Sympathy in Perception

The philosophy of perception has been an important topic throughout history, appealing to thinkers in antiquity and the middle ages as well as to figures such as Kant, Bergson and others. In this wide-ranging study, Mark Eli Kalderon presents multiple perspectives on the general nature of perception, discussing touch and hearing as well as vision. He draws on the rich history of the subject and shows how analytic and continental approaches to it are connected, providing readers with insights from both traditions and arguing for new orientations when thinking about the presentation of perception. His discussion addresses issues including tactile metaphors, sympathy in relation to the concept of fellow-feeling, and the Wave Theory of sound. His comprehensive and thoughtful study presents bold and systematic investigations into current theory, informed by centuries of philosophical enquiry, and will be important for those working on ontological and metaphysical aspects of perception and feeling. Cover Half-title Title page Copyright information Epigraph Table of contents Preface Acknowledgments Chapter 1 Grasping 1.1 The Dawn of Understanding 1.2 Haptic Perception 1.3 The Protagorean Model 1.4 Assimilation 1.5 Shaping 1.6 Active Wax 1.7 A Puzzle Chapter 2 Sympathy 2.1 Haptic Metaphysics 2.2 The Dependence upon Bodily Awareness 2.3 Against Haptic Indirect Realism 2.4 Sympathy 2.5 Sensing Limits 2.6 The Stoics 2.7 Plotinus 2.8 The Principle of Haptic Presentation Chapter 3 Sound 3.1 Moving Forward 3.2 The Berkeley–Heidegger Continuum 3.3 The Bearers of Audible Qualities 3.4 The Extent of the Audible 3.5 The Wave Theory 3.6 Auditory Perspective 3.7 Phenomenological Objections Chapter 4 Sources 4.1 The Heideggerian Alternative 4.2 The Function of Audition 4.3 Sources and the Discrimination of Sound 4.4 Sympathy and Auditory Presentation 4.5 Listening Chapter 5 Vision 5.1 The Biranian Principle 5.2 The Persistence of Extramission 5.3 The Truth in Extramission 5.4 Looking 5.5 Sympathy and Visual Presentation Chapter 6 Realism 6.1 Grasping and the Rhetoric of Objectivity 6.2 Perceptual Objectivity 6.3 Kantian Humility 6.4 Bergson contra Kant 6.5 Perceiving Things in Themselves Bibliography Index "The present essay is an unabashed exercise in historically informed, speculative metaphysics. Its aim is to gain insight into the nature of sensory presentation."--Preface, page ix