Berkeley's Revolution in Vision (review)

Abstract

306 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 30:~ APRIL I992 bles begin their struggle after God has decreed to create something, and he states unequivocally that "this whole struggle.., can only be a conflict of reasons" leading to God's choice of the best world. I think these passages suggest that Professor Wilson is wrong. They also indicate that, whatever the virtues of the historical and comparative method, in this case there is more to be learned from an "internal inspection" of the texts. DAVID BLUMENFELD Georgia State University Margaret Atherton. Berkeley's Revolution in Vision. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 199o. Pp. vii + 249. Cloth, $99.95. The importance of the Essay towards a New Theory of Vision for an understanding of Berkeley and his philosophy has long been recognized, but there have been relatively few extended treatments of it in the scholarly literature. This book is thus a welcome addition to the literature on Berkeley and vision.' It is divided into three parts, each devoted to a separate task. The first is an excellent historical introduction to the "geometric theory" of visual judgments which was Berkeley's principal target. The second part is a commentary on the New Theory which aims to unfold some of Berkeley 's complex argumentation and show how successfully he can explain the human capacity for visual judgments. The third part links Atherton's reading of the New Theory with other Berkeleyan works. Atherton's account of the historical background to Berkeley's project is a very lucid introduction to the visual theories of Descartes and Malebranche. Both Descartes and Malebranche upheld a geometric theory of vision in which perceivers' visual judgments of the distance, size, and situation of objects about them are essentially applied geometry . Another key component in both theories is the stress they place on the corrective role of the intellect in knowledge; in particular, both Descartes and Malebranche hold that the sense .of vision is inherently misleading and that it is only through the intellect's application of geometric principles that true visualjudgments arise. Atherton's presentation of this background is important precisely because it reminds us that the New Theory is, first and foremost, a treatise on vision, and we cannot hope to understand it unless we understand the context in which it was written and the theory it seeks to overthrow. The centerpiece of the book is undoubtedly the second part, which is a long, detailed, and very helpful commentary on the New Theory. Here Atherton draws attention to important strands of Berkeley's arguments against the geometric theory and sorts out the various claims Berkeley makes (and doesn't make) in support of his own theory of visual representation. Atherton claims (6) that her "guiding aim has been to i This is not to suggest that the New Theoryof V'mb~has been entirely ignored by the ~cholarship of recent decades. In addition to several articles and chapters in general works, Colin M. Turbayne's The Myth of Metaphor, rev. ed. (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1971) remains a standard work and D. M. Armstrong's Berkeley's Theo. d of Vision (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1960) can still be read profitably. BOOK REVIEWS 307 understand Berkeley's success," and this becomes very clear in the course of her commentary. As she continually points out, the New Theory is very successful in attacking the geometric theory on its own terms and in articulating an alternative account of how visual perception works. After following the commentary, it is no great mystery why Berkeley's account of vision became the received view of the matter in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The third part of the book deals primarily with the relationship between the New Theory and Berkeley's more famous works: the Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledgeand the ThreeDialoguesbetweenHylas and Philonous. Although this section is rather brief, it is in many ways the most thought-provoking, for it aims at little less than a reinterpretation of Berkeley's metaphysics in terms of his theory of visual representation. Much of this task involves showing that the doctrines of the New Theory are less at variance with...