Optics of Thought: Logic and Vision in Müller, Helmholtz, and Frege
D. C. McCarty
Source: Notre Dame J. Formal Logic Volume 41, Number 4
(2000), 365-378.
Abstract
The historical antecedents of Frege's treatment of binocular vision in "The thought" were the physiological writings of Johannes Mueller, Hermann von Helmholtz, and Emil du Bois-Reymond. In their research on human vision, logic was assigned an unexpected role: it was to be the means by which knowledge of a world extended in three dimensions arises from stimuli that are at best two-dimensional. An examination of this literature yields a richer understanding of Frege's insistence that a proper epistemology requires us to recognize the existence and importance of nonsensible sources of knowledge.
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Permanent link to this document: http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.ndjfl/1038336881
Digital Object Identifier: doi:10.1305/ndjfl/1038336881
Zentralblatt MATH identifier: 1032.01017
Mathematical Reviews number (MathSciNet): MR1963487
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