Welcome to Under the Skin with me Russell Brand. This show is sponsored by my book Recovery,

which is available now on Amazon for a special price of six quid. It's January,

you've torn your life apart with drinking drugs over the holidays, go on Amazon right now and buy

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worth having. Now it's time for Under the Skin.

The

Barry Smith is a professor of philosophy and director of the Institute of Philosophy,

as well as the founder of the Centre for the Study of the Senses, which pioneers

collaborative research between philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists. He has

published on self-knowledge, linguistic knowledge, consciousness, the emotions, taste and smell,

and has appeared frequently on BBC Radio, including the writing and presenting of a four-part series

for the world's service called The Mysteries of the Brain. He is also the wine columnist for

Prospect magazine. Barry Smith, thank you very much for coming on Under the Skin.

Pleasure to be here. This is a big subject to discuss the relationship between the senses and

consciousness. The senses, I suppose, these are the avenues to experience these represent who we are,

but it seems from even a cursory examination of your work, there is much misunderstanding about

the framework of the senses. Can you talk to us a little about that? Notably, the Aristotelian idea

that there are about five. Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. The senses are our closest contact

with the world. That's how we know where we are, how we see things in front of us here, things,

are in touch with people quite literally, taste and smell. And for a long time, we just have five

senses, that whatever we're perceiving has got to be either seeing or hearing, smelling, tasting,

touching. And we get that from Aristotle who told us we had these five senses. And it's strange,

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