1998: Helen Ross: ‘Review in Perception 27 1259-1261 (1998): «This is an unusual book, both for its content and its beautiful production. The feel of the paper and the sight of the typescript, majuscules, illustrations, and silk ribbon bookmarks make one want to pick it up and look at it. It is not, however, an easy read. The style is tortuous, and about half of each page consists of detailed notes in small print. It is the doctoral thesis of Loek Schönbeck, a classical scholar with degrees in physics and philosophy. It is a lengthy book that took many years to write, and covers many topics. Its value to psychologists lies in its exploration of a strand of classical literature that is usually ignored by mainstream historians of perception.»
«Schönbeck argues that many disciplines should be involved in this study. It is not enough to know classical Greek—one also needs astronomy, psychology, classical philosophy, cultural anthropology, and mythology. Astronomy and psychology are necessary to interpret the phrase ‘the size of the sun’ (euros heliou): it could mean the absolute size of the astronomic sun, the apparent size of the astronomic sun, the magnitude of the perceptual sun, or the size of the Sun-god. The latter possibility arises because the distinction between upper case and lower case letters did not exist in Heraclitus’ time: if it had existed, Heraclitus might have intended the word for Sun (heliou) to have begun with a capital letter, to imply the deity. Schönbeck says he himself will refer to the astonomic sun as ‘sun’ the perceptual sun as SUN, and the mythological sun as Sun; and that he will use ‘absolute apparent magnitude’ to translate ‘euros’ (width or size). | | It is difficult for the reader to judge whether he sticks consistently to these rules.»
If readers are looking for some conclusion on the meaning of Heraclitus' sun notion, they will be disappointed. However, they can gain some enlightenment on the issues discussed or omitted by the commentators by inspecting the questions listed in appendix E. These vary from the perceptual (“the moon illusion is perceptual, not atmospheric”), through the geographical (“That the mountains in the north are higher”), commercial (“Whether there was trade in tin with England”), religious (“The localisation of the underworld—in the far west or under the world”), to the obscure (“the moon illusion is perceptual, not atmospheric”), (“Neglect again and again”). There are several other valuable appendices, including (A) the texts of fragments with some translations; (B) references; (C) an index of concepts and words in the footnotes; (D) a name index for the footnotes. The footnote indexes are particularly useful, since much of the value of the book to psychologists lies in the footnotes. Appendix C, in particular, can be used as an encyclopedia: the reader can see what perceptual terms are used and how they might be related to ancient sources. For example, Schönbeck lists all the different types of perceived and true size (unlike Hershenson).
Let us hope Schönbeck will publish his perceptual material as a concise journal article for psychologists, with the classical material clearly referenced in our approved style. Meanwhile the specialist perceptual historian will enjoy digging around this goldmine. |
