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The Senses of Touch: Haptics, Affects and Technologies
Touch is the first sense to develop in the womb, yet often it is overlooked. The Senses of Touch examines the role of touching and feeling as part of the fabric of everyday, embodied experience.
How can we think about touch? Problems of touch and tactility run as a continuous thread in philosophy, psychology, medical writing and representations in art, from Ancient Greece to the present day. Picking through some of these threads, the book 'feels' its way towards writing and thinking about touch as both sensory and affective experience.
Taking a broadly phenomenological framework that traces tactility from Aristotle through the Enlightenment to the present day, the book examines the role of touch across a range of experiences including aesthetics, digital design, visual impairment and touch therapies. The Senses of Touch thereby demonstrates the varieties of sensory experience, and explores the diverse range of our 'senses' of touch.
How can we think about touch? Problems of touch and tactility run as a continuous thread in philosophy, psychology, medical writing and representations in art, from Ancient Greece to the present day. Picking through some of these threads, the book 'feels' its way towards writing and thinking about touch as both sensory and affective experience.
Taking a broadly phenomenological framework that traces tactility from Aristotle through the Enlightenment to the present day, the book examines the role of touch across a range of experiences including aesthetics, digital design, visual impairment and touch therapies. The Senses of Touch thereby demonstrates the varieties of sensory experience, and explores the diverse range of our 'senses' of touch.
214 pages, Paperback
First published December 16, 2005
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About the author
Mark Paterson
5 books6 followersWith a BA in Philosophy, an MA in European Philosophy, and a Ph.D. in Human Geography, Mark is interested in the nexus of the body, space and technology.
He is author of 'Seeing with the Hands: Blindness, Vision and Touch after Descartes' (2016), 'Consumption and Everyday Life' (2006; second edition 2017, third edition 2023), and co-editor of 'Touching Space, Placing Touch'. His book for University of Minnesota Press, 'How We Became Sensorimotor: Movement, Measurement, Sensation' came out October 2021. His blog: http://www.sensory-motor.com.
Mark has lived and worked in the UK, Zimbabwe, Japan, Australia, and for the past 11 years, the USA.
He is author of 'Seeing with the Hands: Blindness, Vision and Touch after Descartes' (2016), 'Consumption and Everyday Life' (2006; second edition 2017, third edition 2023), and co-editor of 'Touching Space, Placing Touch'. His book for University of Minnesota Press, 'How We Became Sensorimotor: Movement, Measurement, Sensation' came out October 2021. His blog: http://www.sensory-motor.com.
Mark has lived and worked in the UK, Zimbabwe, Japan, Australia, and for the past 11 years, the USA.
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December 21, 2008
A rigorous theoretical engagement with the way the body senses the world and itself.
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