The question of the 5 senses occupies the whole field of philosophy since Greek antiquity, when Plato questions their reliability by opposing sensitive and intelligible. Then, by his disciple Aristotle who will rehabilitate their testimony by relying on the power of syllogism, many emulated peripateticians will hunt down all falsification, to lead to modern empirical sciences, through the philosophy of enlightenment objectifying the vastness of the world through encyclopedic reason. The limits of our sensory perception will be overcome by all kinds of prostheses ranging from the electron microscope to the giant telescope, through MRI or genetic decoding as well as any other algorithmic representation promised to a vast development with artificial intelligence. This quest for the law hidden behind the limits of the supra-sensitive leads us to give more credit or interest, not to say faith, to our representations rather than to the direct perception of phenomena by our too simple human senses, thus «diminished» against all this technological arsenal much more efficient! Has the man glued to his screen forgotten the link between sapiens and sapidity? Will he have to lick his screen to understand that his papillary perception is of a different cognitive order than his retinal perception? The other three senses, neglected by the audiovisual conversion company and its alpha-digital keyboards or cold screens called «tactile», are directly addressed to our poor body, increasingly suffering in the face of this imperialism of distancing and objectification. They offer us other principles of reality, on other modes: smell, taste and touch envelop us and penetrate us. Even the sound, when it is no longer reduced to the frontal situation of the stereophonic triangle or out of a shabby mobile phone, takes all its enveloping magnitude with the concerts of spring birds all over, far from the unbearable noises and turpitudes of our urban agitation.
What if the garden of Epicurus had not neglected the flavor of knowledge? It would seem that the epicurean ascetics -in contrast to the caricature that history has made of it- in seeking ataraxia, ie the absence of disorder, linked to the pathos that one undergoes, aimed the full aesthetic pleasures, by the awakening of the 5 senses, since this is the very meaning of the word aisthesis, before the Esthetics confines its discipline to the idea of the beautiful, ie to feel while being active, in tension, with ardour, while pathos designates the sensation by being passive and submissive (cf passion). Each season in the garden offers, carpe diem, its share of rejoicing for all the senses, without hierarchy. The epicurean can fall in ecstasy with a simple piece of cheese with herbs. Of course, he will know the difference between herbs, carefully avoiding poisons. The one who has smelled, tasted and did not die, knows. The senses do not deceive us, men as animals know. Sheep reject brambles, thistles and nettles while goats enjoy them. The world of plants offers a wide sensory spectrum. Like the epicureans, we will go to the easy discovery of the subtleties of their taste, smell and texture. We will fill a basket and, for those who want to stay for dinner, we will make a delicious wild cuisine, far from the standardized tastes of our supermarket stalls!