Sites of Vision – The Discursive Construction of Sight in the History of Philosophy - Softcover

Levin, David Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262621290 ISBN 13: 9780262621298

Publisher: MIT Press, 1999

Synopsis

In recent years scholars from many disciplines have become interested in the "construction" of the human senses -- in how the human environment shapes both how and what we perceive. Taking a very different approach to the question of construction, Sites of Vision turns to language and explores the ways in which the rhetoric of philosophy has formed the nature of vision and how, in turn, the rhetoric of vision has helped to shape philosophical thought. The central role of vision in relation to philosophy is evident in the vocabulary of the discipline -- in words such as "speculation," "observation," "insight," and "reflection"; in metaphors such as "mirroring," "perspective," and "point of view"; and in methodological concepts such as "reflective detachment" and "representation." Because the history of vision is so pervasively reflected in the history of philosophy, it is possible for both vision and thought to achieve a greater awareness of their genealogy through the history of philosophy.

The fourteen contributors to Sites of Vision explore the hypothesis that the nature of visual perception about which philosophers talk must be explicitly recognized as a discursive construction, indeed a historical construction, in philosophical discourse.

About this title

Review

-- Martin Jay, Professor, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley " Once again, David Michael Levin has generated a splendid collection of essays dealing with the seemingly inexhaustible problem of the eye in the mind of Western philosophy. Not only will scholars seeking fresh interpretations of a wide variety of master thinkers benefit by reading these texts, so too will anyone fascinated by the powerful and perplexing role of visual experience in human culture as a whole." -- Martin Jay, Professor, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley & quot; Once again, David Michael Levin has generated a splendid collection of essays dealing with the seemingly inexhaustible problem of the eye in the mind of Western philosophy. Not only will scholars seeking fresh interpretations of a wide variety of master thinkers benefit by reading these texts, so too will anyone fascinated by the powerful and perplexing role of visual experience in human culture as a whole.& quot; -- Martin Jay, Professor, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley "Once again, David Michael Levin has generated a splendid collection of essays dealing with the seemingly inexhaustible problem of the eye in the mind of Western philosophy. Not only will scholars seeking fresh interpretations of a wide variety of master thinkers benefit by reading these texts, so too will anyone fascinated by the powerful and perplexing role of visual experience in human culture as a whole."--Martin Jay, Professor, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley

Synopsis

The contributors to this volume explore the hypothesis that the nature of visual perception about which philosophers talk must be explicitly recognized as a discursive construction, indeed a historical construction, in philosophical discourse.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262621290
• ISBN 13: 9780262621298
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 502