The Gaze in Ibn al-Haytham

Abstract

The article looks at the revolutionary shift of visual interpretation as it occurred in the works of one of the most prominent Arab scientists, Ibn al-Haytham. In his critique of the visual theories of Euclide and Ptolemy, Ibn al-Haytham developed a new conception of estimating distance. Distance is no longer calculated geometrically by the visual faculty, but by the interpretation of signs which are implicit in the visual field and of which an image is formed. This necessity to interpret signs gave Ibn al-Haytham's theory an intellectualist and distinct style and methodology.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Euclid . 1895. Optica. Opticorum recensio Theonis. Catoptrica cum scholiis antiquis (edited by J. Heiberg ), Lipsiae . French translation by P. Ver Eecke (1938), L'Optique et la Catoptrique, Brugge, reprinted 1959, Paris.

Ptolemy, Claudius . 1989. L'Optique de Claude Ptolémée dans la version latine d'aprés l'arabe de l'émir Eugène de Sicile, edited and translated by A. Lejeune , Leiden .

Ibn al-Haytham . 1989. Optics, books 1–3. Translated with a commentary by A.I. Sabra , London . 2 vols. Complete medieval Latin translation in F. Risner (ed.) (1572), Opticae Thesaurus, Alhazeni arabis Opticae libri 7, Basel. Edition of the Arabic text (books 1–3) by A.I. Sabra. 1983. Kuwait.

Rashed, R. (French translation and commentary). 1968. ‘ Le Discours de la lumière d'Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen). Traduction française critique ’, Revue d'Histoire des sciences, vol. 21: 197–224 .

Simon, Gérard . 1988. Le Regard, l'Etre et l'apparence dans l'Optique de l'Antiquité, Paris .

Simon, Gérard . 1992. ‘ L'Optique d'Ibn al-Haytham et la Tradition ptoléméenne ’, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, vol. 2 (2): 203–35 .

Simon, Gérard . 1997. ‘La Psychologie de la Vision chez Ptolémée et Ibn al-Haytham’, in A. Hasnaoui , A. Elamrani-Jamal and M. Aouad , (eds), Perspectives arabes et médiévales sur la Tradition scientifique et Philosophie grecque, Leuwen-Paris .

Simon, Gérard . 2001. ‘ Optique et perspective Ptolémée, Alhazen, Alberti ’, Revue d'Histoire des sciences, vol. 54 (3): 325–50 .

Simon, Gérard . 2003. ‘La Psychologie de la Vision chez Ibn al-Haytham’, in Gérard Simon , Archéologie de la Vision, l'Optique, le Corps, la Peinture, Paris : 114–30.