Reconsidering Reid's Geometry of Visibles
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3117686 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gideon Yaffe (0000-0002-9385-3912, University of Southern California, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 209 |
| Pages | 602-620 |
| Publication date | 2002-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9213.00288 |
| OpenAlex | W1975907768 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 2 |
In his ‘Inquiry’, Reid claims, against Berkeley, that there is a science of the perspectival shapes of objects (‘visible figures’): they are geometrically equivalent to shapes projected onto the surfaces of spheres. This claim should be understood as asserting that for every theorem regarding visible figures there is a corresponding theorem regarding spherical projections; the proof of the theorem regarding spherical projections can be used to construct a proof of the theorem regarding visible figures, and vice versa. I reconstruct Reid's argument for this claim, and expose its mathematical underpinnings: it is successful, and depends on no empirical assumptions to which he was not entitled about the workings of the human eye. I also argue that, although Reid may or may not have been aware of it, the geometry of spherical projections is not the only geometry of visible figure
Argument (complex analysis) · Construct (python library) · Geometry · Physics · SPHERES · Spherical geometry · Computer Science · Historical Philosophy and Science · Mathematics
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,17 |
| Citation span | 2003 - 2016 (14) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |