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Project

From Truth to Ecology Reassessing the History of the Senses, 1250-1750

This project investigates the paradigm shift from truth to ecology that occurred in perception theories from 1250 to 1750 – in the period, namely, from the adoption of an Aristotelian curriculum by European universities to the Encyclopédie. In the course of the Early Modern age, I argue, the time-honoured Aristotelian claim that the senses provide insight into the real properties of bodies was replaced by a quite different understanding of sense-perception, as primarily aimed to secure and foster the perceivers’ survival and well-being. Doing away with the idea that the senses portray the world as it is, a growing number of early-modern thinkers tried to explain how the world of physics is adjusted and distorted in sense-perception so as to present perceivers belonging to different species with different habitats, according to their different vital needs. The project investigates the manifold and competing reasons behind this shift in the understanding of sense-perception, locating its sources in late Scholastic commentators and novatores, in the newly-rediscovered ancient sceptical arguments and in Descartes’ philosophy. The projects further investigates the resistance this shift of the senses from truth to ecology encountered, and the reasons for its final success and diffusion well beyond philosophical circles, as well as its far-reaching epistemological, metaphysical and even theological implications. 
 

Date:1 Nov 2021 →  Today
Keywords:medieval and early modern philosophy, history of perception, Ecological accounts of sense-perception, Perception in human and non-human animals
Disciplines:History of philosophy, Historical theory and methodology not elsewhere classified, Philosophy not elsewhere classified, Medieval history, Early modern history