Senses of Taste and Smell from the Perspective of Transcendental Theosophy and Neuroscience

The sense of taste and smell is one of the senses that has been considered by Islamic philosophers such as Mulla Sadra and neuroscientists. In philosophy and neuroscience, taste and smell are a means of understanding smells and tastes. On how to understand smell and taste by looking at the data and arguments of these sciences, these explanations complement each other. From the point of view of neuroscience, chemical stimuli undergo a complex process of taste and smell in the taste and smell system, which ultimately leads to the perception of smell and taste. But Mulla Sadra distorts the explanation of natural scholars of these senses and believes that in these definitions the underlying causes are confused with the active causes. Sadra believes that when the soul communicates with the natural world and outside through the body and belonging to the body, it creates a form similar to a foreign object in its realm (soul). Accordingly, this study compares the views of neuroscientists and Mulla Sadra on the perception of taste and smell. Also, the natures used in Mulla Sadra's theories are reviewed using modern sciences. Thus, it seems that according to the theories of neuroscience in the field of various tastes, a change must be made in this field in transcendent Theosophy.