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IMC 2019: Sessions

Session 634: Ordered Universe, II: Seeing is Believing?: Robert Grosseteste's Theories of Vision

Tuesday 2 July 2019, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Ordered Universe Project
Organiser:Giles E. M. Gasper, Department of History, Durham University
Moderator/Chair:Sigbjørn Olsen Sønnesyn, Department of History, Durham University
Paper 634-aAll the Colours of the Rainbow: Human Colour Science and a 13th-Century System of Colour-Ordering
(Language: English)
Hannah Smithson, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford
Index terms: Science, Technology
Paper 634-bSeeing Clearly: Robert Grosseteste, Morality, and Learning
(Language: English)
Giles E. M. Gasper, Department of History, Durham University
Index terms: Science, Theology
Abstract

Session 2 of 4: Optics represents a subject in which Grosseteste made notable contributions to the study of the material world, and it was a subject for which he retained a life-long interest. This session explores his thought on optical phenomena such as the rainbow and his related theory of colour as light embodied in diaphanous media. The importance of modern scientific commentary on Grosseteste's works in this respect forms a central feature of the session, and the new science emerging from consideration of a medieval thinker. The sense of vision was also central to Grosseteste's conceptualization of understanding and cognition, and this link between literal and metaphorical vision will also be explored here.