Today, knowledge on ideal text legibility and high-quality typefaces support fast reading and are accessible to almost everybody who uses a computer. Instead of accelerating the reading process, the kind of typography discussed in this article invites the observer to play in order to catch attention and go beyond the sheer process of reading. Text, which tricks our perception, is observed more intensely than usual ones. Roman Terpitz’ exhibition poster (Figure 1) and the typeface Wirefox (Figure 2) demonstrate how this (...) works in static images. Currently, there is quick growth of still and moving images. Flickering screens catch attention while their content is exchangeable anytime. Hand-held devices like smart phones, touch pads or large, facade-covering LED billboards allow text to be convertible over time. The experiment Dancing type (Figure 3) shows how animated characters can change between text and texture. Words reveal out of a graphical structure and immediately dissolve afterwards. This claims the observer’s attention. This article will introduce and analyse a typography that leads to questions like where it could be used beyond advertising, which applications make sense, if it could improve communication qualities of certain texts and how it can add benefits to current screen technologies. (shrink)

As Edward Hundert--a philosopher, psychiatrist, and award-winning educator--makes clear in this eloquent interdisciplinary work, the newly emerging model for ...

Nineteenth-century optical toys that showcase illusions of motion such as the phenakistoscope, zoetrope, and praxinoscope, have enjoyed active “afterlives” in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Contemporary incarnations of the zoetrope are frequently found in the realms of fine art and advertising, and they are often much larger than their nineteenth-century counterparts. This article argues that modern-day optical toys are able to conjure feelings of wonder and spectacle equivalent to their nineteenth-century antecedents because of their adjustment in scale. (...) Exploring a range of contemporary philosophical toys found in arts, entertainment, and advertising contexts, the article discusses various technical adjustments made to successfully “scale up” optical toys, including the replacement of hand-spun mechanisms with larger sources of motion and the use of various means such as architectural features and stroboscopic lights to replace traditional shutter mechanisms such as the zoetrope’s dark slots. Critical consideration of scale as a central feature of these installations reconfigures the relationship between audience and device. Large-scale adaptations of optical toys revise the traditional conception of the user, who is able to tactilely manipulate and interact with the apparatus, instead positing a viewer who has less control over the illusion’s operation and is instead a captive audience surrounded by the animation. It is primarily through their adaptation of scale that contemporary zoetropes successfully elicit wonder as scientific spectacles from their audiences today. (shrink)

"Fascinating and insightful.... I cannot recall a book that has made me think more about the nature of thinking." -- Richard C. Lewontin Harvard University Everyone knows that optical illusions trick us because of the way we see. Now scientists have discovered that cognitive illusions, a set of biases deeply embedded in the human mind, can actually distort the way we think. In Inevitable Illusions, distinguished cognitive researcher Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini takes us on a provocative, challenging, and (...) thoroughly entertaining exploration of the games our minds play. He opens the doors onto the newly charted realm of the cognitive unconscious to reveal the full range of illusions, showing how they inhibit our ability to reason--no matter what our educational background or IQ. Inevitable Illusions is stimulating, eye-opening food for thought. (shrink)

Brentano’s philosophy of perception has often been understood as a special chapter of his theory of intentionality. If all and only mental phenomena are constitutively intentional, and if perceptual experience is mental by definition, then all perceptual experiences are intentional experiences. I refer to this conception as the “standard view” of Brentano’s account of perception. Different options are available to support the standard view: a sense-data theory of perception; an adverbialist account; representationalism. I argue that none of them are real (...) options for the standard view. I suggest that Brentano’s conception of optical illusions introduces a presupposition that not only challenges the standard view - the distinction between the subjectively and objectively given - but that also makes his account more palatable for a naive understanding of perception as openness to and awareness of the world. (shrink)

Tibetan Buddhist writings frequently state that many of the things we perceive in the world are in fact illusory, as illusory as echoes or mirages. In Twelve Examples of Illusion , Jan Westerhoff offers an engaging look at a dozen illusions--including magic tricks, dreams, rainbows, and reflections in a mirror--showing how these phenomena can give us insight into reality. For instance, he offers a fascinating discussion of optical illusions, such as the wheel of fire (the "wheel" seen (...) when a torch is swung rapidly in a circle), discussing Tibetan explanations of this phenomenon as well as the findings of modern psychology, and significantly clarifying the idea that most phenomena--from chairs to trees--are similar illusions. The book uses a variety of crystal-clear examples drawn from a wide variety of fields, including contemporary philosophy and cognitive science, as well as the history of science, optics, artificial intelligence, geometry, economics, and literary theory. Throughout, Westerhoff makes both Buddhist philosophical ideas and the latest theories of mind and brain come alive for the general reader. -/- "This delightful book offers a rich and satisfying philosophical feast to anyone interested in the phenomenon of illusion itself or in the Buddhist analysis of the human condition. Westerhoff draws together classical Buddhist scholarship, contemporary cognitive science and his own judicious philosophical reflection in a serious but refreshingly accessible engagement with the Buddhist tradition in the exploration of the role of illusion in our cognitive and emotional lives." Jay L. Garfield, author of Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika -/- "Jan Westerhoff creatively juxtaposes an important Buddhist study of illusion with fascinating modern researches on illusory experiences, using the latter to illuminate the former. The result is a revealing account of the pervasiveness of illusion in our cognitive experience and the very structure of our cognitive apparatus. It brings to life the Buddhist discussion of illusion, making it relevant to our everyday experience instead of being high-minded intellectual exercises only." -/- Tao Jiang, author of Contexts and Dialogue: Yogacara Buddhism and Modern Psychology on the Subliminal Mind -/- "The twelve similes for the illusory nature of this world are very profound, and Westerhoff does them wonderful justice in this excellent book." -/- Robert Thurman, Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Buddhist Studies, Columbia University. (shrink)

The somewhat deflating conclusion of Simon A. Gilson's meticulous examination of Dante's incorporation of the science of optics and theories of light is that the poet was considerably less well read than we have been giving him credit for.Gilson's book is divided into two parts: the first, dealing with the science of optics, contains four chapters; the second, dealing with theories of light, contains three. Each of these parts is devoted to debunking a tendency in Dante scholarship to attribute to (...) a particular scientific or philosophical movement a marked influence on his work. In the first part Gilson maintains that Dante's use of the science of optics does not—as others, most forcefully and influentially Alessandro Parronchi, have argued—rely specifically on knowledge of the authors of the perspectivae—detailed treatises on optics that placed the influence of light rays at the origin of terrestrial phenomena—that is, on such thinkers as Alhazen, Roger Bacon, and Robert Grosseteste. Rather, Gilson contends that Dante could easily have come by the requisite expertise concerning this science through contact with the more popular and widely known doctrines of such Arab interpreters of Aristotle as Avicenna and Averroës and the commentaries of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. He demonstrates the plausibility of this contention by way of a comparative analysis of the doctrines of the perspectivists and the Arab interpreters. This analysis is followed by a chapter devoted to optics and vision in Dante's earlier poetry.The two following chapters cover, respectively, topics such as blinding, optical illusions, and visual error in Dante's Commedia and the themes of reflection, mirrors, and meteorological optics, also in the Commedia, a work that Gilson specifies as having nevertheless gone beyond the more limited sources of the earlier poetry. In the third chapter Gilson's analysis achieves a welcome degree of insight into the poet's originality: here Gilson shows how Dante incorporates the scientific knowledge of his day in order to establish a set of limits that circumscribe human action in the physical world but that must be overcome in the course of the pilgrim's journey through his imaginative world. Such moments provide a refreshing alternative to an otherwise rather positivistic view of scientific knowledge as a compendium of facts and sources one either has or has not read. One cannot help but think that researchers in the field of the history of science might be most interested in the imaginative contributions of a specifically poetic knowledge, especially in an age in which the distinction between “hard” and “soft” science was not accorded the kind of unquestioned respect it currently receives.In the second part Gilson, continuing his debunking analysis, argues that the scholarship on Dante and his use of theories of light has remained captivated by the notion of “the metaphysics of light.” This term, Gilson claims, has been used to unify and oversimplify a rather diverse group of doctrines concerning the nature of light and its relation to knowledge, vision, God, and being. Against the grain of the traditional critical trend, Gilson maintains that Dante's thought has nothing in common with the proper metaphysics of light of a Grosseteste—who identifies light as the primary element of being—and that Dante would have had relatively little contact with Neoplatonic theories of emanation. Again, according to Gilson, in applying the imagery of light to his poetic themes, Dante would have had readily available models in the popular theological light imagery of his time; his use of light in the description of the Empyrean is, Gilson states, perhaps the best example of Dante's relative independence from any limited set of sources.Whether Gilson's informative examination of Dante's relative dependence on sources should be understood as liberating the poet from the anxiety of scientific influence remains, however, an open question. Whatever the extent or depth of any enumeration of those sources, it is the moment of creation that astonishes. (shrink)

I am troubled by the temper of E. H. Gombrich’s response, “Representation and Misrepresentation” , to my “Ambiguities of Representation and Illusion: An E. H. Gombrich Retrospective” and by his preferring not to sense the profound admiration—indeed, the homage—intended by my essay, both for his contributions to recent theory and for their influence upon its recent developments. But I am more troubled by the confusions his remarks may cause in the interpretation of his own work as well as in the (...) judgment of mine. There are important issues at stake, I feel, especially as regards the relation between scientific and aesthetic inquiry.The very irritated tone of his reaction helps make what I see as my major point: his work has contained a conflict between two Gombrichs—one, the skeptical humanist and, the other, the positive scientist—and with the passing years the second has increasingly sought to obliterate signs of the first, becoming increasingly impatient with any attempt to revive those signs or remind us of their existence. On the other side, since the line of literary criticism with which I associate myself has drawn strength from the first Gombrich, this development in his work and in his attitudes has caused some disappointment. Murray Krieger is University Professor of English at the University of California. He is the author of many works, including The Tragic Vision, The Classic Vision, Theory of Criticism: A Tradition and its System, Poetic Presence and Illusion: Essays in Critical History and Theory, and Arts on the Level. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry are “Fiction, History, and Empirical Reality” , “Poetic Presence and Illusion: Renaissance Theory and the Duplicity of Metaphor” , and “The Ambiguities of Representation and Illusion: An E. H. Gombrich Retrospective”. (shrink)

This article compares investigations of the process of vision that were made in early nineteenth-century Britain and the German lands. It is argued that vision studies differed significantly east and west of the North Sea. Most of the German investigators had a medical background and many of them had a firm grasp of contemporary philosophy. In contrast, the British studies on vision emerged from the context of optics. This difference manifested itself in the conceptual tools for the analysis of vision, (...) deception and illusion and shaped the experiments on visual phenomena that were carried out. Nevertheless, both in Britain and in the German lands vision studies were driven by the same impetus, by epistemological concerns with the nature and reliability of knowledge acquisition in experience. The general epistemological conclusions drawn from researches on vision and deception were optimistic. Precisely because mechanisms of deception and illusion could be uncovered, the possibility of acquiring empirical knowledge could be secured. (shrink)

The year 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of one of the most revolutionary scientific texts ever written. In this book, appropriately entitled, Astronomia nova, Johannes Kepler developed an astronomical theory which departs fundamentally from the systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus. One of the great innovations of this theory is its dependence on the science of optics. The declared goal of Kepler in his earlier publication, Paralipomena to Witelo whereby The Optical Part of Astronomy is Treated , (...) was to solve difficulties and expose illusions astronomers face when conducting astronomical observations with optical instruments. To avoid observational errors that had plagued the antiquated measuring techniques for calculating the apparent diameter and angular position of the luminaries, Kepler designed a novel device: the ecliptic instrument. In this paper we seek to shed light on the role optical instruments play in Kepler's scheme: they impose constraints on theory, but at the same time render astronomical knowledge secure. To get a comprehensive grasp of Kepler's astonishing achievements it is required to widen the approach to his writings and study Kepler not only as a mathematico-physical astronomer, but also as a designer of instruments and a practicing observer. (shrink)

The year 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of one of the most revolutionary scientific texts ever written. In this book, appropriately entitled, Astronomia nova, Johannes Kepler developed an astronomical theory which departs fundamentally from the systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus. One of the great innovations of this theory is its dependence on the science of optics. The declared goal of Kepler in his earlier publication, Paralipomena to Witelo whereby The Optical Part of Astronomy is Treated, was (...) to solve difficulties and expose illusions astronomers face when conducting astronomical observations with optical instruments. To avoid observational errors that had plagued the antiquated measuring techniques for calculating the apparent diameter and angular position of the luminaries, Kepler designed a novel device: the ecliptic instrument. In this paper we seek to shed light on the role optical instruments play in Kepler's scheme: they impose constraints on theory, but at the same time render astronomical knowledge secure. To get a comprehensive grasp of Kepler's astonishing achievements it is required to widen the approach to his writings and study Kepler not only as a mathematico-physical astronomer, but also as a designer of instruments and a practicing observer. (shrink)

Just as one line appears to be longer than another in an optical illusion, we can have a spontaneous moral judgment that one individual is more important than another. Sometimes such judgments can lead to moral illusions like speciesism and other kinds of discrimination. Moral illusions are persistent spontaneous judgments that violate our deepest moral values and distract us away from a rational, authentic ethic. They generate pseudo-ethics, similar to pseudoscience. The antidote against moral illusions is (...) the ethical principle to avoid unwanted arbitrariness. Speciesism involves unwanted arbitrariness, and psychological research as well as the problem of wild animal suffering demonstrate that moral illusions such as speciesism can be very persistent. (shrink)

The Pegram Lectures at Brookhaven National Laboratory are designed to provide a forum to consider the question of the interaction among science, the humanities, and society at large. Just before Maurois was to deliver these lectures in 1967 he became fatally ill. However, the manuscript had been prepared and was delivered by Jacques Barzun. These lectures along with prefatory remarks by Barzun and E. Morot-Sir of the French Embassy comprise Illusions. There are three lectures by Maurois. The first begins (...) by cataloguing various everyday illusions, mostly optical. It discusses dreams, the difference between illusion and hallucination, the role of interpretation of reality in the creation of illusion, and the distinction between who we are as opposed to whom we play. In short it reminds us that, for various reasons, we do not see the world as it is. The second lecture shows how science tries to correct our distorted pictures of reality. Science is largely successful in this effort, says Maurois, although inasmuch as men need to interpret what science discovers, the door is still open for illusion. Moreover, inasmuch as scientists are men, science is not above producing some illusions of its own. The third and perhaps the most contrived lecture explores the world of willful illusions: the fine arts. Here Maurois suggests some differences and similarities between art and science, and explores the technological interaction between the two. He concludes that illusion will always be with us and that in fact it is "the stuff of which our life is made."-S. O. H. (shrink)

The much larger appearance of the moon near horizon than the perceived size of the moon at zenith has motivated many scientists to develop theories that aim at explaining this puzzling phenomenon. Considering that the size of retinal images of the moon in these positions are very similar, the explanation of difference in their apparent sizes has relied on perceptual cues of distance embedded in the retinal image of their respective contexts. Although this account of the moon illusion is quite (...) popular, it does not explain all aspects of this phenomenon. The theoretical formulation of the moon illusion based on other factors such as size contrast later may have had some advantages but has also created some new problems. Although the moon is perceived in a three-dimensional (3D) environment, the present analysis proposes that an explanation of the moon illusion based on two-dimensional (2D) cues can remove some of the unnecessary problems. The empty space and size contrast that have already been considered in explaining classic geometric-optical illusions play a parallel role in explaining the moon illusion. In other words, the role of open space in interaction with the image of the moon and different objects near horizon, all reflected on the retina, are considered as the main explaining factors. The advantages of this approach will be discussed and some of the facts pertaining to the moon illusion will be explained within this theoretical framework. (shrink)

This paper questions two prima facie plausible claims concerning switching in the presence of ambiguous figures. The first is the claim that reversing is an instantaneous process. The second is the claim that the ability to reverse demonstrates the interpretive, inferential and constructive nature of visual processing. Empirical studies show that optical and cerebral events related to switching protract in time in a way that clashes with its perceived instantaneity. The studies further suggest an alternative theory of reversing: according (...) to such alternative, seeing the same thing in multiple ways is a matter of uncovering what is already present to the senses through visual search. (shrink)

Lambert développe une conception originale de l’apparence, qui se distingue de la conception classique (Descartes) par le fait que la logique de l’apparence n’est pas déduite de la logique de la vérité, mais est restituée dans son ordre propre : la phénoménologie n’est pas l’alethiologie. L’apparence n’est pas illusion – sur ce point Lambert s’accorde avec les philosophes – mais elle n’est pas non plus réductible à l’ordre du savoir, bien que la connaissance de l’apparence soit une condition de la (...) connaissance elle-même. Pour dégager le langage de l’apparence, et comprendre sa sémiologie, Lambert médite sur l’optique, qui permet de définir un sujet qui ne soit ni pure subjectivité ni constitutif de l’objectivité. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World: Optics, Theology, and Religious LifeA. Mark SmithDallas G. Denery, II. Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World: Optics, Theology, and Religious Life. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought (Fourth Series), 63. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. x + 202. Cloth, $75.00.Among the metaphors we live by (to borrow from Lakoff and Johnson), visual metaphors (...) figure prominently in our common discourse about cognition. We are well aware, of course, that in claiming to "see" meanings or "view" ideas in certain lights, we are speaking figuratively. Yet the analogy between thinking and seeing is more than a linguistic artifact. Until the seventeenth century, Western thinkers took it seriously, none more seriously perhaps than the thirteenth-century scholastic community. The upshot was an epistemology based on two cardinal assumptions: first, that the physical world manifests itself to us through species passing from external objects into the soul, and second, that visual perception is providentially designed to yield a faithful conceptual picture of physical reality and its ordering structure.This latter assumption found strong support in Perspectivist optics, which took mature form in the 1260s as an amalgam of Alhacenian visual analysis and species-theory. Hence, by the later thirteenth century it was widely believed not only that vision is essentially cognitive but also that cognition is essentially visual. During the first half of the fourteenth century, this idea was subjected to trenchant criticism and thereby rejected out of hand by several thinkers, among whom Nicolaus of Autrecourt is a particular subject of emphasis in this study.It has become something of a truism lately that theories are neither accepted nor rejected on logical grounds alone. This one, Denery claims, is no exception since there were compelling theological grounds for its adoption. Foremost among these was a new emphasis on self-presentation in the thirteenth century. That emphasis manifested itself at two levels. On the one hand, the clerical orders were encouraged to give the right appearance and to suit the appearance to specific settings. This was especially important among the new preaching orders, whose members had to put on so many public faces that they came to adopt what Denery calls "heuristics of adaptation." On the other hand, new modes of confession and penance required deep introspection on the penitent's part, so that he might "see" himself for the complex of sinful motives and actions he is, as well as experience the contrition-yielding horror such a sight arouses. In both cases, the appearances should reveal the underlying reality: the preacher's spiritual commitment reflected in his mien, the penitent's contrition in the recognition of his vitiated nature.But how can we be sure that what we see in these instances is true? This question is particularly vexing in the case of religious introspection, for, as St. Paul reminds us, our moral vision is distorted by the mirror that darkens it. Enter the analogy between physical vision and cognition. Visual illusions, such as those arising from reflection, were of paramount concern to Perspectivist theorists, who devoted considerable effort to rationalizing them according to unmet normative conditions, such as adequate illumination, appropriate distance, or a healthy eye. Reflected vision is subject to transgressions of these conditions, but adding insult to their injury is that, when seen in mirrors, objects invariably appear displaced and often look distorted in size, shape, and orientation. Fortunately, reason enables us to rectify such illusions according to specific rules that govern visual perception in general and reflection in particular.If the analogy between physical and moral vision holds true, then reason ought to be the corrective in both cases. At first blush, this seems to be Peter of Limoges's position in the Tractatus moralis de oculo (c. 1280), but, as Denery insists, Peter's real point is that our inner, moral vision is so clouded we can rarely tell either how or even that it is distorted. The hoped-for normative circumstances and principles enabling us to rectify it are far too vague and protean to yield certainty from introspection. Given the tight conceptual linkage between... (shrink)

In the part of the first Critique known as “The Paralogisms of Pure Reason” Kant seeks to explain how even the most acute metaphysicians could have arrived, through speculation, at the ruefully dogmatic conclusion that the self (understood as the subject of thoughts or "thinking I") is a substance. His diagnosis has two components: first, the positing of the phenomenon of “Transcendental Illusion”—an illusion, modelled on but distinct from, optical illusion--that predisposes human beings to accept as sound--and as known (...) to sound--certain in fact flawed arguments for substantive theses about the nature of the self; second, the identification of the fallacy we commit when we succumb to this illusion. It is explained how these two elements combine to produce a central instance of (what Kant sees as) dogmatic speculative metaphysics, namely, the doctrine that the self is a substance in the sense of a necessarily non-inhering subject of inherence. It is argued that Kant has a novel, ingenious, and even somewhat plausible account of the route by which the rational psychologist arrives--or might arrive--at this view, an account that involves identifying a rather deep-rooted confusion about the very nature of conceivability. (shrink)

In past and modern psychophysics there are several unresolved methodological and philosophical problems of human and animal perception, including the outstanding question of the relational basis of whole psychophysics. Here the main issue is discussed: if, and to what extent, there are viable bridges between the traditional “gestalt” oriented approaches and the modern perceptual-cognitive perspectives in psychophysics. Thereby the key concept of psychological “frame of reference” is presented by pointing to Hermann Ebbinghaus' geometric-optical illusions, on the one hand, (...) and Max Wertheimer's treatment of the traditional transposition phenomenon, on the other hand. A much-needed theoretical reorientation of future research may help to overcome the philosophical narrowness of present-day human and comparative psychophysics. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists often assume that mirror reflections are optical illusions. According to many authors, what we see in a mirror appears to be behind it. I discuss two strategies to resist this piece of dogma. As I will show, the conviction that mirror reflections are illusions is rooted in a confused conception of the relations between location, direction, and visibility. This conception is unacceptable to those who take seriously the way in which mirrors contribute to our (...) experience of the world. My argument may be read as an advertisement of the neglected field of philosophical catoptrics, the philosophical study of the optical properties of mirrors. It enables us to recast familiar issues in the philosophy of perception. (shrink)