Abstract
Two proposals have recently, and independently, been made about a space of possible sensory modalities. In this paper I examine these different proposals, and offer one of my own. I suggest that there are several spaces associated with distinct kinds of sensory modality.
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Notes
For further details and discussion of how to determine the structure of a quality space, see Clark (1993, pp. 76–116).
Colours can be differentiated into unitary and binary colours, but this does not provide the basis for an ordering.
For Clark the main reason behind mapping quality spaces is to provide data about sensory qualities that can then be explained by reference to the neurobiological features of sensory systems.
This is sometimes known as the Henning taste tetrahedron. Some models include a fifth primary: umami. I omit this complication here.
Ross (2008, pp. 303–305), following Clark, explicitly makes the connection.
Plausible as the view may be, as is noted in §6, there are reasons to doubt that distinct quality spaces and distinct types of senses can be co-related straightforwardly.
This assumes that any token sense can be identified, which, as Macpherson (2011b) has pointed out, is a substantive assumption.
Keeley (2002, p. 6).
Keeley (2002, p. 13), emphasis in original.
Gray (2005).
See Grice (1962) for the original suggestion.
This is not universal. Nudds (2003) defends a sparse view without endorsing the application of criteria for the senses.
The other criteria do not settle the matter because related clashes arise for them: the property represented appears to be both visual and tactile; the phenomenal character of the experience seems to be both like vision and touch; and both the skin and the artificial eye seem to be relevant sensory organs.
At least Ross (2008), who defends a common sense view, suggests these as the two possible senses. He defends a representational criterion by arguing that to which kind of sense thermal imaging belongs will depend on whether it represents hotness or brightness. It is, however, arguable whether this would be enough to override other distinctive features of the sense noted by the other criteria: if hotness is detected, because it is detected distally, it is unlike touch; if brightness is detected, because it is caused by heat, it is unlike vision.
Macpherson (2011a, p. 139).
Macpherson (2011a, p. 140).
The choice of dimensions is for illustrative purposes. Alternatively, or additionally, the lowest frequency detected could have been used as the basis for a dimension.
Again the choice of dimensions is for illustrative purposes.
So she has remarked in conversation and developed in a draft of her (forthcoming).
Conversely, senses that are receptive to electromagnetic radiation could be related to senses that are receptive to sound waves by common reference to their sensitivity to sound waves. The senses that are receptive to electromagnetic radiation would be plotted at zero; senses that are receptive to sound waves would be plotted at various points along the dimension, having different degrees of sensitivity to sound waves.
Given the close relationship between the representational content and phenomenal character of experience, the difficulties raised in the next section might also be raised here.
We now have two frameworks for organizing the senses: by reference to proximal stimuli and representational content. Both of these could be used for individuating possible senses. One could also use these dimensions to conceive possible senses that occupied the location of an actual sense according to one differentiative feature, e.g. the location of the human visual sense, but took a different value according to the other differentiative feature.
Macpherson (2011a, p. 134).
See Allen (2009).
The presence of pigments in a wide variety of organisms provides some evidence of a point of origin for our visual sense in the Cambrian period. See Schwab (2011).
This is not to dispute that important processing connections exist between the senses. It is only to claim that the sense-organ criterion does not provide a relevant way in which all the senses can be related such that they can be ordered.
I am grateful to Fiona Macpherson for a number of enjoyable and informative discussions on the issues raised here stretching back several years now. Many thanks also go to Ivan Ivanov and Debbie Goldgaber for their invitation to a very pleasant and profitable workshop at Northwestern University, where a first version of this paper was presented. I am also grateful for the advice provided by a referee for this journal.
References
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Macpherson, F. (forthcoming) The space of sensory modalities. In D. Stokes, S. Biggs & M. Matthen (Eds.), Perception and its modalities. Oxford: OUP.
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Gray, R. Is There a Space of Sensory Modalities?. Erkenn 78, 1259–1273 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-012-9409-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-012-9409-0