The Reciprocity of Perceiver and Environment

Originally published in 1987, this title intended to historically reveal, through tracing Gibsons development, the substance of his views and how they bore upon general philosophical issues in theories of knowledge, and to investigate in detail the historical context of Gibsons theoretical position within psychology. Though the author has included a history of Gibsons perceptual research and experimentation, the focus is to explicate the dynamic abstract form of Gibsons ecological approach. His emphasis is philosophical and theoretical, attempting to bring out the direction Gibson was moving in and how such changes could restructure the theoretical fabric of psychology. He devotes considerable attention to the Greeks, Medievalists, and the founders of the Scientific Revolution. This is because Gibsons theoretical challenge runs deep into the structure of western thought. The authors central goal was to set Gibsons ecological theory within the historical context of fundamental philosophical-scientific issues.