Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
'Goethe tradition') that started with Goethe, who believed that the
phenomenological analysis of colour sensation in its own right would
reveal the basic laws of colour vision (see Goethe,
1810
). A great
step forward within this tradition was taken when Hering pointed
out that the phenomenological character of colour vision may also
provide information with regard to the material processes underlying
the phenomenological experiences. Indeed, on the basis of his
phenomenological analysis of colour vision, Hering - in opposition
to Newton, Helmholtz and Schultze - could conclude that the basic
physiological colour-related processes had to
interact
and
oppose
each other somewhere in the visual pathway (see Hering,
1878
).
Surprisingly, von Kries made no serious attempt to integrate
the evidence provided by this third tradition into his theory. Thus,
it was left to G. E. Müller (
1896
,
1897
,
1923
,
1930
), who was deeply
rooted in the Goethe tradition, to develop a duplicity theory that
incorporated the evidence procured within all these three major
research traditions.
Hence, the theory of G. E. Müller may be seen to represent the
end of the first phase of the development of the duplicity theory. In
order to review this first phase, we will describe the contribution of
each of the three different research traditions and we start with the
Newton tradition.
