Active Perception in the History of Philosophy

Active Perception in the History of Philosophy

Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind Valume 14 Editors Henrik Lagerlund, The University of Western Ontario, Canada Mikko Yrjönsuuri, Academy of Finland and University of Jyväskylä, Finland Board of Consulting Editors lilli Alanen, Uppsala University, Sweden Joël Biard, University of Tours, France Michael Della rocca, Yale University, U.S.A. Eyjólfur Emilsson, University of Oslo, Norway André Gombay, University of Toronto, Canada Patricia Kitcher, Columbia University, U.S.A. Simo Knuuttila, University of Helsinki, Finland Béatrice M. Longuenesse, New York University, U.S.A. Calvin Normore, University of California, Los Angeles, U.S.A. Aims and Scope The aim of the series Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind is to foster historical research into the nature of thinking and the workings of the mind. The volumes address topics of intellectual history that would nowadays fall into different disciplines like philosophy of mind, philosophical psychology, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, etc. The monographs and collections of articles in the series are historically reliable as well as congenial to the contemporary reader. They provide original insights into central contemporary problems by looking at them in historical contexts, addressing issues like consciousness, representation and intentionality, mind and body, the self and the emotions. In this way, the books open up new perspectives for research on these topics. For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/6539

José Filipe Silva Mikko Yrjönsuuri Editors Active Perception in the History of Philosophy From Plato to Modern Philosophy 1 3

Editors José Filipe Silva University of Helsinki Helsinki Finland Mikko Yrjönsuuri University of Jyväskylä Dept. Social Sciences & Philosophy Jyväskylä Finland ISBN 978-3-319-04360-9 ISBN 978-3-319-04361-6 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-04361-6 Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2014932434 Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Acknowledgements Book publishing is a complicated activity, and more so in this economic context. The process inherent difficulties are, however, easily overcome with the help of talented and generous people. It is to them that we now express our gratitude. First of all, to our contributors, who have accepted our invitation and graciously complied with all our requests. We are very pleased to have edited a volume with papers of such exceedingly high quality, both insightful and rigorous in their historical analysis. Thank you all. Our appreciation goes also to the Helsinki Collegium s research assistants, Taavi Sundell and Maija Väätämöinen, both having done a great job in indexing and formatting; to the always friendly Christi Lue from Springer, who guided us smoothly throughout the whole process; and to the anonymous referee for the Publisher, whose comments and suggestions helped the authors to improve the final result. We are very proud of this book and we believe readers will be of the same mind. We are especially hopeful that this book, with its historical accounts, can be of interest to all those interested in contemporary approaches to active perception, at the same time that it makes the case for the importance of studying the history of philosophy and in particular the history of philosophical theories of perception. Helsinki and Jyväskylä, October 2013 José Filipe Silva and Mikko Yrjönsuuri v

Contents 1 Introduction: The World as a Stereogram... 1 José Filipe Silva and Mikko Yrjönsuuri 2 Plato: Interaction Between the External Body and the Perceiver in the Timaeus... 9 Pauliina Remes 3 Activity, Passivity, and Perceptual Discrimination in Aristotle... 31 Klaus Corcilius 4 On Activity and Passivity in Perception: Aristotle, Philoponus, and Pseudo-Simplicius... 55 Miira Tuominen 5 Augustine on Active Perception... 79 José Filipe Silva 6 Avicenna on the Soul s Activity in Perception... 99 Jari Kaukua 7 Medieval Theories of Active Perception: An Overview... 117 José Filipe Silva 8 Agent Sense in Averroes and Latin Averroism... 147 Jean-Baptiste Brenet 9 Active Perception from Nicholas of Cusa to Thomas Hobbes... 167 Cees Leijenhorst 10 Seeing Distance... 187 Mikko Yrjönsuuri vii

viii Contents 11 Descartes and Active Perception... 207 Cecilia Wee 12 Locke and Active Perception... 223 Vili Lähteenmäki 13 Spinoza on Activity in Sense Perception... 241 Valtteri Viljanen 14 Berkeley and Activity in Visual Perception... 255 Ville Paukkonen 15 Activity and Passivity in Theories of Perception: Descartes to Kant... 275 Gary Hatfield Index... 291

Contributors Jean-Baptiste Brenet University Paris I: Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris, France Klaus Corcilius UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA Gary Hatfield University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA Jari Kaukua Academy of Finland Research Fellow, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland Vili Lähteenmäki Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland Cees Leijenhorst Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands Ville Paukkonen University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Pauliina Remes Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden José Filipe Silva Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Miira Tuominen Academy of Finland Research Fellow, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland Valtteri Viljanen University of Turku, Turku, Finland Cecilia Wee National University of Singapore, Singapore Mikko Yrjönsuuri University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland ix