Seeing Dark Things: The Philosophy of Shadows

325 Pages·2008·3.3 MB·English

by  Roy Sorensen

Seeing Dark Things
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Seeing Dark Things
The Philosophy of Shadows
Roy Sorensen
1
2008
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sorensen, Roy A.
Seeing dark things : the philosophy of shadows / Roy Sorensen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN978-0-19-532657-4
1. Perception (Philosophy). 2. Shades and shadows.
3. Causation. I. Title.
B828.45.S662007
121'.34—dc22 2007001267
987654321
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To
my youngest son,
Zachary Nicholas Sorensen,
who brightens my mornings
and warms my days.
But mark, madam, we live amongst riddles and mysteries—the
most obvious things, which come in our way, have dark sides,
which the quickest sight cannot penetrate into; and even the
clearest and most exalted understandings amongst us fi nd ourselves
puzzled and at a loss in almost every cranny of nature’s works.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68)
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Acknowledgments
This book was made possible, indeed actual, by the absence of teaching
obligations funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The fi rst incarnation of this book was a seminar on perception I
taught at MIT in 2003. I thank the participants for their comments
and suggestions. I also thank two referees from Oxford University
Press. The book changed signifi cantly after their helpful remarks.
Six of the fourteen chapters incorporate previously published ma-
terial. Chapters 1 and 2 include parts of “Seeing Intersecting E clipses,”
Journal of Philosophy 96 (1999): 25–49. Chapter 3 contains most of
“The Disappearing Act,” Analysis 66/4 (2006): 319–25. Chapter 4 is
based on “Spinning Shadows,” Philosophy and Phenomenological R esearch
72/2 (2006): 345–65. Chapter 6 contains much of “Para-refl ections,”
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science54 (2003): 93–101, and chap-
ter 13 is based on “We See in the Dark,” Nous 38/3 (2004): 456–80.
I thank the respective journals and publishers for permission to repub-
lish this material.
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Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Introduction 3
1 The Eclipse Riddle 20
2 Seeing Surfaces 44
3 The Disappearing Act 66
4 Spinning Shadows 76
5 Berkeley’s Shadow 105
6 Para-refl ections 136
7 Para-refractions: Shadowgrams
and the Black Drop 146
8 Goethe’s Colored Shadows 153