Haptic perception Haptic perception Haptic perception ( "palpable", "haptikόs" "suitable for touch") means literally the ability "to grasp something". Perception in this case is achieved through the active exploration of surfaces and objects by a moving subject, as opposed to passive contact by a static subject during "tactile perception". The term "Haptik" was coined by the German Psychologist Max Dessoir in 1892, when suggesting a name for academic research into the sense of touch in the style of that in "acoustics" and "optics". Gibson (1966) defined the haptic system as "[t]he sensibility of the individual to the world adjacent to his body
Analogy of the sun region in which truth and real being brightly shine, it understands and knows it and appears to have reason; but when it has nothing to rest on but that which is mingled with darkness—that which becomes and perishes, it opines, it grows dim-sighted, changing opinions up and down, and is like something without reason. ('The Republic, VI: 508d; trans. W. H. D. Rouse) The allusion to "...that which becomes and perishes..." relates to all of that which is perceived by the bodily senses. The bodily senses make it clear that all visible things are subject to change, which Socrates categorizes