Workshop in Ancient Philosophy (Thursday - Week 1, HT20)

Aristotle prioritised the senses of vision and hearing for epistemological reasons, but he also recognised that taste together with touch and smell are fundamental for an animal’s survival. He devoted De anima 2.10 and De sensu 4 to a close examination of taste and its object, namely flavour. In my talk I want to focus on the less studied De sensu 4, and discuss the following issues: the definition of taste as a sort of touch and its characterisation as an affection similar to smell; the different species of flavours and their parallelism with colours; finally, the production and ontological status of flavours in view of Aristotle’s perceptual realism.

^{If you would like to join the speaker for dinner after the seminar, please email the chair by Tuesday before the workshop.}

_{Workshop in Ancient Philosophy Convenors: Ursula Coope, Simon Shogry and Luca Castagnoli}