Descartes on Seeing. Epistemology and Visual Perception PDF
Preview Descartes on Seeing. Epistemology and Visual Perception
Page ii The Journal of the History of Philosophy Monograph Series Edited by Richard A. Watson and Charles M. Young Also in this series Shūzō Kuki and JeanPaul Sartre: Influence and CounterInfluence in the Early History of Existential Phenomenology Stephen Light The Scottish Enlightenment and the Theory of Spontaneous Order Ronald Hamowy The Dream of Descartes Gregor Sebba Kant's Newtonian Revolution in Philosophy Robert Hahn Aristotle on the Many Senses of Priority John J. Cleary The Philosophical Orations of Thomas Reid D. D. Todd John Craige's "Mathematical Principles of Christian Theology" Richard Nash Epistemology and Skepticism: An Enquiry into the Nature of Epistemology George Chatalian "Infini Rien": Pascal's Wager and the Human Paradox Leslie Armour Page iii Descartes on Seeing Epistemology and Visual Perception Celia WolfDevine Published for The Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc. SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS Carbondale and Edwardsville Page iv Copyright © 1993 by The Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Edited by Patricia St. JohnDoolin Production supervised by Natalia Nadraga 96 95 94 93 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data WolfDevine, Celia, 1942– Descartes on seeing : epistemology and visual perception / Celia WolfDevine. p. cm. — (Journal of the history of philosophy monograph series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Descartes, René, 1596–1650—Contributions in concept of perception. 2. Perception (Philosophy)—History—17th century. I. Title. II. Series. B1878.P47W6 1993 121'.3—dc20 9212756 ISBN 0809318385 CIP Illustrations from Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, 1964–76, courtesy of Librairie Philosophique, J. Vrin, Paris. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984. Page v Contents The Journal of the History of Philosophy Monograph Series vii Acknowledgments viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Descartes' Thought about Perception in Rule XII 10 Chapter 2 Descartes' Theory of Light and Color 27 Chapter 3 The Mechanics of Vision and Our Perception of Light and Color 51 Chapter 4 Descartes' Theory of Visual Spatial Perception 66 Conclusion 90 Notes 97 Bibliography 109 Index 117 Page vii The Journal of the History of Philosophy Monograph Series THE JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY MONOGRAPH SERIES, CONsisting of volumes averaging 80 to 120 pages, accommodates serious studies in the history of philosophy that are between article length and standard book size. Editors of learned journals have usually been able to publish such studies only by truncating them or by publishing them in sections. In this series, the Journal of the History of Philosophy presents, in volumes published by Southern Illinois University Press, such works in their entirety. The historical range of the Journal of the History of Philosophy Monograph Series is the same as that of the Journal itself—from ancient Greek philosophy to the twentieth century. The series includes extended studies on given philosophers, ideas, and concepts; analyses of texts and controversies; new translations and commentaries on them; and new documentary findings about various thinkers and events in the history of philosophy. The editors of the Monograph Series, the directors of the Journal of the History of Philosophy, and other qualified scholars evaluate submitted manuscripts. Those manuscripts concerning ancient and medieval philosophy should be sent to Professor Charles M. Young, Department of Philosophy, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, CA 91711. Manuscripts on modern and recent philosophy should be sent to Professor Richard A. Watson, Department of Philosophy, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130. Manuscripts should be between 35,000 and 50,000 words in length and doublespaced throughout, including quotations, notes, and bibliography. Notes should be numbered separately for each chapter and placed in a section at the end of the manuscript. Richard A. Watson Charles M. Young —Editors Page viii Acknowledgments I THANK STONEHILL COLLEGE FOR SUMMER GRANT SUPPORT THAT ENABLED me to finish this monograph. I am also indebted to Owen Carroll of St. Mary's College for help with an earlier version; to Margaret Wilson who read the earlier version and suggested to me that I develop the material into a monograph; to Richard Watson for his excellent editorial suggestions; to an anonymous reader who encouraged me to include more material on late scholastic philosophy; to Andre Goddu who read and commented on this manuscript; to Tony Celano and Ralston Haynes for help with translations; to David Clemenson for some valuable discussions; and to my work study student, Kimberly Giacapuzzi, for help with typing. Finally, I am grateful to my husband, Phil Devine; without his help and encouragement, I would never have managed to finish it. Page ix Descartes on Seeing Page 1 Introduction THE MAIN FOCUS OF THIS ESSAY IS HISTORICAL. I CONSIDER HOW DESCARTES' theory of vision contributes to the victory of mechanistic natural philosophy over physical theories of a broadly Aristotelian sort and sets up a framework within which a whole new set of problems arises in the philosophy of perception. By Berkeley's time, for example, it is simply assumed that ideas are the immediate objects of perception, that colors have no existence outside the mind, and that a sharp distinction can be drawn between seeing and judging in vision. Descartes' theory of vision is very important to the genesis of all of these ideas—especially his understanding of the role of the retinal image in vision. In addition to its historical significance, however, Descartes' theory of vision is also of value for anyone interested in the problems of mind/body dualism because in this theory Descartes grapples with what really happens in sensation more concretely and in more detail than he does anywhere else in his writings. Hence, Descartes' theory of vision exposes the points at which Cartesian dualism encounters difficulties with explaining perception. It is also a valuable case study showing a genuine two way interaction between science and epistemology. Descartes' scientific account of perception has consequences for the scope and reliability of our knowledge of nature, 1 but philosophical considerations also sometimes influence him when he formulates hypotheses about the structure and functioning of the visual system. The epistemological ramifications of Descartes' theory of perception as developed in his scientific writings and its connection with his more properly philosophical works have come under scrutiny recently by several scholars. Nancy Maull, for example, argues that the Dioptrics (La Dioptrique) is foundational to Descartes' scientific program in that it establishes the applicability of Euclidean geometry to nature.2 And Ronald Arbini argues that Descartes' Dioptrics and related texts provide a "clear, coherent account of sense perception" intended "to solve the well known problems impugning 'external sense' perception advanced, but never resolved in his philosophical work,"3 and he notes that the sorts of illusions Descartes cites in the First Meditation to discredit the senses involve distance, size, and shape perception—the very things he undertakes to explain in his optical writings. Although I believe that Descartes' optical writings do shed light on epistemological issues arising elsewhere in his writings, they must be read as much as possible in light of his own intentions, and I do not find either Maull's or Arbini's accounts of these persuasive. Maull cites no textual evidence that Descartes was Page 2 even aware of a need to prove that Euclidean geometry is applicable to nature (essentially Kant's problem), let alone that he envisioned the natural geometry theory as filling this gap in his system. And since the Dioptrics was written before the Meditations (Meditationes de Prima Philosophiae), it seems unlikely that it was intended to resolve doubts left unresolved in the Sixth Meditation about distance, size, and shape perception. Besides, Descartes is far from suggesting that anything like certainty attaches to our visual spatial perception and indeed goes out of his way to stress the fact that all the means by which we perceive distance, situation, size, and shape are approximate and fallible. His own intentions are to explain visual perception mechanistically (by contrast with the Aristotelian way) and to develop his theories about light, refraction, lenses, etc., in ways that will be of practical use for improving our powers of vision. Margaret Wilson examines Descartes' optical writings from a slightly different perspective in her attempt to shed light on the question of the extent to which he believes that sense perception enables us to perceive distinctly the determinate primary qualities of particular physical objects—say, the chair across the room. While she finds grounds for scepticism about this in many of Descartes' later writings, she finds evidence in the scientific writings and the Sixth Replies that we do perceive them distinctly but not by sense. The evidence is, however, not unambiguous, and she concludes that these texts are "far from presenting a coherent and consistent position, that can settle difficulties found in Descartes' remarks on the subject elsewhere." 4 I agree with Wilson that the scientific works on vision contain many problems and unresolved tensions, but I think that they make the best sense considered on their own first without our attempting to integrate them too closely with the Sixth Replies, since the fit between the former and the latter is not at all neat. One problem of epistemological importance the optical writings do shed light on is the genesis of the idea that there exists a kind of sensory "given" that is immediately or directly seen and is different from the world as we normally experience it.5 Descartes does not separate out what we "immediately" or directly see in quite the way later philosophers do, but his work contains the seeds of this sort of understanding of vision. Connected with questions about the nature of the sensory "given" is the debate over whether or not Descartes' theory of perception is representationalist.6 I do not address the issue of Descartes' alleged representationalism directly, since the meaning of the term representationalism is contested, and its use often obscures rather than clarifies the issues involved. Furthermore, there seem to be insuperable problems with such a theory, at least in its more clearly defined versions. Monte Cook, for example, says that a representational theory of perception goes beyond a merely causal theory (that our knowledge of the world is mediated by things such as retinal images and brain states) and holds that we perceive one thing by
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