✦ LIBER ✦
The physiological and psychological grounds of Ptolemy's visual theory: Some methodological considerations
✍ Scribed by A. Mark Smith
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 130 KB
- Volume
- 34
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-5061
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Until fairly recently, Ptolemy's Optics has been regarded as an exercise in what would today be called physical optics, its focus purportedly upon ray-geometry. In terms of methodology, therefore, the Optics has generally been regarded as a model of applied mathematics. The purpose of this essay is to show that this textbook interpretation is not only excessively restrictive but fundamentally misguided. As will become clear in the course of this essay, in fact, Ptolemy's primary goal in the Optics was to frame a comprehensive and coherent account of visual perception, not to explain the physics of radiation.