Touch

Thomas says that “excellence of mind is proportionate to fineness of touch” rather than sight.  Why?  ”In the first place touch is the basis of sensitivity as a whole; for obviously the organ of touch pervades the whole body, so that the organ of each of the other senses is also an organ of touch, and the sense of touch by itself constitutes a being as sensitive.  Therefore, the finer one’s sense of touch, the better, strictly speaking, is one’s sensitive nature as a whole, and consequently the higher one’s intellectual capacity.  For a fine sensitivity is a disposition to a fine intelligence.”

Add Merleau-Ponty’s observation that touch is inevitably a mutual sense: To touch is to be touched.

Between these two we go a good ways toward a satisfying epistemology.