William Fish
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195381344
- eISBN:
- 9780199869183
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195381344.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
The idea of a disjunctive theory of visual experiences first found expression in J. M. Hinton's pioneering 1973 book Experiences. The first monograph in this exciting area since then, this book ...
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The idea of a disjunctive theory of visual experiences first found expression in J. M. Hinton's pioneering 1973 book Experiences. The first monograph in this exciting area since then, this book develops a comprehensive disjunctive theory, incorporating detailed accounts of the three core kinds of visual experience—perception, hallucination, and illusion—and an explanation of how perception and hallucination could be indiscriminable from one another without having anything in common. In the veridical case, it contends that the perception of a particular state of affairs involves the subject's being acquainted with that state of affairs, and that it is the subject's standing in this acquaintance relation that makes the experience possess a phenomenal character. It argues that when we hallucinate, we are having an experience that, while lacking phenomenal character, is mistakenly supposed by the subject to possess it and shows how this approach is compatible with empirical research into the workings of the brain. It concludes by offering a novel treatment of the many different types of illusion that we can be subject to, which accounts for many illusions, not as special cases of either veridical perception or hallucination but rather as mixed cases that involve elements of both.Less
The idea of a disjunctive theory of visual experiences first found expression in J. M. Hinton's pioneering 1973 book Experiences. The first monograph in this exciting area since then, this book develops a comprehensive disjunctive theory, incorporating detailed accounts of the three core kinds of visual experience—perception, hallucination, and illusion—and an explanation of how perception and hallucination could be indiscriminable from one another without having anything in common. In the veridical case, it contends that the perception of a particular state of affairs involves the subject's being acquainted with that state of affairs, and that it is the subject's standing in this acquaintance relation that makes the experience possess a phenomenal character. It argues that when we hallucinate, we are having an experience that, while lacking phenomenal character, is mistakenly supposed by the subject to possess it and shows how this approach is compatible with empirical research into the workings of the brain. It concludes by offering a novel treatment of the many different types of illusion that we can be subject to, which accounts for many illusions, not as special cases of either veridical perception or hallucination but rather as mixed cases that involve elements of both.
J. M. Hinton
- Published in print:
- 1973
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198244035
- eISBN:
- 9780191680717
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198244035.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter states that by way of what is seen as an essential, very special, philosophical notion of an experience, here it concerns itself with a type of proposition to be called ...
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This chapter states that by way of what is seen as an essential, very special, philosophical notion of an experience, here it concerns itself with a type of proposition to be called perception–illusion disjunction. It suggests that even if few things are certain, it is certain that there are perception–illusion disjunctions. A perception–illusion disjunction mentions the illusion of the very perception it mentions. It is perhaps surprising that perception–illusion disjunctions are not more often deliberately placed in the centre of the picture, in the philosophy of perception. Philosophers do quite often introduce the notion of an experience-report as that of a statement, or even the statement, which is true both when one perceives a given thing and when one has the illusion of doing so. This makes it sound as if they had in mind a perception–illusion disjunction. One has only to ask them whether they do, to find that they do not.Less
This chapter states that by way of what is seen as an essential, very special, philosophical notion of an experience, here it concerns itself with a type of proposition to be called perception–illusion disjunction. It suggests that even if few things are certain, it is certain that there are perception–illusion disjunctions. A perception–illusion disjunction mentions the illusion of the very perception it mentions. It is perhaps surprising that perception–illusion disjunctions are not more often deliberately placed in the centre of the picture, in the philosophy of perception. Philosophers do quite often introduce the notion of an experience-report as that of a statement, or even the statement, which is true both when one perceives a given thing and when one has the illusion of doing so. This makes it sound as if they had in mind a perception–illusion disjunction. One has only to ask them whether they do, to find that they do not.
J. M. Hinton
- Published in print:
- 1973
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198244035
- eISBN:
- 9780191680717
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198244035.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter dismisses the idea that there are events which would be reported by E-reports, if there were such reports, but which, in the absence of these, cannot be reported at all. It states that ...
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This chapter dismisses the idea that there are events which would be reported by E-reports, if there were such reports, but which, in the absence of these, cannot be reported at all. It states that it does not seem that any of the trains of thought considered, as possibly leading to a belief in the existence of E-reports, can be adapted so as to become good arguments for this rather strange idea. However, it is not easy to see what else but this idea can be intended by philosophers who say that one cannot describe the sensations. They do not mean that it cannot describe the sensation which the chapter describes as the queer tickling sensation up the spine when one is a fourteen-year-old boy and the attractive art mistress looks over one's shoulder. Nor do they mean that one cannot make perception-claims and illusion-reports, or assert perception–illusion disjunctions.Less
This chapter dismisses the idea that there are events which would be reported by E-reports, if there were such reports, but which, in the absence of these, cannot be reported at all. It states that it does not seem that any of the trains of thought considered, as possibly leading to a belief in the existence of E-reports, can be adapted so as to become good arguments for this rather strange idea. However, it is not easy to see what else but this idea can be intended by philosophers who say that one cannot describe the sensations. They do not mean that it cannot describe the sensation which the chapter describes as the queer tickling sensation up the spine when one is a fourteen-year-old boy and the attractive art mistress looks over one's shoulder. Nor do they mean that one cannot make perception-claims and illusion-reports, or assert perception–illusion disjunctions.
Srinivasa Rao
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198079811
- eISBN:
- 9780199081707
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198079811.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
The book proposes a contemporary framework for critiquing Advaita and formulating its basic thesis in a more logical and convincing way. Any proper theory in philosophy and science has to follow from ...
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The book proposes a contemporary framework for critiquing Advaita and formulating its basic thesis in a more logical and convincing way. Any proper theory in philosophy and science has to follow from accepted assumptions. Hence the book begins by identifying basic presuppositions required for Advaita and determining the different cognitive possibilities arising out of them. After thus determining what is logically and conceptually possible and impossible in Advaita, the new framework is used to assess whether or not the traditionally held Advaitic concepts and theories are satisfactory and acceptable. This is done in many chapters covering discussions of the notions of not-Self (anātman), cosmic ignorance (māyā), individual ignorance (avidyā), illusoriness (mithyātva), sublation (bādha), entities that are different from the real and the unreal (sadasadvilaksana) and so on. The book argues that all these concepts, as specifically formulated and defended in traditional Advaita for centuries after Śankara, are simply faulty and untenable both individually and as related clusters of concepts. Traditional Advaita has also defended an elaborate ontology of experiences like mistaking a rope-for a snake. It has also heavily defended the metaphysical thesis of the empirical world of our experience being a total illusion. The logical faults and conceptual inadequacies of this ontology and metaphysics are also discussed in great detail, offering absolutely new criticisms of them. Despite this almost totally negative portrayal of traditional Advaita, the book is also quite positive in showing that any belief in non-duality is still very much philosophically possible and also necessary.Less
The book proposes a contemporary framework for critiquing Advaita and formulating its basic thesis in a more logical and convincing way. Any proper theory in philosophy and science has to follow from accepted assumptions. Hence the book begins by identifying basic presuppositions required for Advaita and determining the different cognitive possibilities arising out of them. After thus determining what is logically and conceptually possible and impossible in Advaita, the new framework is used to assess whether or not the traditionally held Advaitic concepts and theories are satisfactory and acceptable. This is done in many chapters covering discussions of the notions of not-Self (anātman), cosmic ignorance (māyā), individual ignorance (avidyā), illusoriness (mithyātva), sublation (bādha), entities that are different from the real and the unreal (sadasadvilaksana) and so on. The book argues that all these concepts, as specifically formulated and defended in traditional Advaita for centuries after Śankara, are simply faulty and untenable both individually and as related clusters of concepts. Traditional Advaita has also defended an elaborate ontology of experiences like mistaking a rope-for a snake. It has also heavily defended the metaphysical thesis of the empirical world of our experience being a total illusion. The logical faults and conceptual inadequacies of this ontology and metaphysics are also discussed in great detail, offering absolutely new criticisms of them. Despite this almost totally negative portrayal of traditional Advaita, the book is also quite positive in showing that any belief in non-duality is still very much philosophically possible and also necessary.
Hilda Meldrum Brown
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198158950
- eISBN:
- 9780191673436
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198158950.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This book presents an integrated approach to the literary and non-literary writings of the major German author, Heinrich von Kleist. Analysis of Kleist's early letters, in particular, illuminates the ...
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This book presents an integrated approach to the literary and non-literary writings of the major German author, Heinrich von Kleist. Analysis of Kleist's early letters, in particular, illuminates the oblique and unique processes by which he became aware of his vocation; simultaneously offering new perspectives from which to approach the works themselves. The discipline of recording observations based on visits to art galleries and travels through landscapes and towns in Prussia, Saxony, and Franconia stimulated Kleist's imagination, providing sets and scenarios which brought him gradually to an awareness of his innate dramatic talents. On a more theoretical level, he was led to speculate about the problem of illusion in art at the same time as he was wrestling with the epistemological implications of Kantian philosophy. The negative aspects of illusion which he drew from the latter were complemented by a new-found confidence in his ability as an artist to impart to the ‘fragility’ of the human condition a degree of fixity through form and structure and the coherence and control associated with verbal devices such as paradox and irony. These principles are shown to operate to varying degrees in all Kleist's works, and to gain in subtlety and depth, nowhere more than in his final masterpiece, Prinz Friedrich von Homburg.Less
This book presents an integrated approach to the literary and non-literary writings of the major German author, Heinrich von Kleist. Analysis of Kleist's early letters, in particular, illuminates the oblique and unique processes by which he became aware of his vocation; simultaneously offering new perspectives from which to approach the works themselves. The discipline of recording observations based on visits to art galleries and travels through landscapes and towns in Prussia, Saxony, and Franconia stimulated Kleist's imagination, providing sets and scenarios which brought him gradually to an awareness of his innate dramatic talents. On a more theoretical level, he was led to speculate about the problem of illusion in art at the same time as he was wrestling with the epistemological implications of Kantian philosophy. The negative aspects of illusion which he drew from the latter were complemented by a new-found confidence in his ability as an artist to impart to the ‘fragility’ of the human condition a degree of fixity through form and structure and the coherence and control associated with verbal devices such as paradox and irony. These principles are shown to operate to varying degrees in all Kleist's works, and to gain in subtlety and depth, nowhere more than in his final masterpiece, Prinz Friedrich von Homburg.
Srinivasa Rao
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198079811
- eISBN:
- 9780199081707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198079811.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Traditional Advaita holds that we experience false entities as is evident from rope-snake illusion. This chapter argues this thesis to be wrong on the ground that since the false snake is merely an ...
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Traditional Advaita holds that we experience false entities as is evident from rope-snake illusion. This chapter argues this thesis to be wrong on the ground that since the false snake is merely an imagined entity and a construction of our thought, it can never be an object of experience; it can only be regarded as an object of thought. Likewise, if the world is actually experienced by us, it has to be real and not false. Conversely, if it is false, it cannot be experienced by us. The very idea that something which is false is also experienced by us is absurd. Therefore the claim that the world is false and it is sublated upon our intuiting the Ultimate Reality should be rejected as wrong, illogical and completely groundless.Less
Traditional Advaita holds that we experience false entities as is evident from rope-snake illusion. This chapter argues this thesis to be wrong on the ground that since the false snake is merely an imagined entity and a construction of our thought, it can never be an object of experience; it can only be regarded as an object of thought. Likewise, if the world is actually experienced by us, it has to be real and not false. Conversely, if it is false, it cannot be experienced by us. The very idea that something which is false is also experienced by us is absurd. Therefore the claim that the world is false and it is sublated upon our intuiting the Ultimate Reality should be rejected as wrong, illogical and completely groundless.
J. M. Hinton
- Published in print:
- 1973
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198244035
- eISBN:
- 9780191680717
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198244035.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Someone who has more sympathy with traditional empiricism than with much of present-day philosophy may ask himself: ‘How do my experiences give rise to my beliefs about an external world, and to what ...
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Someone who has more sympathy with traditional empiricism than with much of present-day philosophy may ask himself: ‘How do my experiences give rise to my beliefs about an external world, and to what extent do they justify them?’ He wants to refer, among other things, to unremarkable experiences, of a sort which he cannot help believing to be so extremely common that it would be ridiculous to call them common experiences. He mainly has in mind sense-experiences, and he thinks of them in a particular way. His way of thinking of them, roughly speaking as something ‘inner’, is one on which recent logico-linguistic philosophy has thrown a good deal of light. The relevant special notion of an experience contrasts, among other things, with a certain more general biographical notion of an experience, which some dictionaries indicate by the definition, ‘an event of which one is the subject’. This book explores the concept of experiences, focusing on the disjunctions between perception and illusion.Less
Someone who has more sympathy with traditional empiricism than with much of present-day philosophy may ask himself: ‘How do my experiences give rise to my beliefs about an external world, and to what extent do they justify them?’ He wants to refer, among other things, to unremarkable experiences, of a sort which he cannot help believing to be so extremely common that it would be ridiculous to call them common experiences. He mainly has in mind sense-experiences, and he thinks of them in a particular way. His way of thinking of them, roughly speaking as something ‘inner’, is one on which recent logico-linguistic philosophy has thrown a good deal of light. The relevant special notion of an experience contrasts, among other things, with a certain more general biographical notion of an experience, which some dictionaries indicate by the definition, ‘an event of which one is the subject’. This book explores the concept of experiences, focusing on the disjunctions between perception and illusion.
Austen Clark
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198238515
- eISBN:
- 9780191679650
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198238515.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This book offers a general account of the forms of mental representation that we call ‘sensory’. To sense something, one must have some capacity to discriminate among sensory qualities; but there are ...
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This book offers a general account of the forms of mental representation that we call ‘sensory’. To sense something, one must have some capacity to discriminate among sensory qualities; but there are other requirements. What are they, and how can they be put together to yield full-blown sensing? Drawing on the findings of current neuroscience, the author proposes and defends the hypothesis that the various modalities of sensation share a generic form that he calls ‘feature-placing’. Sensing proceeds by picking out place-times in or around the body of the sentient organism, and characterizing qualities (features) that appear at those place-times. Such feature-placing is a primitive kind — probably the most primitive kind — of mental representation. Once its peculiarities have been described, many of the puzzles about the intentionality of sensation, and the phenomena that lead some to label it ‘pseudo-intentional’, can be resolved. The hypothesis casts light on many other troublesome phenomena, including the varieties of illusion, the problem of projection, the notion of a visual field, the location of after-images, the existence of sense-data, and the role of perceptual demonstratives.Less
This book offers a general account of the forms of mental representation that we call ‘sensory’. To sense something, one must have some capacity to discriminate among sensory qualities; but there are other requirements. What are they, and how can they be put together to yield full-blown sensing? Drawing on the findings of current neuroscience, the author proposes and defends the hypothesis that the various modalities of sensation share a generic form that he calls ‘feature-placing’. Sensing proceeds by picking out place-times in or around the body of the sentient organism, and characterizing qualities (features) that appear at those place-times. Such feature-placing is a primitive kind — probably the most primitive kind — of mental representation. Once its peculiarities have been described, many of the puzzles about the intentionality of sensation, and the phenomena that lead some to label it ‘pseudo-intentional’, can be resolved. The hypothesis casts light on many other troublesome phenomena, including the varieties of illusion, the problem of projection, the notion of a visual field, the location of after-images, the existence of sense-data, and the role of perceptual demonstratives.
Denise Meyerson
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198248194
- eISBN:
- 9780191681073
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198248194.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This book on Marxism has aimed to expose certain ‘necessary illusions’ about political life, to discredit agent's perceptions of political reality, and to supply an explanation for their ...
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This book on Marxism has aimed to expose certain ‘necessary illusions’ about political life, to discredit agent's perceptions of political reality, and to supply an explanation for their misconceptions. The misconceptions of member of the ruling class about their motives are explained by the economic interests they serve and they must be motivated. Marxists ought not to talk in terms of true wants in the context of workers failing to perceive their interests. Marxists claims can be defended philosophically and ought to be of more general interest. Marxists are right to hold a factual and want-independent conception of interests and are justified in thinking that desires can have the wrong kind of causal history. Reason plays a smaller part of human life than they liked to think. As Marx stated, what is experienced as natural or inevitable acquires ‘stability’ and this is an insight which carries over into non-economic areas of life too.Less
This book on Marxism has aimed to expose certain ‘necessary illusions’ about political life, to discredit agent's perceptions of political reality, and to supply an explanation for their misconceptions. The misconceptions of member of the ruling class about their motives are explained by the economic interests they serve and they must be motivated. Marxists ought not to talk in terms of true wants in the context of workers failing to perceive their interests. Marxists claims can be defended philosophically and ought to be of more general interest. Marxists are right to hold a factual and want-independent conception of interests and are justified in thinking that desires can have the wrong kind of causal history. Reason plays a smaller part of human life than they liked to think. As Marx stated, what is experienced as natural or inevitable acquires ‘stability’ and this is an insight which carries over into non-economic areas of life too.
Charles Travis
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199291465
- eISBN:
- 9780191710667
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291465.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter focuses on Investigations, §§429-64 — a discussion of what it is for thought to harmonize with reality. The topics here are a complementary pair of illusions: one about representation ...
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This chapter focuses on Investigations, §§429-64 — a discussion of what it is for thought to harmonize with reality. The topics here are a complementary pair of illusions: one about representation (truth), one about experience, which arise when one fails to step back far enough from one’s own talk on an occasion to recognize the point that any concept is of what admits of interpretations. The illusion on the side of representation manifests itself in a certain deflationary view of truth (in fact, in most such views). On the side of experience, it manifests itself, in one way, in the idea that experience has (or even could have) a representational content (where this does not consist in how, in that experience, its subject represents things to himself).Less
This chapter focuses on Investigations, §§429-64 — a discussion of what it is for thought to harmonize with reality. The topics here are a complementary pair of illusions: one about representation (truth), one about experience, which arise when one fails to step back far enough from one’s own talk on an occasion to recognize the point that any concept is of what admits of interpretations. The illusion on the side of representation manifests itself in a certain deflationary view of truth (in fact, in most such views). On the side of experience, it manifests itself, in one way, in the idea that experience has (or even could have) a representational content (where this does not consist in how, in that experience, its subject represents things to himself).
Martin Ceadel
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199571161
- eISBN:
- 9780191721762
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571161.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, International Relations and Politics
This chapter scrutinizes the transformational decade of Angell's life, which saw his hiring by Northcliffe to launch the continental edition of the Daily Mail in 1905, his discovery over the next few ...
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This chapter scrutinizes the transformational decade of Angell's life, which saw his hiring by Northcliffe to launch the continental edition of the Daily Mail in 1905, his discovery over the next few years that the circles in which his new boss moved all assumed that British prosperity depended on its naval might, and his challenging of that view in Europe's Optical Illusion (1909), a pamphlet that fortuitously enjoyed great success and was expanded as The Great Illusion (1910) yet contained flaws that caused its author lasting headaches. The creation of the Garton Foundation in 1912 to support his study of ‘international polity’ enabled him to give up most of his duties for Northcliffe, move back to London, and campaign in Germany and the United States as well as Britain. The Norman Angellite movement was flourishing in July 1914, holding a successful International Polity Summer School just days before the outbreak of the First World War.Less
This chapter scrutinizes the transformational decade of Angell's life, which saw his hiring by Northcliffe to launch the continental edition of the Daily Mail in 1905, his discovery over the next few years that the circles in which his new boss moved all assumed that British prosperity depended on its naval might, and his challenging of that view in Europe's Optical Illusion (1909), a pamphlet that fortuitously enjoyed great success and was expanded as The Great Illusion (1910) yet contained flaws that caused its author lasting headaches. The creation of the Garton Foundation in 1912 to support his study of ‘international polity’ enabled him to give up most of his duties for Northcliffe, move back to London, and campaign in Germany and the United States as well as Britain. The Norman Angellite movement was flourishing in July 1914, holding a successful International Polity Summer School just days before the outbreak of the First World War.
Martin Ceadel
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199571161
- eISBN:
- 9780191721762
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571161.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, International Relations and Politics
Sir Norman Angell, pioneer both of international relations as a distinct discipline and of the theory of globalization, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and one of the 20th century's leading ...
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Sir Norman Angell, pioneer both of international relations as a distinct discipline and of the theory of globalization, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and one of the 20th century's leading internationalist campaigners on both sides of the Atlantic, lived the great illusion in three senses. First, his ‘life job’, as he came to call it, was founded upon and defined by The Great Illusion, a best-seller whose original version appeared in 1909: it perceptively showed how economic interdependence would prevent great powers profiting from war; yet it made other, less felicitous, claims from whose implications he spent decades trying to extricate himself. Second, his magnum opus and all his best work derived, to an extent unusual for a public intellectual, not from abstract thinking but from an eventful and varied life as a jobbing journalist in four countries, a cowboy, land-speculator, and gold-prospector in California, production manager of the continental edition of the Daily Mail, author, lecturer, pig farmer, Labour MP, entrepreneur, and campaigner for collective security. Third, he fostered many an enduring illusion about himself by at various times giving wrongly his age, name, nationality, marital status, key career dates, and core beliefs. By dint of careful detective work, this first biography of Angell reveals the truth about a remarkable life that has hitherto been much misrepresented and misinterpreted.Less
Sir Norman Angell, pioneer both of international relations as a distinct discipline and of the theory of globalization, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and one of the 20th century's leading internationalist campaigners on both sides of the Atlantic, lived the great illusion in three senses. First, his ‘life job’, as he came to call it, was founded upon and defined by The Great Illusion, a best-seller whose original version appeared in 1909: it perceptively showed how economic interdependence would prevent great powers profiting from war; yet it made other, less felicitous, claims from whose implications he spent decades trying to extricate himself. Second, his magnum opus and all his best work derived, to an extent unusual for a public intellectual, not from abstract thinking but from an eventful and varied life as a jobbing journalist in four countries, a cowboy, land-speculator, and gold-prospector in California, production manager of the continental edition of the Daily Mail, author, lecturer, pig farmer, Labour MP, entrepreneur, and campaigner for collective security. Third, he fostered many an enduring illusion about himself by at various times giving wrongly his age, name, nationality, marital status, key career dates, and core beliefs. By dint of careful detective work, this first biography of Angell reveals the truth about a remarkable life that has hitherto been much misrepresented and misinterpreted.
Bill Brewer
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199260256
- eISBN:
- 9780191725470
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199260256.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This book presents, motivates, and defends a new solution to a fundamental problem in the philosophy of perception. What is the correct theoretical conception of perceptual experience, and how should ...
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This book presents, motivates, and defends a new solution to a fundamental problem in the philosophy of perception. What is the correct theoretical conception of perceptual experience, and how should we best understand the nature of our basic perceptual relation with the physical objects in the world around us? Most theorists today analyze perception in terms of its representational content, in large part in order to avoid fatal problems attending the early modern conception of perception as a relation with particular mind-dependent direct objects of experience. Having set up the underlying problem and explored the lessons to be learnt from the various difficulties faced by opposing early modern responses to it, it is argued that this contemporary approach has serious problems of its own. Furthermore, the early modern insight that perception is most fundamentally to be construed as a relation of conscious acquaintance with certain direct objects of experience is perfectly consistent with the commonsense identification of such direct objects with persisting mind-independent physical objects themselves. The resultant picture of perception as acquaintance from a given point of view and in certain specific circumstances with particular mind-independent physical objects offers a rich and nuanced account of the various ways such things look in perception that also accommodates illusion and hallucination. This solution is proposed and elaborated as the most satisfactory and defensible vindication of empirical realism.Less
This book presents, motivates, and defends a new solution to a fundamental problem in the philosophy of perception. What is the correct theoretical conception of perceptual experience, and how should we best understand the nature of our basic perceptual relation with the physical objects in the world around us? Most theorists today analyze perception in terms of its representational content, in large part in order to avoid fatal problems attending the early modern conception of perception as a relation with particular mind-dependent direct objects of experience. Having set up the underlying problem and explored the lessons to be learnt from the various difficulties faced by opposing early modern responses to it, it is argued that this contemporary approach has serious problems of its own. Furthermore, the early modern insight that perception is most fundamentally to be construed as a relation of conscious acquaintance with certain direct objects of experience is perfectly consistent with the commonsense identification of such direct objects with persisting mind-independent physical objects themselves. The resultant picture of perception as acquaintance from a given point of view and in certain specific circumstances with particular mind-independent physical objects offers a rich and nuanced account of the various ways such things look in perception that also accommodates illusion and hallucination. This solution is proposed and elaborated as the most satisfactory and defensible vindication of empirical realism.
Alan Gilchrist
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195187168
- eISBN:
- 9780199786725
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195187168.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Clinical Psychology
How the human visual system determines the lightness of a surface, that is, its whiteness, blackness, or grayness, remains, like vision in general, a mystery. In fact, we have not been able to create ...
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How the human visual system determines the lightness of a surface, that is, its whiteness, blackness, or grayness, remains, like vision in general, a mystery. In fact, we have not been able to create a machine that can determine, through an artificial vision system, whether an object is white, black, or gray. Although the photoreceptors in the eye are driven by light, the light reflected by a surface does not reveal its shade of gray. Depending upon the level of illumination, a surface of any shade of gray can reflect any amount of light. This book ties together over thirty years of the author's own research on lightness, and presents an historical review of empirical work on lightness, covering the past 150 years of research on images ranging from the simple to the complex. The book also describes and analyzes the many theories of lightness — including the author's own — showing what each can and cannot explain. The book highlights the forgotten work conducted in the first third of the 20th century, describing several crucial experiments and examining the nearly unknown work of the Hungarian gestalt theorist, Lajos Kardos. The book's review also includes a survey of the pattern of lightness errors made by humans, many of which result in delightful illusions. It argues that because these errors are not random, but systematic, they are the signature of our visual software, and so provide a powerful tool that can reveal how lightness is computed. Based on this argument and the concepts of anchoring, grouping, and frames of reference, the book presents a new theoretical framework that explains an unprecedented array of lightness errors.Less
How the human visual system determines the lightness of a surface, that is, its whiteness, blackness, or grayness, remains, like vision in general, a mystery. In fact, we have not been able to create a machine that can determine, through an artificial vision system, whether an object is white, black, or gray. Although the photoreceptors in the eye are driven by light, the light reflected by a surface does not reveal its shade of gray. Depending upon the level of illumination, a surface of any shade of gray can reflect any amount of light. This book ties together over thirty years of the author's own research on lightness, and presents an historical review of empirical work on lightness, covering the past 150 years of research on images ranging from the simple to the complex. The book also describes and analyzes the many theories of lightness — including the author's own — showing what each can and cannot explain. The book highlights the forgotten work conducted in the first third of the 20th century, describing several crucial experiments and examining the nearly unknown work of the Hungarian gestalt theorist, Lajos Kardos. The book's review also includes a survey of the pattern of lightness errors made by humans, many of which result in delightful illusions. It argues that because these errors are not random, but systematic, they are the signature of our visual software, and so provide a powerful tool that can reveal how lightness is computed. Based on this argument and the concepts of anchoring, grouping, and frames of reference, the book presents a new theoretical framework that explains an unprecedented array of lightness errors.
Ian P. Howard and Brian J. Rogers
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195367607
- eISBN:
- 9780199867264
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195367607.003.0018
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology
The spatial separation of the eyes causes a difference in the images in the two eyes formed by a solid object. These differences, or binocular disparities, form the basis for stereoscopic vision. ...
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The spatial separation of the eyes causes a difference in the images in the two eyes formed by a solid object. These differences, or binocular disparities, form the basis for stereoscopic vision. This chapter discusses the extent to which each of these differences is used as a basis for stereopsis. Topics covered include feature tokens for stereopsis, monocular occlusion, occlusion as a depth token, stereopsis from illusions, chromostereopsis, and irradiation stereopsis.Less
The spatial separation of the eyes causes a difference in the images in the two eyes formed by a solid object. These differences, or binocular disparities, form the basis for stereoscopic vision. This chapter discusses the extent to which each of these differences is used as a basis for stereopsis. Topics covered include feature tokens for stereopsis, monocular occlusion, occlusion as a depth token, stereopsis from illusions, chromostereopsis, and irradiation stereopsis.
Pamela Williams
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264133
- eISBN:
- 9780191734649
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264133.003.0018
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter examines Giacomo Leopardi's own imitation of Petrarch. It describes Leopardi's major engagement with Petrarch including his commentary on the Canzoniere and explains the similarities and ...
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This chapter examines Giacomo Leopardi's own imitation of Petrarch. It describes Leopardi's major engagement with Petrarch including his commentary on the Canzoniere and explains the similarities and differences between his All sua donna and Petrarch's Chiare, fresche e dolci acque. It suggests that the most striking similarity between the two poets is that they both are concerned with illusions without self-delusion.Less
This chapter examines Giacomo Leopardi's own imitation of Petrarch. It describes Leopardi's major engagement with Petrarch including his commentary on the Canzoniere and explains the similarities and differences between his All sua donna and Petrarch's Chiare, fresche e dolci acque. It suggests that the most striking similarity between the two poets is that they both are concerned with illusions without self-delusion.
Elliott Antokoletz
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195365825
- eISBN:
- 9780199868865
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195365825.003.0011
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter looks at Door V, Bluebeard's Domain, which represents the culminating point for the polarity of darkness and light, based on large-scale and local use of geometrically expanding ...
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This chapter looks at Door V, Bluebeard's Domain, which represents the culminating point for the polarity of darkness and light, based on large-scale and local use of geometrically expanding proportional structure. An aphorism of Nietzsche on independence is also presented, which pertains to Bluebeard's strength and loneliness. The chapter discusses isometric text-verse of ancient Hungarian folk music as structural framework for the final phase of character development and transformation. It also includes an aphorism of Nietzsche on women and its reflection in the dual illusion of Balázs's Judith.Less
This chapter looks at Door V, Bluebeard's Domain, which represents the culminating point for the polarity of darkness and light, based on large-scale and local use of geometrically expanding proportional structure. An aphorism of Nietzsche on independence is also presented, which pertains to Bluebeard's strength and loneliness. The chapter discusses isometric text-verse of ancient Hungarian folk music as structural framework for the final phase of character development and transformation. It also includes an aphorism of Nietzsche on women and its reflection in the dual illusion of Balázs's Judith.
Guy Claxton
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198521945
- eISBN:
- 9780191688478
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198521945.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Developmental Psychology
This chapter presents an account of Buddhist doctrines that is unusual in its accessibility to psychologists. The role of meditation in Buddhist psychology is explained; ...
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This chapter presents an account of Buddhist doctrines that is unusual in its accessibility to psychologists. The role of meditation in Buddhist psychology is explained; the value of meditation in psychotherapy is explored and suggestions for future research are offered. The outcome is a clear exposition of the challenge that Buddhism offers to notions central to Western psychology. It is explained that Buddhists view the self as an illusion and meditation as a practical way of revealing the illusion.Less
This chapter presents an account of Buddhist doctrines that is unusual in its accessibility to psychologists. The role of meditation in Buddhist psychology is explained; the value of meditation in psychotherapy is explored and suggestions for future research are offered. The outcome is a clear exposition of the challenge that Buddhism offers to notions central to Western psychology. It is explained that Buddhists view the self as an illusion and meditation as a practical way of revealing the illusion.
Donald Laming
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198523420
- eISBN:
- 9780191712425
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198523420.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience
There have long been psychologists who have asserted that sensation is not measurable. This second chapter looks at philosophical objections to the idea and empirical findings that bear on the issue. ...
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There have long been psychologists who have asserted that sensation is not measurable. This second chapter looks at philosophical objections to the idea and empirical findings that bear on the issue. These findings include visual illusions, particularly the perception of features that are simply not present in the stimulus, and prior expectations that influence the individual's judgment. The chapter finishes by setting out a functional approach to the measurement of sensation.Less
There have long been psychologists who have asserted that sensation is not measurable. This second chapter looks at philosophical objections to the idea and empirical findings that bear on the issue. These findings include visual illusions, particularly the perception of features that are simply not present in the stimulus, and prior expectations that influence the individual's judgment. The chapter finishes by setting out a functional approach to the measurement of sensation.
Donald Laming
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198523420
- eISBN:
- 9780191712425
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198523420.003.0006
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience
This chapter examines the hypothesis that the power law transform is realized in elementary neural function. It begins by examining studies that have looked for power law relationships between ...
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This chapter examines the hypothesis that the power law transform is realized in elementary neural function. It begins by examining studies that have looked for power law relationships between stimulus magnitude and the frequency of discharge in primary neural response. Physiological responses do not correlate well with magnitude estimates, and the electrophysiological data tell us nothing. The idea that sensation is related in some simple manner to physiological function meets further difficulty in the variability of independent estimates of the power law exponent, chiefly for 1000 Hz tones; and there are some participants who do not give power law estimates, but veridical estimates instead. Finally, there are sensory illusions that are intelligible only on the basis that perception is differentially coupled to the stimulus. Differential coupling precludes any direct relationship with sensation.Less
This chapter examines the hypothesis that the power law transform is realized in elementary neural function. It begins by examining studies that have looked for power law relationships between stimulus magnitude and the frequency of discharge in primary neural response. Physiological responses do not correlate well with magnitude estimates, and the electrophysiological data tell us nothing. The idea that sensation is related in some simple manner to physiological function meets further difficulty in the variability of independent estimates of the power law exponent, chiefly for 1000 Hz tones; and there are some participants who do not give power law estimates, but veridical estimates instead. Finally, there are sensory illusions that are intelligible only on the basis that perception is differentially coupled to the stimulus. Differential coupling precludes any direct relationship with sensation.
