Contents
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1. Plotinus’s Theory of Visual Perception 1. Plotinus’s Theory of Visual Perception
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2. The Later De Anima commentators 2. The Later De Anima commentators
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3. Saint Augustine’s Psychological Model: the Inward Ascent 3. Saint Augustine’s Psychological Model: the Inward Ascent
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4. The Arabic Transition: The De Anima Tradition 4. The Arabic Transition: The De Anima Tradition
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5. The Arabic Transition: Geometrical Optics 5. The Arabic Transition: Geometrical Optics
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6. Conclusion 6. Conclusion
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4 Greco-Roman and Early Arabic Developments
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Published:December 2014
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Abstract
This chapter examines the post-Ptolemaic tradition of visual theory within the Late Platonist, or Neoplatonic, tradition between roughly 250 and 550. Marked by an effort to reconcile Platonic and Aristotelian thought on a variety of subjects, including perception and cognition, this tradition gave rise to a model of cognition that appealed strongly to eternal Forms, representative mental images, and intellectual illumination, which rendered those images cognitively “visible.” After looking at how this model evolved and how it affected the thought of St. Augustine, the chapter traces its influence on certain Arabic thinkers, such as al-Kindī, Ḥunayn ibn ʾIsḥāq, and al-Fārābī. Among these thinkers, Avicenna assumes pre-eminence for his faculty psychology based on the five internal senses in the brain. The chapter concludes with an examination of the ninth- and tenth-century revival of classical geometrical optics at the hands of al-Kindī, Aḥmad ibn ʿĪsā, and Qusṭā ibn Lūqā.
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