| Hardcover, 244 pages Published 2010 Borrowed from the library Read October 2012 |
by Peter Garratt
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.
