An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision - Couverture souple

Berkeley, George

 
9781605204420: An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision

Synopsis

Forming a triangle of British empiricism with Locke and Hume, George Berkeley's direct influence on modern thought cannot be overstated. From the American Founding Fathers, who looked to him as the pioneer of their idealism, to the reality-questioning motives of quantum physics, Berkeley's odd yet profound view of the nature of human awareness, a sense he trusted implicitly, has in turn shaped our perception of the universe at large. His 1709 "Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision" reads like the ramblings of a madman-and he was, in fact, dismissed as such in his time-but his discussion of perception, distance, parallelism, magnitude, and other elements of vision, presented as 160 suppositions, is now recognized as a foundational work on the theory of optics. This strange work will intrigue readers of philosophy and scientific theory. Irish scientist, philosopher, and writer GEORGE BERKELEY (1685-1753) also wrote A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1713).

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Présentation de l'éditeur

Webster's edition of this classic is organized to expose the reader to a maximum number of synonyms and antonyms for difficult and often ambiguous English words that are encountered in other works of literature, conversation, or academic examinations. Extremely rare or idiosyncratic words and expressions are given lower priority in the notes compared to words which are ¿difficult, and often encountered¿ in examinations. Rather than supply a single synonym, many are provided for a variety of meanings, allowing readers to better grasp the ambiguity of the English language, and avoid using the notes as a pure crutch. Having the reader decipher a word's meaning within context serves to improve vocabulary retention and understanding. Each page covers words not already highlighted on previous pages. If a difficult word is not noted on a page, chances are that it has been highlighted on a previous page. A more complete thesaurus is supplied at the end of the book; synonyms and antonyms are extracted from Webster's Online Dictionary.

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Présentation de l'éditeur

In 1709, Berkeley published his first major work, An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, in which he discussed the limitations of human vision and advanced the theory that the proper objects of sight are not material objects, but light and color. This foreshadowed his chief philosophical work A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. George Berkeley was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are only ideas in the minds of perceivers, and as a result cannot exist without being perceived. Thus, as Berkeley famously put it, for physical objects "esse est percipi" ("to be is to be perceived"). Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for idealism

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