WHAT IS OCULARCENTRISM

by Gustave Dore

“Seeing is believing.”

As a cliché, the phrase has persisted long in daily conversation. The critical status of visuality compared to other senses permeates daily discourse: “These are valuable insights,” “Do you see what I mean?” “She is a reflective thinker,” “In my view,” “He is visionary,” the preference for the written word over the spoken word… Vision, as one of the approaches to interact with the world, seems to override its function- it’s not solely a means to know the world, but more essentially, the world we know. Given the prevalence of vision manifested and rooted in the underlying mechanisms of natural science, which is deemed a pathway to knowledge and truth, vision holds empirical rationality in the twentieth century. Yet why does vision play such an important role? Can we truly ‘see’ the world if we overlook the richness of sound, touch, smell, and taste?

The term ocularcentrism describes this type of prioritization of vision in a hierarchy where vision is the noblest sensory modality for rational cognition. The phenomenon is, moreover, a Western epistemological and perceptual tradition. Rooted in ancient philosophy, it has permeated cultural frameworks for centuries, framing sight as the gateway to reason, enlightenment, and authority.

The tradition of the senses’ hierarchy traces back to Ancient Greece. In Homer’s Odyssey, the gaze of Odysseus plays a significant role in the narrative dynamics of the poem, reflecting both desire and aggression. On Ogygia and Scheria, the desire for return (“nostos”) disrupts any erotic engagement between Calypso and Nausicaa. In the story of the Graeae, three semi-divine sisters who share one eye and one tooth among them, their shared single eye symbolizes the scarcity and preciousness of vision, as well as the interconnectedness of vision and power. Despite symbols and the emergence of ocularcentrism in early Greek myths, philosophers Plato and Aristotle are the foundational figures in establishing the Western philosophical tradition of ocularcentrism. Rooted in Plato’s epistemology, the soul-body dualism predetermines the soul’s rational cognition and life of virtue as the ideal pursuit of man, while the body is a burden on the soul’s pursuit. The immortal soul (rational) is separated from the mortal body (sensual), and vision is linked to the soul’s pursuit of divine truths. In Timaeus, Plato argues that vision allows humans to observe celestial order (stars, sun), which inspires philosophy and mathematics.

"God invented vision... to see the rational processes of the heavens and apply them to our own reasoning."

In other words, Plato expresses through the mouth of Timaeus: for had people never seen the stars and the suns, they would not have had the facts to discover the nature of the universe, nor the reasons which our account gives. Plato’s famous cave allegory, by contrasting empirical vision (shadows in the cave) with intellectual “vision” (sunlight as truth), he metaphorically elevates vision as a path to enlightenment. The philosophical emphasis on vision as a path to knowledge and truth is nonetheless mentioned. The story describes prisoners chained in a cave, facing a wall where shadows cast by objects behind them are the only reality they know. These shadows symbolize the limited and illusory knowledge one gains through sensory perception alone. When a prisoner is freed and forced to confront the outside world, his eyes gradually adapt to see the objects themselves, then the natural landscape, and finally the sun, which represents the Form of the Good- the ultimate truth. This progression emphasizes the idea that true understanding comes through the visual apprehension of abstract, transcendent truths rather than the illusory appearances perceived in the cave. Besides, Plato’s classification of sensory hierarchy sets the stage for classifying senses into distance (vision, hearing) and proximity (touch, taste, smell). Vision, as a “distance sense,” avoids bodily corruption, enabling pure contemplation and abstraction, which further formulates the “knowledge”. Aristotle is less theological but more ethical than Plato on vision. He aligns with Plato that sight serves a paramount cognitive function, enabling individuals to access and comprehend information about the external world with a level of clarity and detail that other senses cannot. Moreover, he also highlights that vision is unique in that it can provide information without inducing the kind of pleasure that might lead to intemperance. Unlike some other senses that are closely linked to pleasures, which can potentially cause excess or vice, sight is seen as a more detached and objective sense. Visual pleasure is less corrupting than tactile sensations, as it maintains detachment.

In the Renaissance period, the technique- creating the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional plane- developed by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer, reflected and reinforced the idea that vision is the most reliable and objective sense. Meanwhile, Northern Renaissance artists paid attention to exquisite details in smaller works. The trend of visual representation that prioritized mathematical precision and the viewer’s gaze embeds ocularcentrism into cultural practice. This visual regime was further consolidated and amplified by subsequent historical and cultural developments. During the Enlightenment period, with scientists’ contributions to modern science, particularly in the field of optics and astronomy, the reliance on visual observation and mathematical reasoning became central to the scientific method. This shift reinforced the primacy of vision as a means of understanding and controlling the natural world.

The distinction of vision among the senses lies in its unique capacity to unify temporal and spatial perception. Unlike audition, which relies on sequential temporal unfolding, and touch, which engages with discrete spatial points, vision synthesizes a comprehensive spatial field instantaneously. This simultaneity enables the mind to grasp both the immediate sensory data and its underlying structural invariance. In phenomenologist Hans Jonas’s paper The Nobility of Sight (1954), why vision is so crucial in the Western philosophical tradition is discussed. Another uniqueness of vision is raised: its ability that allows us to perceive the world in a way that transcends the constraints of time. Unlike other senses, which require a continuous temporal process, vision can instantaneously capture the spatial entirety of a scene. This immediacy allows the mind to perceive objects as stable, enduring entities, fostering ideas of permanence and essence. Philosophically, this mirrors the Greek metaphysical distinction between Being (static, eternal reality) and Becoming (temporal flux). For instance, Plato’s Theory of Forms relies on the metaphor of intellectual "seeing" (theoria), where universal truths are grasped as one "sees" geometric shapes. The transient and permanent aspects provide a perceptual foundation for philosophical reflections on existence and becoming. Just as Aristotle did, Jonas also points out that vision offers a distinctive mode of engagement with objects that does not necessitate entering into a direct relational involvement with them. This feature of visual perception facilitates the development of conceptual distinctions such as form versus matter, essence versus existence, and theory versus practice. When we observe an object visually, we can apprehend its form or essence without immediately engaging with its material or existential aspects. Similarly, the detached nature of vision allows for theoretical contemplation that is distinct from practical engagement. As the only distance sense, vision perceives objects without proximity, symbolizing the mind’s ability to transcend corporeal limitations. This spatial detachment inspired metaphysical concepts like infinity (e.g., Descartes’ res extensa) and universal laws (e.g., Newtonian physics). The horizon’s boundlessness in visual experience parallels philosophy’s pursuit of realities beyond the tangible, such as mathematical truths or divine existence. Cartesian dualism, which separates the "seeing mind" from the body, hinges on vision’s metaphorical role as a detached observer. Distance thus enables philosophy to universalize human experience and posit abstract, transcendent truths.

Vision’s traits- stability, detachment, and transcendence- metaphorically align with philosophy’s goals. The “light of reason” trope (e.g., Plato’s Sun in the Republic) equates intellectual clarity with visual illumination, framing truth as an object of mental "sight." Vision’s apparent objectivity legitimizes it as a model for empirical knowledge, as seen in scientific observation.

Yet post-modern thinkers identified the bias in the ocularcentrism view, as evidently naming the paradigm as “centrism.” Famous figures like Lacan, Bentham, Foucault, Debord, and Baudrillard all bring up new ideas on ocularcentrism directly or indirectly. Last but not least, different approaches to philosophers’ views on ocularcentrism will be discussed in the next article.