Who Placed the Eye in the Center of a Sphere? Speculations about the Origins of Thomas Reid's Geometry of Visibles

Journal of Scottish Philosophy 14 (3):231-251 (2016)
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Abstract

Thomas Reid argued that the geometrical properties of visible figures equal the geometrical properties of their projections on the inside of a sphere centred around the eye. In recent scholarship there are only a few suggestions of which sources might have inspired Reid. I point to a widely ignored body of early eighteenth-century literature – introductions into projective geometry, the use of celestial globes and astronomy – in which the model of the eye in the centre of a sphere was immensely popular. Moreover, I argue that Reid's account results naturally from some astronomical doctrines in conjunction with George Berkeley's theory of vision.

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Hannes Matthiessen
Humboldt University, Berlin

Citations of this work

A Reiding of Berkeley's Theory of Vision.Hannes Ole Matthiessen - 2022 - Journal of Scottish Philosophy 20 (1):19-40.

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References found in this work

An Inquiry Into the Human Mind, on the Principles of Common Sense.Thomas Reid - 1997 - Cambridge University Press. Edited by Elizabeth Schmidt Radcliffe, Richard McCarty, Fritz Allhoff & Anand Vaidya.
Thomas Reid’s Geometry of Visibles.James Van Cleve - 2002 - Philosophical Review 111 (3):373-416.
Reconsidering Reid's geometry of visibles.Gideon Yaffe - 2002 - Philosophical Quarterly 52 (209):602-620.
Thomas Reid’s geometry of visibles and the parallel postulate.Giovanni B. Grandi - 2005 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 36 (1):79-103.

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