Hearing Silence: The Perception and Introspection of Absences

In the course of demarcating the senses, Aristotle defined sound in De Anima as the proper object of hearing: ‘sight has color, hearing sound, and taste flavor’ (II.6, 418b13). Sound cannot be seen, tasted, smelled, or felt. And nothing other than sound can be directly heard. (Objects are heard indirectly by virtue of the sounds they produce.) All subsequent commentators agree, often characterizing the principle as an analytic truth. For instance Geoffrey Warnock (1983: 36) says ‘sound’ is the tautological accusative of the verb ‘hear’. I shall argue there is a single exception. We hear silence, which is the absence of sounds. Silence cannot be seen, tasted, smelled, or felt. Only heard.