4 - The contact senses

Summary

Touch is the sense of direct contact

The verb ‘to touch’ can be used in two ways. We can say that a bottle touches the table. By this we may mean that the bottle is in direct contact with the table, that there is nothing in between the two. However, when I say that I touch the hardness of the table I may mean something different, namely, that I feel or perceive the hardness of the table. I touch the table in this way only when I am using my sense of touch. Similarly, we can say that the touch of your hand is cold. In that case too it is implied that I perceive your hand as cold by my sense of touch.

Perhaps it is more usual to use the verb ‘to feel’ rather than the verb ‘to touch’ as a verb of perception. One would say ‘I feel the hardness of the table’ rather than ‘I touch it’ if one wants to say that I perceive the table rather than that I am simply leaning on it with some part of my body. That is perhaps also why it seems more natural to use the verb ‘to touch’ when the idea is just that there is contact between two things and no perception takes place.