It seems that the senses are a necessary tool to acquire knowledge of the things, yet they are an impediment at some point as they impede the process of abstracting the intelligible content from things. This, because the process of abstraction and sensation must work together, yet they sort of contradict each others nature as well.

Whether you break down all the ways in which the human body can sense things into 5 or 25 ways really doesn't make a difference in answering the original question: "Is human knowledge limited by the human senses."

Ok, it is clear that the senses, whether you break them down into 5 or 505, allow humans to acquire knowledge. The question is: Do the senses limit human knowledge?

Though the senses aid us initially as a medium in acquiring knowledge, I think that they do limit our ability to access and purely abstract the intelligible content latent within these objects. This is especially the case when it comes to higher reasoning, or more rational content.

Another case when the senses limit our ability to access knowledge is when we are more emotional. This can impede our ability to clearly abstract the intelligible content within things.

Any thoughts on this?

Chazwyman wrote:

Clearly we have extended our knowledge beyond the limitation of senses in two ways.

Interpretation of results beyond which are senses are capable of detecting such as in the historical sciences. We have knowledge of long dead living things that cannot be sensed.

We have developed machines that have extended our knowledge far beyond the reach of ordinary senses, such as radio telescopes and electron microscopes.

These two things combined have built our body of knowledge far beyond what it could ever have been possible to contemplate in the last 200 years.

As regards the historical sciences: The knowledge we have discovered of "long dead living things," still requires the use of the images of sensible things which we have stored in our mind to come up with what these previous creatures might have looked like and how they might have been.

As regards the radio telescope and electron microscope: Yes, these have added to our knowledge, as they allow us to measure, and thus acquire knowledge regarding that which is beyond the scope of sensible measurement.

To Belinda's point:

Can anyone explain to me how knowledge is not both limited and also enhanced by the human body/mind? Please,, for the purpose of contrast with our human condition, let me introduce God, unpopular though he be: God definitively is not body/mind therefore is not so limited and enhanced as are we. However God is also all-knowing which means that God has ways of being , besides body and mind, that are not available for humans.

I don't think the nature of a God himself is relevant to this discussion. If you look at the phenomena in say contemplation, which many experience in having an ongoing and growing relationship with this "God," it is something which the 5 or 25 senses can be a hindrance to. We see this as experienced by many in Buddhism, Christian Mysticism, and other types of "spirituality." Whether a "God," exists or not is irrelevant in this case, because it is the higher level intellectual operations which are involved in such contemplation that are at question here. These are real operations that the mind is in potentiality to, and do involve types of knowledge, usually having to do with meaning, virtue, and purpose as related to material reality. To discount this and say its not an actual operation and actualization of the intellectual faculties because its object is not empirically verifiable is to put a faulty and ungrounded premise on what phenomena in the mind counts and that which doesn't. This phenomena is universally real and experienced and has practical value, as in the actualization of real parts of the human person and in aiding clear thinking of higher level reasoning objects such as virtue. It is so universally experienced by humans that it simply cannot be ignored...