of Western thought is dubious itself, there's not much in common culturally between "western" countries. There's no common language, values or vision of society.

tokyodude 8y ago
Maybe I don't know what the definition of "Western" countries is but if there's one thing that seems common to me across them it's Christianity. Every western country I've been to is full of churches. There's clearly a lot of thought influenced by those churches. It wasn't until I moved to the other side of the world did I have the experience of cultures not nearly as influenced by Christian thought. I don't have concrete examples of the top of my head but I've read academic papers trying to put forth ideas about universal human behavior that clearly have never lived outside a Christian influenced culture. Even if the author was atheist they didn't seem to notice how those influences shaped their conclusions.
- realusername 8y ago
  Christianity spread far far more than just "Western" countries, just have a look at Africa or South America, you even have a lot of Christians in Asia. There's probably more christians outside the West than in it.
- xte 8y ago
  Try looking at how missionary shape south America and Africa... I bet they are not "western" countries, also in Europe "church" power vary from country to country, for instance in France it have both little presence and power, in Spain or Italy have far more presence and power. Christianity itself steal many aspect of ancient religions from Egyptian one to Celtic and Romans one. Just as an example in ex-Celtic area of Europe christmas symbol's are mostly ex-celtic like "decorated fir tree", santa claus (a male dressed with heavy winter clothes red because of the blood of animals he have killed being a hunter), a big wooden log to be burning in the night etc. In ex Viking part of EU santa claus is a female with more "Viking" dress, in the southern christmas nativity scene are far more common while still remain winter/snowy scene certainly not possible in ancient Lebanon etc. Substantially all Christianity events Christmas, all saints, Easter etc are Celtic or Roman or Greek events. Think only about our time measure: ancient Roman count days starting with "ora prima" (first hour) in the morning, Celts use midnight as we use today (an ancient Roman phrase "the Celts are a strange population that count days starting from the nights"). Religions are political means to subjugate populations so their history mostly follow political/military history of the world.