82nd & Fifth. “My First Time” from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of my favourite museums is The Met and one of my favourite paintings is also there.  I was just impressed and happy to see that a new video cured by the art historian and curator George Goldner depicted and explained that painting.

The painting is titled” View of Toledo” by El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos).

View of Toledo

In this painting, El Greco, “portrays the city he lived and worked in for most of his life. The painting belongs to the tradition of emblematic city views, rather than a faithful documentary description. The view of the eastern section of Toledo from the north would have excluded the cathedral, which the artist therefore imaginatively moved to the left of the Alcázar (the royal palace). Other buildings represented in the painting include the ancient Alcántara Bridge, and on the other side of the river Tagus, the Castle of San Servando.”

I invite you to watch the video interview behind this painting and Goldner’s commentary.  I am sure you will love it.

The Evidence of the Senses now available for FREE ONLINE

I have GREAT NEWS for all Philosophy fans!!!

David Kelley‘s classic, The Evidence of the Senses, is now available on Scribd.com FOR FREE!  The Scribd platform allows you to search the book, share it with friends, print it, download it, read it online, copy and paste text from it, and comment or communicate with others reading the book.

About The Evidence of the Senses:
In this highly original defense of realism, David Kelley argues that perception is the discrimination of objects as entities, that the awareness of these objects is direct, and that perception is a reliable foundation forempirical knowledge. His argument relies on the basic principle of the “primacy of existence,” in opposition to Cartesian representationalism and Kantian idealism.

In the first part of the book, Kelley discusses the nature and validity of perception. He argues against classical sensationalist and modern computational theories, according to which perception involves inferences from sensory input. Unlike most realists, he also offers an in-depth consideration of the problems of perceptual relativity. His theory incorporates a key distinction between the object and the form in which it is perceived. This distinction provides insights into the status of phenomenal qualities, the nature of perceptual constancy, and the difference between primary and secondary qualities.

In the second part of the book, Kelley is concerned with the way we distinguish conceptual knowledge from perception. His theory of non-propositional justification shows how perceptual judgments are supported by the direct awareness of objects, and it allows a novel defense of empiricism.

An original and substantial contribution to the philosophical literature, this book will be invaluable to philosophers, psychologists, and anyone interested in the complex subject of perceptual theory.”

Read The Evidence of the Senses now >

Find more about Atlas Society and David Kelley’s work now >