Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
underlying colour sensation, once an unbiased and comprehensive
phenomenological analysis of colour vision was worked out. By
following this lead, Hering (
1878
) obtained strong evidence of opponent
interactions between colour-related material processes and thereby
challenged the basic assumption of the Newton tradition that no
interaction between colour processes occurs in the visual pathway.
4.2 The colour theory of J. W. von Goethe
Goethe (
1810
) had made a strong case for the phenomenological
approach prior to Hering. Indeed, he had stressed the importance of a
phenomenological analysis in its own right.
Apparently strongly influenced by the three leading German
philosophers in the post-Kantian period, J. G. Fichte, F. W. J. von
Schelling and G. W. F. Hegel, Goethe presumed that colour was an
elementary phenomenon of nature that should be viewed in relation
to other analogous phenomena like magnetism and electricity
with the ultimate aim of uncovering the general laws of nature.
He insisted that colour sensations should not be reduced to physio-
logical processes, nor should they be represented by elementary,
independent, physical units as Newton had done, but be regarded as
phenomena
in dynamic interactions with each other.
In order to obtain an adequate understanding of the basic
processes governing colour appearance, he suggested that the whole
range of colour phenomena should be explored, not just the very
limited range investigated by Newton. He obtained an overview of
the great variety of colour phenomena by dividing them into three
different domains: colour phenomena primarily conditioned by (1)
the visual system (e.g. afterimages), (2) colourless media (e.g. colours
conditioned by prisms or clouds), and (3) properties of coloured objects
(e.g. colours of the human skin). By exploring colour phenomena in
these three domains closely, it would be possible, he believed, to reveal
their basic laws (Goethe,
1810
, Didaktischer Teil, pp. 21-294).
At the most fundamental level, Goethe presumed that light
and dark, or as he also expressed it, light and not light, were polar or
