Telescope / Moon

Philosophy of Language
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Peering through his newly-improved 20-power homemade telescope at the planet Jupiter on Jan. 7, 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei noticed three other points of light near the planet, at first believing them to be distant stars. Observing them over several nights, he noted that they appeared to move in the wrong direction with regard to the background stars and they remained in Jupiter’s proximity but changed their positions relative to one another. He later observed a fourth star near the planet with the same unusual behavior. By Jan. 15, Galileo correctly concluded that they were not stars at all but moons orbiting around Jupiter, providing strong evidence for the Copernican theory that most celestial objects did not revolve around the Earth.

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Did Galileo see the moons of Jupiter ?

Joe says “Of course not. He only saw his own telescope.”

I say that it’s a more efficient and honest to acknowledge that Galileo saw the moons. In other words, I vote for using this kind of language in this kind of situation.

When I am driving on the interstate highway at 70 mph and using my review, do I see the cars behind me ?

Joe says: “Of course not. You are only seeing your mirror.”

But isn’t the rearview mirror installed in the first place to help me make life-and-death decisions ? Isn’t the mirror used to keep me informed about the cars behind me ?

Joe is very “literal.” I decide to try and show Joe where his “literal” leads.

“Joe, I also wear glasses when I drive. So I was looking at the rearview mirror ( as you would say ) through my glasses. So was I not looking at the mirror after all but rather at the inside of my glasses ?”

“Well now that I know the whole story, of course you were just looking at the inside of your glasses.”

“Wait a minute, Joe. Is it not more…literal…to say that I was looking at photons emitted by my glasses ?”

Does this continue until a the visual part of the brain is looking at nerve signals ? Is the “I” that “sees” a located piece of meat ?

For me this is not about “true” or “false.” I’m primarily interested in “life” of signs.

In “Cry Me An Eagle,” I discussed the eagle warning cry that these monkeys employ. I suggested that the cry “is” the eagle. Some seemed to see what I was pointing at. Others were “literal.” I of course “get” the literal approach. We can and do thematize telescopes, rearview mirrors, and speech noises. But this is the exception. This is temporary “shifting” of their mode of “being there” for us.

I suggest that we are fundamentally practical animals, and that the “real” is well understood as a sign used to indicate what we “count on.”

When I count on the telescope, I see through it.

Thoughts ?

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You make an interesting analogy between on the one hand perception, into which (we agree) it misses the point for us to interpose telescopes and rear view mirrors, and on the other hand verbal and pictorial reference, which is where we disagree, because you seem to say the cry literally but point-missingly mediates (like a telescope) between the monkey and the eagle, whereas I follow Goodman in seeing reference as a pretended relation between the cry and the eagle. The monkey doesn’t come into it. Even if it (like us) joins in the game of pretend.

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I want to say “it’s all pretend,” but that might defeat my intention. Truth-makers are “pretend.” All I can do is try to cry eagle. To try to point with flashcards at feature that I see in the world.

Call it “ultra-pragmatism” maybe. The world is there for the human animal in terms of “care.” The animal is trying to do this or that. It takes the function of environmental objects for granted. I hurry up the stares to answer a ringing phone. I don’t notice the stairs.

For ultra-pragmatism, belief is not “head stuff” but the hurrying of the body up those stairs. We do belief, primarily non-verbally. So belief is something like expectant conduct.

The rearview mirror has its “utility” or “life” precisely because I “blindly trust” it. Now I want to prioritize this “environment-for-animal,” so I tend to see the scientific image as a map, a tool.

I also think that language isn’t only for picturing. There is a “surrogate perception” function. I make a noise that deflects your comportment. “There’s a package on the porch for you.” You stop what you are doing and go get it. But “literally” you only heard a noise. You didn’t see the package.

Or did you “see” the package out there after all ?

Let’s say I see the package myself in the usual way but I am wearing my glasses. I am “literally” seeing my glasses and not the package.

If belief is conduct, then the “sign” deflected your conduct. So the “literally” approach seems word-centric, theory-centric. “Literally” is like “as the God who doesn’t care would see it.” But it is important that we can thematize this or that as a “mediator.” If I can’t find the star I want to see, then I may need to fix the telescope. I have to “lose” the telescope in its primary function. I have to “kill” the tool-being of the telescope. But I will look inside this “dead” telescope while wearing my glasses. The “literally” approach is a tiny “negation” of one little piece of the instrumental nexus.

So this “earnest literally” has a tendency toward de-realizing the environment as it is live. What “truth” is it “painting” ? And why should we care ?

I care precisely because science proves itself to me in terms of what I seek and avoid, etc. So the glory of the literally is parasitic on the “unmolested” life of the sign.

Joe gives me the “literal talk” and forgets that he needs me to forget this literally in order to hear him “pragmatically.”

Joe’s mouth-noise is a more complicated eagle warning cry. His cry does something like point at this or that feature in our shared environment.

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I think that this demonstrates for me the lack of serious purpose here

Do you insist that the eye is not part of you, that there is nothing essential to the brain operation apart from visual processinng and that the brain is adequately descibed as a piece of meat.

The person as a whole is the subject and is not an instrument for seeing.

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I’m not sure you see what I am getting at

I agree that a person is not reducible to a piece of meat. In terms of the OP, I would suggest looking into the “life” of the sign “I.”

Basically the phrase “I see the moon” doesn’t do the same thing as “my brain sees the moon.” Though indirect realists sometimes seem to assume so.

This issue is complex, because the “pure subject” ( tentative phrase) is associated with an object, “its” body. Here I use “pure subject” as “consciousness” as “the being there of the world.” The world is there “from the POV” of the subject-as-body. So “I” report on what is in front of “my” eyes perceptually, etc.

Mach is the champ on this stuff.

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Ok, I think your wording was a bit off but I will suspend judgement on the wider point because it was so elegantly made. I need more time with the ideas.

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I assume this is a dig at indirect realism? If so, you’re equivocating. The indirect realist doesn’t say that we don’t see the cars behind us when looking in the mirror; he says that we don’t have direct perception of the cars behind us when looking in the mirror. I’m sure many direct realists would agree with this.

The term “direct perception” is a term of art that means something specific (although what it means is ambiguous).

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It’s about far more than indirect realism. It’s just as much about language.

The cry “is” the eagle, but obviously not “literally” or in “common sense” terms. We can foreground/congeal the telescope as the thematic object, but it typically works by “vanishing” into its function. Harman call this “tool-being.” As you may know, it’s one of the most famous ideas in Heidegger.

Are you being metaphorical here ?

I object to dualistic approaches that invoke “internal” stuff that mediates an “external” stuff. As I mentioned elsewhere, we mostly “live our perceptions” as the objects themselves. But sometimes we thematize the way the object is there for Joe, and we are more interested in Joe than the object.

In the same way, we can stop looking at the moon through the telescope and look instead at the telescope, perhaps to fix.

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No. We see things — like our own eyes — in the mirror but do not have direct perception of those things. We see things — like a football match — on television but do not have direct perception of those things.

There’s no dualism involved when we say that we don’t have direct perception of the things we see in the mirror or on television.

Be careful not to equivocate. If someone argues that the cry is not literally the eagle then you don’t prove them wrong by arguing that the cry is non-literally the eagle.

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To me this is not a “true” or “false” thing.

If you grant that you saw Joe himself via Zoom call, albeit indirectly, then we basically agree.

I don’t think “indirectly” is exciting in this case. It’s fine for this use though.

I think you are not seeing the larger point that I am trying to make.

What is direct seeing ? Looking at Joe right in front of you, with your glasses off ?

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But that’s…my point. That’s what I’m trying to generalize. I see the moon through the telescope. I don’t prove this chain of signs. I am trying to point at a feature of reality from my POV that I think is there for others.

Shared reality but no “objective” reality. Not in the sense of “reality from no point of view.” Shared reality from many points of view. Ontological perspectivism. No dualism.

Now I think ( ? ) you are missing my point. The telescope might be the thematic object or the moon might be the thematic object. The cry is the eagle when we are immersed in its use. The telescope is the moon. But the cry can be thematized. It telescope can be thematize. So now we have the cry other than the eagle, the telescope other than the moon. The problem with the “literal” approach seems to be the assumption of an “objective reality truth-maker.”

Literal Joe needs his marks/noises (signs) to be “what he’s pointing at” for them to function. Signs “live” or “function” by…not being signs, but they can snap back into being signs.

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Yes, which is indirect perception of Joe. The point I am making is that “I see Joe” and “I have direct perception of Joe” do not mean the same thing, and so if you are trying to argue that indirect realism is false because I see Joe then you are equivocating.

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Your op seems susceptible to different interpretations of what constitutes perception in that it introduces a dichotomy of whether perception is direct or not.

and it’s easy to fall into the trap of the latter. My own belief of it regarding perception regardless of whether we use such apparatus such as telescope, glasses or eyes is that perception remains direct and this also applies to experience such as smelling the coffee through our senses does not negate the directness of it through the medium of sensory organs that we posses.

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I think the telescope is a tool, and that Galileo saw the moons. Using his tool as a visual aid. I think the so-called literal view is one of a small class of truths: true but wholly unhelpful. Just like saying a human is a collection of quarks.

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I got a glimpse of Jupiter last week with my naked eyes. He/it traveled through the crescent moon predawn. The Moon is in conjunction with Jupiter in the predawn hours of October 6, including a rare lunar occultation) and will later align near Saturn on October 23–24 and Venus around October 11, 2026. Orion was there but didn’t come out in the photo.

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When I see Jupiter through my tinted glasses l see a mixture of the planet, and the supreme king of the gods and the ruler of the sky.

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Also as a divine witness to promises, treaties, and moral behavior.

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To me this word “false” is just a flash card. I am not “arguing” in the sense of “proving” something. Philosophy isn’t about that for me. Phenomenology is a helpless dialogical pointing. The meaning is not the signs.

We each hold up flashcards (written words like these), trying to do something with them in the ongoing social situation. To understand the signs of the other is something like understanding what the other person is up to.

I’m trying to point at what Harman calls “tool-being.” You seem to be ignoring or neglecting my main point/interest.

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I basically agree with you. I typically say that I am a “direct” realist.

But now I want to drop that label.

The main thing that I want to point out is that sometimes the rearview mirror is the cars behind. But sometimes that same rearview is a rearview mirror.

But this is not offered as a “truth.” I am pointing at what I take is a basic feature of human existence.

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There could be a delay from object perceived to our senses via any arbitrary medium or in the case of a rear view mirror a reflection of the object to our eyes but I do not see how this would constitute an argument for indirect realism … unless I’m missing something.

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I’m trying to point out that the “literal” mode is missing something.

I look “through” the rearview mirror to see the cars behind me. This is not presented as an “objective reality truth” — whatever that is.

I am pointing out the way we live with tools like telescopes and mirrors. Tools like these are “working at full power” precisely when they “vanish.” To use the rearview mirror, I no longer see it as the mirror but rather as the cars behind me.

Likewise I use my eyeglasses by seeing right through them. The “literal” reading misses the “tool-being” of objects like this.

As you read these words, you are reading right “through” them. The words you read right now are me. I am manifest through my words. But we can “switch off the full power” of words and see them as “just marks on the screen.”

So what we have is something like a moon/telescope. It is not “really” one or the other. But this is not presented as a “truth.”

One more example: the blinking turn signal of the car “functions” by being precisely the about-to-turn-ness of the car itself.

I am not saying that the car “really will” turn. I am saying that we are expectant creatures. So the turn signal “is” my expectation of this about-to-turn-ness, which is there “in the car itself” for me.

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Sure, I kinda get what you’re saying but I’m more interested in understanding the indirect realism position. I need to do my research on this a bit more as all I’ve gotten so far seems to have come from the last few posts in this thread.

My intuition though so far is that the indirect realist position’s existence is not only false but a unnecessary construct on the nature of reality especially prior to the telescopes mirrors or other such tools we have invented.

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