Abstract
We have discussed at length the concepts of seeing and observing. The intellectual and linguistic character of seeing was remarked in such a way that we could at least detect some justice in the assertion that our two astronomers, the thirteenth century man and the twentieth century man, do not see the same thing in the east at dawn. In just this way two doctors may not see the same thing when looking at an x-ray photograph. Nor will two microbiologists necessarily see the same thing when looking at a protozoon, particularly if one calls it a one-celled organism and the other calls it a non-celled organism.
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Notes
- 1.
Hanson’s translation—WCH.
- 2.
1961, 117; Props. 5.632—5.633: “The subject does not belong to the world: rather, it is a limit of the world. Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be found? You will say that this is exactly like the case of the eye and the visual field. But really you do not see the eye. And nothing in the visual field allows you to infer that it is seen by an eye.”
- 3.
The concept of “logos,” or “intelligible principle,” referred to here figures largely in Aristotle’s metaphysics and theory of knowledge. See, for instance, Metaphysics VII.3.1029b3—12, especially in the translation of Hugh T. Tredennick (1961, 318–319).
References
Aristotle, and Hugh Tredennick (tr.). 1961. The Metaphysics. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Malinowski, Bronisław. 1965. Coral gardens and their magic, Vol. II. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. (G. E. M. Anscombe, Trans.). New York: Macmillan Co.
Wittgenstein, L. (1961). Tractatus logico-philosophicus. (D. F. Pears & B. F. McGuinness, Trans.). New York: Humanities Press.
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Lund, M.D. (2018). Can We See Facts?. In: Lund, M.D. (eds) Perception and Discovery. Synthese Library, vol 389. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69745-1_10
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