[xmca] In-sight from Out-side

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

Martin sent me an interesting book review about james gibson. Important
reading for those interested in the broad question of cultural-historical
approaches to human nature and german-russian-american connections in
particular, but the following statement really caught my attention:

image had to be richer than empiricists generally thought it to be.
Gibson nonetheless remained a Berkleian until after his aviation studies,
which appeared in 1947. Though Lombardo does not say so, this is eloquent
testimony to the power of Gibson's academic socialization. For him as for
others, especially in the United States, being a laboratory scientist meant
being an elementaristic empiricist. The impetus to rethinking came only
from work in a nonlaboratory setting. With automotive engineer Laurence
Crooks, Gibson had begun in 1938 to study the role of perception in
practical
problems, such as driving a car. This work and his aviation studies during
World War II impressed on Gibson the centrality of veridical perception,
and led eventually to his including the environment and its structures in
perceptual theory.

Sure enough coincides with my experience, and not only, I suspect.
mike
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