Abstract

Whether it is a question of apprehension, grasp, or simple contact, the vocabulary of perception clearly points towards the materiality of touch through what we usually think of as just a metaphorical variation. This is what ancient Greek thought recognized, or dimly felt, as a sometimes hidden constant in its history and its project: sensation, which describes the primary access to being, is first of all and above all a way of touching. Far from indicating a simple perceptual realism, this acknowledgement implies a specific idea about the presence of things in the world: touch assumes a surface, and every being, in order to appear and be seen, must therefore be entirely surface, be articulated within a boundary that describes it perfectly.