Lecture 21 — Taste: medium, object, organ, and kinds of flavor

The tasteable is a sort of tangible; hence, it is not sensible through an extraneous body as medium, any more than the object of touch. And the body in which is savor, i.e., the tasteable, is in liquid as its material, which is tangible.

Hence, if we were in water, we should taste a sweet thing put into it; not that the sensation would then operate through a medium, but because the savor would be mixed with the water, as in a drink. Color, however, is not thus seen because of any mixture or efflux. There is, then, nothing corresponding to a medium. As color is the visible, so savor is the tasteable.

It causes no sensation of taste except in liquid; but it must be moist, actually or potentially, as with saliva, which is very liquid and moistens the tongue.

As sight is of the visible and the invisible (for darkness is invisible, and sight discerns this also, as it does, in addition, the extremely bright, which is also invisible, but in quite another way), the same holds of hearing, which is of sound and silence, one being audible, the other inaudible, and the latter includes excess of sound, which is to hearing as brilliance is to sight, for as a feeble sound is in a way inaudible, so, in another way, is an extremely violent one.

“Invisible” indeed can mean either what is absolutely such or as in other cases of the impossible where it is applied both to what lacks what it ought to have by nature, and to what has this defectively—as we say of an animal without feet that it is motionless.

So, in the same way, taste is of the savorable and the non-savorable, the latter being what has either only a faint savor or one altogether destructive of the taste. It would seem that the principle of this is the drinkable or the non-drinkable; and taste is of both, but the latter as either a faint taste or one that destroys the sense, while the former is according to nature. The drinkable is common to taste and touch.

Since what is tasteable is liquid, it is necessary that the sense organ be neither liquid actually nor incapable of becoming so. For taste is acted upon by the savorable thing as such. It is therefore necessary that the sense be moistened, yet in such a way that it keeps its potency thereto, the tasting sense being non-humid.

There is a sign of this in that the tongue cannot sense taste either when it is dry or when it is too moist. In the latter case, contact takes place with the original moisture, as when one who has first tasted a very strong flavor and then tastes another, or as those burdened with fever taste all things as bitter because the tongue is saturated in a liquid of that sort.

The species of savor are, like colors, simple contraries: sweet and bitter. Adjoining these, however, are: with the former, the succulent; with the latter, the saline. Then there are the intermediary flavors: pungent, harsh, stringent and piquant. These seem to be about all the varieties of savor that exist; to which taste, as such, therefore, is in potency, the savorable being what reduces it to act.

501. The tasteable is a sort of tangible (422a8). Having dealt with the visible, the audible and the odorous, the Philosopher now treats of the tasteable, and this, in two parts:

first, considering the tasteable in general;

and second, at the species of savor (422b10; [514]), its division into flavors.

As to the former point, he does three things.

First, he asks whether the tasteable is perceived through a medium;

second, he explains what is perceived by taste, that is, the tasteable and the non-tasteable, at as sight (422a20; [509]);

and third, what is the organ of taste, at since what is tasteable is liquid (422a34; [512]).

For he has explained these three points with regard to the other senses, namely the medium, the object sensed, and the sense organ.

As regards the medium, he does three things:

first, he shows that the tasteable is not perceived through any extraneous medium;

second, at hence, if we were in water (422a11; [505]), he answers an objection;

and third, at it causes no sensation (422a17; [508]), he shows us the necessary condition of actual tasting.

502. First, then, he says that the tasteable is a sort of tangible (422a8), that is, discerned by touch. That is why it is not sensed through a medium extraneous to the body, that is, which is not part of the animal—differing in this from the sense-objects hitherto treated of, which are sensed through air or water, which are not parts of the animal. (Lect. 20.) Touch does not sense through an extraneous medium, but through a conjoined medium, for flesh is the medium in the sense of touch, as we shall see. (Lect. 22, nn. 525–28.) Therefore, as taste is a kind of touch, and the tasteable is a certain tangible, the tasteable is not perceived through any extraneous medium.

503. That the tasteable is a sort of tangible he shows thus: savor or flavor is rooted in liquid as its material proper to it; but liquid [or the moist] is a certain tangible. Thus, it is clear that the tasteable is a sort of tangible.

504. But if taste is a kind of touch, it would seem that it ought not to be placed in contrast to touch (for no species is opposed to its genus); and if so, then there are not five senses but only four.

But, in truth, touch and taste can be considered in two ways: in one way, with regard to the mode of the sensing, and thus taste is a sort of touch, for it perceives its own object by touching it; and in another way, with regard to the object, and then we have to maintain that as the object of taste is to the object of touch, so the sense of taste is to the sense of touch. But flavor, which is the object of taste, is evidently not one of the qualities of those simple bodies of which the animal is composed, which constitute the specific objects of the sense of touch; yet it is caused by them and is founded in one of them as in its matter, that is, in liquid [or the moist]. Clearly then, taste is not the same as touch, but is somehow founded on touch. So a distinction is commonly drawn between taste, as discriminative of flavors, and taste as a kind of touch discerning certain tangible qualities, namely, those of nourishment, of which touch is the sense, as has been pointed out. (Lect. 18, n. 473.) Hence Aristotle’s remark in the Ethics 3 that temperance does not concern the pleasures of taste understood in the former of these senses, but only insofar as it is a sort of touch. (Aristotle, Ethics 3.10, 1118a26–31; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, bk. 3, lect. 20.)

505. Next, at hence, if we were in water (422a11), he answers an objection. For it is obvious that if something tasteable and soluble were placed in water (say, honey, or something of that kind) and we were in the water also, we would be aware of the thing’s flavor, even though at a distance from it. Taste, then, apparently senses its object through water, which is an extraneous medium.

506. To dispose, then, of this objection, Aristotle, arguing from the principle already stated, that taste does not use an extraneous medium, says that if we were in the water, we should taste a sweet thing in the water at a distance from us, but not that the sensation would operate through a medium; for the flavor would be mixed with the liquid as in a drink (as when honey or the like is mixed with water or wine), and the water itself would be affected by the sweet object. Taste, then, would not perceive the thing’s flavor at a distance except insofar as the water was affected by the thing.

507. A sign of which is that the taste is not so strongly affected by such water as it naturally would be by the flavor of the thing that is at a distance, because the flavor is weakened by mixing with water. But color is not seen through its medium in such a way that the colored body is mixed with the medium or that anything from it flows to the eye, as Democritus supposed; it is seen rather through a spiritual modification of the medium. Hence, sight does not perceive color as color of the air or of water, but as color of a distant colored body, and to the same measure. Comparing, then, taste with sight, we cannot say that the medium of taste is like that of sight, but we can say that just as color is the visible, that is, the object of vision, so flavor is the tasteable, that is, the object of taste.

508. Then, at it causes no sensation of taste (422a17), he shows what is required for taste in the place of a medium, observing that nothing tasteable is tasted without moisture. For as color becomes actually visible through light, so flavor becomes actually tasteable through moisture; for which reason all that is tasteable is either actually liquid, like wine or the like, or is potentially liquid, like things taken as food. Hence, the necessity of saliva in the mouth; being very liquid, it moistens the tongue, so that what is eaten may be wetted and its savor perceived.

509. Next, at as sight is of the visible (422a20), he treats of the object perceived by taste, comparing taste with sight and hearing. For sight perceives both the visible and the invisible, as has been said, the invisible being darkness, which is discerned by sight. (Lect. 9, n. 339; lect. 15, nn. 429–30.) Also, what is extremely bright, like the sun, is described as invisible, though in quite another way. For darkness is called “invisible” because of a lack of light, but brilliant objects on account of an excess of light which overcomes the sense. The same holds of hearing, that is, of the audible, namely, sound, and of the inaudible, namely, of silence, which is the privation of sound, and also of the inaudible in the sense of what is heard with difficulty, either because of its excessive loudness or because it is too faint to affect the hearing sufficiently. And so it is with all things involving capacity and incapacity.

510. For one can say of a thing that it is impossible, meaning either that it lacks what it ought to have by nature or that it has it only defectively—as an animal is described as motionless either because it lacks feet or because it is weak on its feet. So in the same way, taste is of the savorable and non-savorable. The latter means either what has little or poor flavor or what is so violently flavored as to overcome the sense. As the tasteable pertains to moisture, that is, the drinkable, and moisture is the basis of savor, it would seem that the drinkable and the non-drinkable are the principle in the process of tasting. For taste perceives both, the one, that is, the non-drinkable, as faint or destructive of taste, but the other, that is, the drinkable, as appropriate according to nature, that is, to taste. Yet while the tasteable is perceived by taste, precisely as a sense distinct from touch, the drinkable and non-drinkable are perceived by taste inasmuch as it is a species of touch. For the drinkable is common to touch and taste: to touch, insofar as it is liquid; to taste, so far as it has savor.

511. Obviously, then, the pleasures afforded by food and drink, insofar as these are things perceptible and drinkable, accompany taste inasmuch as it is a kind of touch, as is said in Ethics 3. (Aristotle, Ethics 3.10, 1118a26–31; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Ethics, bk. 3, lect. 19–20.)

512. Then, at since what is tasteable is liquid (422a34), he examines the organ of taste:

first, stating the fact;

and second, at there is a sign of this (422b5; [513]), pointing out a sign of its truth.

First, then, he says that because the tasteable is liquid and has savor, it is necessary that the organ of taste be neither actually liquid nor actually flavored. Yet it must be able to become liquid—like the organ of sight, which must be colorless but able to receive color. This is because the taste is acted upon by the savory thing as such, as any other sense by its proper object.

Since, then, the tasteable as such is liquid, the organ of taste, in the act of receiving the savor, must become moist and yet preserve in its own nature so that it is able to taste, that is, have the power of tasting, when it is not actually, but only potentially, moist.

513. Next, at there is a sign (422b5), he observes that a sign of the truth of the foregoing is that the tongue is able to taste nothing when it is either quite dry or extremely liquid; for when it is excessively liquid through the presence and predominance of some liquid already tasted, then for the time being no new moisture can be tasted, as when one who has tasted a strong flavor can taste nothing else, because the sensation of the former flavor remains on the tongue. Similarly, to the burdened or sick, all things taste bitter because their tongues are covered with a feverish or bitter liquid.

514. Then, at the species of savor (422b10), he concludes about the species of taste, observing that, like colors, where simple colors are contrary, such as white and black, so in flavors, the simple are contrary, as the sweet and bitter. Those species of flavor adjoining, that is, those immediately following upon the simple species, are the succulent, following on the sweet, and the salty, following on the bitter. Intermediaries are sour, pungent, harsh, stringent, which last two reduced to the same thing, and piquant. To these seven species of flavor most of the others seem to be reducible.

515. Note, with regard to these species, that while flavors are caused by the hot and the cold, the moist and the dry, and although contraries connote terms furthest apart, yet the contraries in the species of flavor do not correspond to the maximum differences of hot and cold or of moist and dry, but they are related precisely to the natural capacity of the sense of taste to be affected by savor either to disgust or to delight. There is no need, then, for the sweet or the bitter to be particularly hot or cold or moist or dry, but chiefly that it be in a state that corresponds somehow to the sense of taste. As for the origin of flavors, that is explained in On Sense and What is Sensed. (Aristotle, On Sense and What is Sensed, ch. 4, 440b28–442b26; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s On Sense and What is Sensed, cc. 8–10.)

516. He concludes, finally, that taste (422b15), that is, the sense of taste, or its organ, is in potency to savor and the species of savor, and that the tasteable is what can bring it into act.