"The Theory of Impression According to Robert Hooke" by Matthew Hunter

CITATION: Hunter, Matthew. "The Theory of Impression According to Robert Hooke." Printed Images in Early Modern Britain. Ed. Michael Hunter. Burlington: Ashgate Press, 2010. 167-190. Print.
Understanding

• Question: How did the technology of print enable new thinking regarding perception?
• Answer: Following from Aristotelean philosophy and Dutch experiments in scientific printing, Hooke's theory of perspective adopted the metaphoric vehicles of printing.
• Method: Hunter introduces a pair of Dutch impressions in order to introduce the problems of objective represenation, problems of both the "semantic" (relating to objects in the real world) and "syntactic" (relating to the instruments of the impression and intermediary transfers). Hunter then considers two print experiments highlighting the problems of syntactic inaccuracy (De Jode's engraved portrait of Browne, Papin's Digestor), and one invention relating to semantic accuracy (the Albertian veil). Hooke encountered problems with the immediacy of observation and representation through his remarks on print. Thus Hooke's human theory of perspective included the problems of copying and correcting.
• Assumptions: Hunter assumes a degree of epistemological continuity between Hooke and other Continental thinkers, despite the Hooke's orthagonal thought.
• Sententiae: "First, working in a range of impressed media, experimentalists aimed to ensure that their prints actually registered the relevant, intended markings designed into matrix or mould; they wanted to ensure that a given printed image constituted a good impression... I will refer to this relation between the printed mark and printing matrix as the 'syntactical' problem of the impression. Secondly, Royal Society Fellows also sought to secure strong relations between their printed impressions and various real-world targets. They wanted to claim that their impressions accurately represented natural or artificial phenomena -- a relation that I will call the 'semantic' problem of the impression." (170)
  "In his epochal De Pictura of 1436, Leon Battista Alberti had announced early modern Europe's most famous artistic aid: the 'veil or grid-like mesh of fibres through which Alberti advised the artist to view objects. As with other drawing books developed in the eraly Royal Society, the Arbertian veil facilitated the creatioun of outlines, the reliable boundaries of seen bodies in which the graphic denotation of more evanescent visual data could be gathered. Evelyn's philosopher-artist, by contrast, does not look through the screen at the target-object, but observes the object as modulated by it." (176)

Overstanding

• Assessment: Hunter's most vulnerable point is in the interpolation of print terminology on Hooke's lectures on perspective. He might benefit from the comparison of Hooke's prints to Newton's own reluctance to print his observations on vision. I will definitely have to revisit Hunter's essay for his method of interrelating philosophical issues of science with bibliographic matters of print. He makes a juncture that I'd like to parallel in my own research.
• Synthesis: Naturally Hunter, Turner, and Acheson all deal with naturalists. Whereas Acheson theorizes on the detached epistemologies of images to texts, and Turner reconstructs a naturalist epistemology from the production of an image, Hunter views the image as prior to the production of text--in this case, Hooke's lectures--or at least interactive between both fields. That is, Hunter uniquely proposes that print text and image can each advance and mutually contribute to theories of human perspective.
• Application: The biggest challenge following Hunter is to consider how to apply his methods to the theories of perspective advanced in print drama  and poetry. For the most part, such a research project could re-interpret shifts--in the format of verse following the adoption of print--with a view towards the graphic design of texts and the aspiration to understand an early modern theory of perspective.