Theories of Vision from Al-kindi to Kepler / Edition 1

by David C. Lindberg

Overview

Kepler's successful solution to the problem of vision early in the seventeenth century was a theoretical triumph as significant as many of the more celebrated developments of the scientific revolution. Yet the full import of Kepler's arguments can be grasped only when they are viewed against the background of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance visual theory. David C. Lindberg provides this background, and in doing so he fills the gap in historical scholarship and constructs a model for tracing the development of scientific ideas.

David C. Lindberg is professor and chairman of the department of the history of science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226482354
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	04/22/1996
Series:	Chicago History of Science and Medicine
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	331
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

David C. Lindberg is Hilldale Professor of History of Science at the University of Wisconsin and past-president of the History of Science Society. His other books include The Beginnings of Western Science, published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

Preface
1: The Background: Ancient Theories of Vision
2: Al Kindi's Critique of Euclid's Theory of Vision
3: Galenists and Aristotelians in Islam
4: Alhazen and the New Intromission Theory of Vision
5: The Origins of Optics in the West
6: The Optical Synthesis of the Thirteenth Century
7: Visual Theory in the Later Middle Ages
8: Artists and Anatomists of the Renaissance
9: Johannes Kepler and the Theory of the Retinal Image
Appendix: The Translation of Optical Works from Greek and Arabic into Latin
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index