Berkeley's Revolution in Vision / / Margaret Atherton.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Atherton, Margaret,
• MitwirkendeR: Atherton, Margaret,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2019]; ©1990
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (264 p.)

Berkeley's Essay towards a New Theory of Vision (1709), his first substantial publication, revolutionized the theory of vision. His approach provided the framework for subsequent work in the psychology of vision and remains influential to this day. Among philosophers, however, the New Theory has not always been read as a landmark in the history of scientific thought, but instead as a halfway house to Berkeley's later metaphysics. In this book, Margaret Atherton seeks to redress the balance through a commentary on and a reinterpretation of Berkeley's New Theory.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Part One. The Historical Background to Berkeley's Project -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Geometrical Optics and Descartes -- 3. Malebranche, Descartes, and Berkeley's Project -- Part Two. A Commentary on the New Theory of Vision -- 4. How Distance Is Perceived by Sight -- 5. Distance and the Issue of Heterogeneity -- 6. Seeing Size -- 7. Microscopes and the Heterogeneity of Extension -- 8. Perceiving Situation by Sight -- 9. The Nature of Visual Experience -- 10. The Heterogeneity of Ideas of Sight and Touch -- 11. The Language Model, the Geometric Model, and Common Sense -- Part Three. Some Implications -- 12. The New Theory and Immaterialism -- Bibliography -- Index