Open AccessHelmholtz on Perceptual Properties
Author(s) -
R. Brian Tracz
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the journal for the history of analytical philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2159-0303
DOI - 10.15173/jhap.v6i3.3433
Subject(s) - helmholtz free energy , ignorance , perception , subjectivism , subject (documents) , epistemology , object (grammar) , psychology , direct and indirect realism , philosophy , cognitive psychology , computer science , linguistics , physics , quantum mechanics , library science
Hermann von Helmholtz’s work on perceptual science had a fundamental impact on Neo-Kantian movements in the late nineteenth century, and his influence continues to be felt in psychology and analytic philosophy of perception. As is widely acknowledged, Helmholtz denied that we can perceive mind-independent properties of external objects, a view I label Ignorance. Given his commitment to Ignorance, Helmholtz might seem to be committed to a subjectivism according to which we only perceive properties of our own representations. Against this, I argue that for Helmholtz, the properties we perceive are not monadic properties of either the subject or the object. Rather, Helmholtz endorsed a relationalism about the properties we perceive: the properties of objects we perceive are all relational properties. I then suggest that once we take into account oft-neglected terminological distinctions in Helmholtz’s corpus, we are better able to make sense of his commitment to relationalism.