This anthology translates eighteen papers by Italian philosopher and experimental psychologist Paolo Bozzi (1930-2003), bringing his distinctive and influential ideas to an English-speaking audience for the first time. The papers cover a range of methodological and experimental questions concerning the phenomenology of perception and their theoretical implications, with each one followed by commentary from leading international experts.

In his laboratory work, Bozzi investigated visual and auditory perception, such as our responses to pendular motion and bodies in freefall, afterimages, transparency effects, and grouping effects in dot lattices and among sounds (musical notes). Reflecting on the results of his enquiries against the background of traditional approaches to experimentation in these fields, Bozzi took a unique realist stance that challenges accepted approaches to perception, arguing that experimental phenomenology is neither a science of the perceptual process nor a science of the appearances; it is a science of how things are.

The writings collected here offer an important resource for psychologists of perception and philosophers, as well as for researchers in cognitive science.

‘Bozzi was an original whose thinking did not observe conventional boundaries. The same may be said of this collection of elegant original essays inspired by Bozzi’s writings. It offers the reader the prospect of a rich and challenging intellectual feast.’ William Epstein, Emeritus Professor, University of Wisconsin, USA

‘Paolo Bozzi was an unusual and original psychologist and philosopher, who developed a distinctive picture of the psychology and the phenomenology of perception, in particular in its connection to the philosophical question of realism. Yet his work is not as widely known as it should be. This volume of his essays, supplemented by commentaries by contemporary experts, is an invaluable resource, and will surely help in giving Bozzi’s work the wider recognition it deserves.’ Tim Crane, Professor of Philosophy, Central European University, Hungary

Ivana Bianchi was a close collaborator of Paolo Bozzi in his last years and is Associate Professor of General Psychology, University of Macerata, Italy.

Richard Davies teaches theoretical philosophy at the University of Bergamo, Italy. He previously held positions at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK.