Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
4
The Goethe tradition: the
phenomenological approach
4.1 Phenomenological analysis may reveal
underlying material processes
The almost complete lack of knowledge about colour processing in the
visual pathway is quite understandable. How could it be possible to
obtain such information without microelectrodes or other advanced
instruments at hand to monitor the processing?
An ingenious way out of this apparently insurmountable difficulty
was offered by Hering (
1878
). He held that there were actually
two
quite different routes to understanding the processes underlying colour
vision: a direct physiological approach and an indirect psychological
approach. The psychological approach was based on the presumption
that information about material processes underlying colour vision
may be obtained by analyzing the phenomenological characteristics
of colour sensations. Actually, Hering accepted the psychophysical
maxim of Mach (
1865
, p. 320) that made three basic assumptions:
1.
Every mental process is unalterably correlated with an underlying
material process.
2.
Similar and different mental processes are, respectively, correlated with
similar and different material processes.
3.
Every detail in the mental process corresponds to a detail in the material
process.
As may be seen, the maxim of Mach is a specification of
Spinoza's principle of psychophysical parallelism. It may also be
noted that the maxim is akin to Leibniz's presumption that there
is a pre-established conformity between mind and body (e.g. Boring,
1957
, pp. 165-168).
Presupposing Mach's maxim to be valid, it would be a straight-
forward undertaking to obtain information about material processes
