ABSTRACT
The relationship between the subject and the object which characterises modern conceptions of knowledge is often identified with visual perception. Early modern philosophy was much preoccupied with optics (see Figure 8.2), while the telescope and the microscope were of fundamental significance to the scientific revolution ( Jardine 1999: 95). As human beings came to be understood as autonomous individuals, their relationship with the world was increasingly expressed in terms of vision. Seeing was prioritised over the other senses, as sight came to be regarded as the principal means by which knowledge was acquired by the mind. Vision presented itself as a paradigm of cognition, for the mind was understood as re-presenting in visual form the entities encountered in the external world. The ‘mind’s eye’ reflected the appearances of physical things ( Jay 1986: 176). In Cartesian terms, sight is fundamental to human identity, for the subject is the bearer of the gaze while we conceive of other persons principally as visual objects (de Bolla 1996: 68). Moreover, privileging vision supported Descartes’ view of the world as a series of planes and surfaces, which could be consumed from a distance. That these shapes can be apprehended by the mind has come to be seen as a consequence of intensities of light that intersect with and are reflected by objects (Barceló 2000: 21). Consequentially, realism in representation has come to be widely associated with the ways in which light falls upon geometric figures. Reality is thus connected with the outward appearance of things.
