Peter Garratt (2)

Garratt analyzes a number of Victorian approaches to empiricism; I found his chapter on George Henry Lewes the most interesting, looking at the ways that all perception is ultimately inflected: your sensations will always interact with perception, and error and doubt are ultimately characteristic of the gaze. Each of the thinkers in the title receives a chapter of discussion except for Eliot, whose literary works are threaded throughout  (Adam Bede in the chapter on Ruskin, Middlemarch in Lewes's and Bain's, The Lifted Veil in Spencer's). I found his comments about Eliot's work the most illuminating part of the book.… (altro)