Seeing life steadily: Dorothy Emmet’s philosophy of perception and the crisis in metaphysics
British Journal for the History of Philosophy September 19, 2023 Peter West
Dorothy Emmet's 1945 book The Nature of Metaphysical Thinking presents an account of perception aimed at rehabilitating metaphysics against logical positivism and verificationism, particularly A. J. Ayer's views. Emmet draws extensively on A. N. Whitehead and Henri Bergson rather than Russell or Moore, straddling the analytic-continental divide. Her philosophy of perception offers a way forward for metaphysics during a mid-twentieth-century crisis in British philosophy, and her ideas anticipate later movements in the philosophy of perception.