Abstract
This paper presents the historically most important theories of how visual perception is made spatial in the cognitive processing of the sensory input to the eye. All of them involve active engagement of the mind. Firstly, in the medieval theories physiological processes developed three-dimensional imagery in the brain, and active mental processing was needed to build coherence in the perceptual experience as a whole but not to yield the basic idea of spatiality. Secondly, according to Descartes, the eyes produced a unified two-dimensional visual image that was neurally transmitted to the inner surface of the brain. The innate conception of three-dimensional spatiality was superimposed intellectually on this image and thus all spatial perception involves mental judgment. Thirdly, Berkeley rejected innateness and claimed that the experiential three-dimensionality in vision was due to associating visual ideas to ideas of other senses, among which proprioceptive senses were the most important. Spatiality is thus not due to the basic visual experience itself in any of these three models.
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Notes
- 1.
For De aspectibus, I use A. Mark Smith’s edition, translation and commentary, see Alhacen (2001). References give the page numbers of the translation, which I have used for quotes, and the book and chapter numbers.
- 2.
References to Descartes are to the standard Adam & Tannery edition AT with volume and page numbers. Translations are mine.
- 3.
References to Berkeley are to The Works of George Berkeley Bishop of Cloyne edited by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, vol. I, with page and paragraph numbers (Berkeley 1948).
- 4.
See e.g. Lindberg (1981).
- 5.
See Knuuttila (2008, p. 14) and the references there. See also Silva's chapter in this volume.
- 6.
See Sentencia de anima II, 14, 20, and ST I, q. 78 a. 1, resp. and a. 3 resp.
- 7.
- 8.
Alhacen (2001, pp. 343–416); I, 1–7.
- 9.
See A. Mark Smith’s elaborate and very illuminative introduction in Alhacen (2001).
- 10.
Alhacen (2001, p. 358) (I, 6): “The reason is that when it perceives the color of a single point at only one point of surface, it will perceive the color of one part of the visible object at one part of its surface, and it will perceive the color of another part [of the object] at another part of its surface. And it will perceive each part of visible objects at a spot on its surface different from the spot where it will perceive another visible object; so [different] visible objects will be perceived by it in proper arrangement and distinctly, as will the parts of each of them”.
- 11.
Alhacen (2001, p. 359) (I, 6): ”We shall therefore say that, if the visual sensation of the color and light that are in a visible object arises from the form coming to the surface of the eye from visible objects, and if this sensation occurs by means of the glacialis alone, then sight will not sense that form at the surface of the eye itself but only after it passes through the eye’s surface and reaches the glacialis”.
- 12.
Alhacen (2001, p. 376) (I, 6): “After occurring at the glacialis, this sensation spreads through the hollow [optic] nerve and arrives at the front of the brain where sensation culminates and where the final sensor is located, this latter being the sensitive faculty at the front of the brain, and this faculty will perceive all sensibles”.
- 13.
Alhacen (2001, p. 469) (II, 3): “But sight perceives the extension of all bodies according to length and breadth on the basis of the perception of the surfaces of bodies that face it. Therefore, when it perceives the surface of a body, thereby realizing that this visible object is a body, it will immediately perceive the extension of that body according to length and breadth. So only the third dimension is left. Now some bodies are enveloped by plane surfaces that intersect each other to form corners, some are enveloped by concave or convex surfaces, some are enveloped by surfaces of various shapes that intersect one another to form corners, and some are enveloped by one [continuous] curved surface”.
- 14.
Alhacen (2001, p. 422) (II, 2): ”Since this is the case, when the form reaches a given point on the surface of the vitreous [humor], it will run along a continuous line, and it will not change its [relative] position in the hollow of the nerve through which the sensitive body extends. And all the lines along which all the points in the form run will be uniformly arranged with respect to one another, and all these lines will bend at the bend of the nerve, and at the point of bending all will be arranged as they were before bending, and afterward as well, because of the sensitive quality of this body. Accordingly, the form will reach the common nerve properly arranged, and it is not possible for the forms of visible objects to extend to the final sensor in any way other than this, for it is not possible for forms to reach the common nerve properly arranged unless their passage occurs in this way”.
- 15.
Alhacen (2001, pp. 439–440) (II, 3): “Thus, when the eye faces some visible object, the form of the light and color on that visible object reaches the surface of the eye and the surface of the glacialis, and it extends along the determinate paths that we described … Then, when it reaches the hollow of the common nerve, it is perceived by the final sensor, and the faculty of discrimination differentiates all the [visible] properties it possesses”.
- 16.
Alhacen (2001, p. 438); II, 3.
- 17.
Ibid., 450–451; II, 3
- 18.
Alhacen (2001, p. 469); II, 3.
- 19.
Berkeley (1948, pp. 237–239).
- 20.
Berkeley (1948, p. 174); § 17.
- 21.
Ibid., 175; § 19.
- 22.
Berkeley (1948, p. 237).
- 23.
See esp. Atherton (1990, pp. 16–33).
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Yrjönsuuri, M. (2014). Seeing Distance. In: Silva, J., Yrjönsuuri, M. (eds) Active Perception in the History of Philosophy. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04361-6_10
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