The Natural and the Normative: Theories of Spatial Perception from Kant to Helmholtz »

Gary Hatfield examines theories of spatial perception from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century and provides a detailed analysis of the works of Kant and Helmholtz, who adopted opposing stances on whether central questions about spatial perception were amenable to natural-scientific treatment.

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Examines theories of spatial perception from the 17th to the 19th centuries, focusing on the opposing views of Kant and Helmholtz on whether the subject could be investigated by the methods of natural science. The question has a bearing on the larger issues of how to approach a study of psychology and cognition. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Preface
1 Introduction
1 Mind and Space from Kant to Helmholtz
2 Historical Constitution of Philosophical and Psychological Approaches
3 The Natural and the Normative
4 Strategy and Organization
2 Mind, Perception, and Psychology from Descartes to Hume
1 Psychology, Naturalistic and Otherwise
2 Theories of Visual Perception
3 Mind, Perception, and Knowledge
3.1 Causal Chains and the Veil of Perception
3.2 Ideas as Objects of Perceptual Awareness
3.3 Intellectual Intuition
4 The Mind in Epistemology as Opposed to Psychology
3 Mind, Space, and Geometry in Kant: Transcendental and Naturalistic Conceptions of Though...
1 Kant and Psychology
2 German Psychology as Kant Wrote
3 Naturalistic Psychology and Transcendental Philosophy
4 Spatial Perception and Geometry
5 Transcendental and Empirical Psychology (Again)
6 Kant's Psychologies of Space and Vision
7 Conclusions
4 Spatial Realism and Idealism: Kant Read, Revised, and Rebuffed
1 Foundations of Transcendental Knowledge in Fries and Herbart
1.1 Fries: Transcendental Idealism and Psychology
1.2 Herbart: Metaphysics and Realism
2 The Physiology and Psychology of Spatial Realism
2.1 Steinbuch's New Theory of Vision
2.2 Tourtual's Transcendental and Empirical Physiology
2.3 Miiller's Physiological Subjectivism and Scientific Realism
3 Lotze: Philosophy and Psychology in Balance
5 Helmholtz: The Epistemology and Psychology of Spatial Perception
1 Helmholtz's Psychology of Spatial Perception
2 Helmholtz's Arguments against Nativism
2.1 Empirical Evidence
2.2 The Simplicity of Empirism
2.3 Nativism's Alleged Lack of Explanatory Power
3 TheTheory of Unconscious Inference
3.1 The Development of Helmholtz's Theory
3.2 The Psychology of Unconscious Inference
4 Epistemology of "Signs" and the Causal Law
5 Helmholtz and Kant on Geometry and Perception
6 The Limits of Natural Science
6 Summary
1 Modern Naturalistic Theories of Mind: Naturalism without Materialism
2 From Metaphysical to Methodological Normativity
3 Naturalistic and Normative Responses to Kant
7 Conclusions
1 A New Purchase on the History of Psychological Approaches to the Mind
2 The Natural and the Normative Now
Appendix A Nativism-Empirism and Rationalism-Empiricism
Appendix B Sensation and Perception: Epistemological and Psychological
Notes
References
Index