Theories of Seeing. An Introduction

This German Book “Theories of Seeing: An Introduction” (Theorien des Sehens zur Einführung) has been written together with Eva Schürman (under contract with Junius for 2024). In preparing the book, we felt the need to avoid theoretical myopics of disciplines and schools and to show how vision can be fruitfully addressed from multiple perspectives, each constituting a theory in its own right.

We start by addressing the relation of vision to mind and vision to world (cap. 1 and 2). We then walk the reader through some theories of vision that have been part of the cognitive revolution in the cognitive neurosciences before presenting phenomenology and pragmatism as well as 4E (embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive) theories of cognition as an alternative to any largely information-processing paradigm of perception (cap. 3 and 4). Overall, we will give special emphasis to what we call “impure seeing.” This will build on theories that show how vision is social and has ethical implication (cap. 5). Central for both of us are theories that highlight in what ways seeing can have a history and relies on culture as well on different media (cap. 6 and 7). We end by highlighting the aesthetic, affective nature of vision (cap 8.)