Page - 28 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 4:2

26 | www.limina-graz.eu Alessandro De Cesaris | The Taste of Truth Therefore, one could say that taste is a unique, always repeatable but also always new experience that actively takes part in the shaping of our own self, both from a physical and from a spiritual point of view. 3.3 An apology of secondariness The perceptual experience of taste has been object of a very specific tax- onomy in the history of modern philosophy. According to a tradition that counts Quentin Meillassoux among its latest endorsers (cf. Meillassoux 2010), but that can be traced back to Plato through the Middle Ages and Descartes and Locke, it is possible to analyse perception by distinguishing between primary and secondary qualities (cf. Locke 1999, VIII, 9). Accord- ing to this theory, while primary qualities – shape, motion, rest, exten- sion – have an objective character, secondary qualities – for instance col- our, taste or smell – are inherently subjective. Of course, this distinction has been understood not only as a logical, but also as an axiological one: since primary qualities are objective, they are more certain and thus more important than secondary qualities. Now, on the basis of the analysis I have developed, I would like to highlight that the “secondariness” of taste is not a flaw, but a direct – if not obvious – con- sequence of the way taste works. Taste cannot be as objective as sight is, because only sight takes place according to a disposition that divides the world into subject and objects. Taste works in a completely different way: its “secondariness” is not an epistemological lack of precision, but rather a structural – ontological – peculiarity. Taste takes place in a world where the difference between “objective” and “subjective” is constantly ques- tioned and sublated. This means, of course, that “salty”, “sweet”, “sour” or “bitter” are not properties of an object in the same way of other attrib- utes such as “square” or “two inches long”. More precisely, they are not properties of an object, but as an interaction that overcomes the distinction between subject and object. 4 Symbology of Taste With the passage from aesthetics to symbology we enter the domain of culture, namely of technology. In this paper, I will use the notion of tech- nology in the broadest possible sense, without limiting it to the domain of material artefacts or to the dimension of techniques and practices: with