In the Eyes Mind :Vision and the Helmholtz-Hering Controversy ( Princeton Legacy Library )

Publication subTitle :Vision and the Helmholtz-Hering Controversy

Publication series :Princeton Legacy Library

Author: Turner R. S.;;;  

Publisher: Princeton University Press‎

Publication year: 2014

E-ISBN: 9781400863815

P-ISBN(Paperback): 9780691033976

Subject: R339.14 visual

Keyword: 一般理论

Language: ENG

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Description

One of the most persistent controversies of modern science has dealt with human visual perception. It erupted in Germany during the 1860s as a dispute between physiologists Hermann von Helmholtz, Ewald Hering, and their schools. Well into the twentieth century these groups warred over the origins of our capacity to perceive space, over the retinal mechanisms that mediate color sensations, and over the role of mind, experience, and inference in vision. Here R. Steven Turner explores the impassioned exchanges of those rival schools, both to illuminate the clash of theory and to explore the larger role of controversy in the development of science. Controversy, he suggests, is constitutive of scientific change, and he uses the Helmholtz-Hering dispute to illustrate how polemics and tacit negotiation shape evolving theoretical stances.

Turner focuses on the arguments and issues of the dispute, issues that ranged from the interpretation of color blindness and optical illusions to the therapeutic practices of clinical ophthalmology. As well, he focuses on the personalities, institutions, disciplinary structures, and methodological commitments that shaped the dispute, including the schools' rhetorical strategies. He explores the incommensurability of the protagonists' viewpoints and examines the reception of the theories and the changing fortunes of the schools. Finally, Turner traces the controversy into the twentieth century, where the issues continue to inform the study

Chapter

The Story and Its Themes

Chapter Two Physiological Optics from Wheatstone to Helmholtz

The Unification of Physiological Optics

The Stereoscope and the Problem of Visual Space

Binocular Vision in the 1850s

Light and Color Before Colorimetry

Part Two: The Protagonists

Chapter Three Helmholtz on Spatial Perception

From Potsdam to Heidelberg

The Olympian Displayed

Intellectual Commitments

The Hunting of the Horopter

The Defense of Listing

Chapter Four Hering on Spatial Perception

Ewald Hering

Again, the Horopter

Hering and the Theory of Identity

The Theory of Retinal Space Values

Chapter Five The Nativist-Empiricist Controversy Begins

The Reform of Physiological Optics

The Dispute Over Spatial Localization Before the Handbuch

The Dispute Over Spatial Localization in the Handbuch

The Refutation Of Hering

The Rhetorical Achievement of the Handbuch

Hering and Die Lehre Vom Binocularen Sehen (1868)

Conclusion

Chapter Six Helmholtz on Light and Color

Helmholtz on Color Mixing, 1852-55

Clerk Maxwell and the Origins of Colorimetry

Young's Theory and the Handbuch (1860)

Simultaneous Contrast

Conclusion

Chapter Seven Hering on Light and Color

The Reception of Young's Theory in Germany, 1860-75

Hering on the Organism

The "Spiritualistic" Direction in Physiology

Simultaneous and Successive Light Induction

Hering on Black

A Theory of the Visual Substance

The Opponent Process Theory of Color Vision

Reprise: The Unification of Physiological Optics

Part Three: The Wider Controversy

Chapter Eight Core Sets and Partisans

The Core Set

Significant Partisans: Hering

Significant Partisans: Helmholtz

Styles of Scientific Leadership: Hering

Styles of Scientific Leadership: Helmholtz

The Nonaligned

Conclusion

Chapter Nine the Nativist-Empiricist Debate, 1870-1925

The Main Protagonists

Developmental Issues

The Stability of Retinal Depth Values

The Evidence of the Clinic: Anomalous Correspondence

The Ascendance of Nativism

Chapter Ten Color Vision Controversies, 1875-90

Foundations

Debates Over Color Blindness During the 1870s

The Evidence of the Unilaterals

The Defense of Young, Circa 1880

Hering Takes the Offensive

Hering Versus Kries

Helmholtz on Hering

Chapter Eleven Color Vision Controversies, 1890-1915

König, Response Curves, and the Fundamental Sensations

The Specific Brightness of Colors

Rods, Cones, and Visual Purple

The Duplicity Theory of Vision

The Duplicity Theory and the Larger Controversy

Chapter Twelve The Roots of Incommensurability

Incommensurabilities of Program

The Problem of Brightness

Semantics and Incommensurability

Schools as Linguistic Communities

The Limits of Incommensurability

Chapter Thirteen Controversy and Disciplinary Structure

The Disciplinary Basis of Vision Studies

The Physics of Sensation

Colorimeters and Experimental Practice

German Physiologists and the Vision Debates

The Institutionalization of Ophthalmology

Visual Perception and the New Psychology

Conclusion: The Fragmentation of Vision Studies

Part Four: Conclusion

Chapter Fourteen in Search of Denouement: The Twentieth Century

The Internationalization of Vision Studies

Zone Theory Established

Contrast and Stereopsis

Perception Theory in the Twentieth Century

Conclusion: Consensus and Controversy

Appendix

Notes

References and Abbreviations

Index

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