A Study Of Berkeley’s Visual Principle Via A New Theory Of Vision

Since ancient Greece, to see the world by vision has always been regarded as a wayto pursue truth and obtain knowledge. The “idea” raised by Plato originally meansperception and realization, which involves vision, thereby the western philosophy cluingconcept and logic actually implies a clue of ocularcentrism. Ocularcentrism involvesinner consciousness–mental vision, as well as outer visual things. In this mainstream,Berkeley representing empirism naturally insists on his stand–to see the world viaperception. The most prominent problem of sense is vision. When his book, A NewTheory of Vision, first made its debut, it discussed the problem of vision; therefore itpaved the way for the epistemology.The80-thousand-word book, A New Theory of Vision, puts forward two basictheories of distance. First, the distance itself is indiscernible. Second, it is not the resultof vision but experience. These two theories run through the whole book, and all thecontents are based on them. Next, Berkeley discusses such important aspects oftraditional visual theory as distance, magnitude and location. What makes his pointsspecial is that they are sensible objects rather than visual objects. The visual ideacomposed of light and color is merely a mark, but what we really know is the sensibleconcepts that are marked. Thin and simple as the book is, it is logical thoroughly.After digesting the book, this thesis studies the theoretical background of Berkeley’sphilosophy. Then it analyzes and explores the distance, magnitude and location and therelevant problems according to Berkeley’s way of thinking. This thesis attempts toclarify the true principle of vision and seek its value so as to understand Berkeley’sphilosophy of epistemology more accurately.