Perspective

Despite a bold effort by some neurophysiologists over the last decade, the phenomenon of sight, as engraved in collective consciousness, is generally thought of as being roughly similar to a camera obscura, or dark room [SEE Figure 1]. The brain is imagined to be a sort of huge computer hooked up to a hyper-sensitive camera: each time there arises a stimulus to the cones (color reactive) and rods (depth reactive) of the retina (from the Latin word for network, rete), there is a corresponding stimulation of a point on the visual projection area of the corefore considering the technical notions pertaining to constructing images in perspective, let us first look at some elementary issues. First: How is it that that marvel, the human eye, allows that miracle known as sight, to occur? What feat is it, that enables us to grasp the complexity of the world around us? That answered, we shall examine with a suitable degree of suspicion, different representational systems, before discarding th...

Topoi, 2012

In this paper I consider metaphysical positions which I label as 'perspectival'. A perspectivalist believes that some portion of reality cannot extend beyond what an appropriately characterised investigator or investigators can (in some sense) reveal about it. So a perspectivalist will be drawn to claim that a portion of reality is, in some sense, knowable. Many such positions appear to founder on the paradox of knowability. I aim to offer a solution to that paradox which can be adopted by any perspectivalist, which involves no restriction on the claim of knowability and which allows certain sentences to be unknowable. The solution hinges on recognising that what is meant by 'knowable' will vary from one type of proposition to another and thus that characterising the modality involved in the notion in terms of possible worlds will be impossible. I thus offer a subjunctive conditional reading of that modality, a reading which, I claim, has the virtues just recounted.

Perspective reconciles the jump between understanding an individual’s conciseness exists and understanding the possibilities of something else. The reconciliation follows that in a universe within the mind there is no line between falsity and fact, and thus everything must be true; as we live in every mind, every thought must be true; if every thought is true, its validity is before its fallacies; validity first spurs better living. With validity first, working backward, it can be discerned that even if the universe is material, reality lies in an otherwise magical mind. --Discussion and imagination should be valued given what we know about the universe--... Admittedly, the tone of perspective is more that of a manifesto than a pure argument, so the implications to life are more defined in their exploration, as opposed to the argument which come together gradually through the paper

2014

This paper discusses the requirements for comparing different traditions and ways of thinking, which is an important issue in many fields, including ethics, anthropology, religious studies and political science. The first part of the paper discusses the premises and implications of Alasdair MacIntyre’s argument against the “perspective challenge”, which questions and relativizes the truth of tradition-bound views. The second part provides a solution to this challenge, through a component analysis of the concept of a “point of view”. The major thesis of the paper is that although it may be impossible to change all constituent elements of a point of view in one undertaking, at least some of them are changeable incrementally either by using the available resources of one’s own tradition or by adopting elements from another. In the analysis given herein, the impossibility, or at least the difficulty, of switching the point of view between traditions generally results from the observer-r...

2016

the domain of Art critique and becoming a philosophical argument. How can we think of Perspective as symbolic Form? Is Perspective really a symbolic form? Why is Perspective so important? Because at the beginning of the Modern Age, Perspective as spiritual figure grounds many symbolic or even many scientific constructions. We could we say that perspective open the foundation of modern science as such. The “Geometrization” of Vision, beginning with perspective, will be for us the interpretative key in order to understand the Modern Age as a whole. This understanding will allow us to understand the anthropologic dimension arising from the Modern Age, called „Perspectivism“. Assuming that perspective was neither only an invention of painting nor of geometry nor of philosophy, taken as singular fields of human inquiry, we will try to sketch the genesis of “perspective” from an interdisciplinary point of view. By doing so, we will also try to fix its deep significance for the anthropolo...

Word & Image, 2021

Introduction for Getting Perspective, a special issue of Word & Image, 37:3 (2021)

en J.A. Nicolás et al (eds.) Leibniz and Hermeneutics, ed. Cambridge Scholar Publishing, Cambridge, 2016

2014

The notion of perspective has aroused the interest of an increasing number of researchers within linguistics. If we take a good look at the linguistic phenomena that are analysed with reference to perspective, it is possible to discern at least five different phenomena (Lindeman 1993: 7

This book began by arguing that ingress into virtual image spaces of the computer. which is now possible, is nor the revolutionary innovation its protagonists are fond of interpreting it co be. The idea of virtual reality only appears co be without a history; in fact, it rests firmly on historical art tradirions, which belong to a discontinuous movement of seeking illusionary image spaces. Although these were constrained by the specific media of the period and used co convey highly disparate contem:, the idea screeches back ac lease as far as classical antiquity and is alive again coday in the immersive visualization strategies of virtual reality art. I am certain that additional examples of the phenomena and problematic discussed here will have occurred co most readers, which obviously could not all be covered here. This makes it abundandy dear how strongly the phenomenon of immersive spaces of illusion is anchored in the history of art. Ir is surprising that until now so little attention has been paid to it.

Language Arts Journal of Michigan, 2009