Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains
Try to guess the English title before clicking on the link.
Aliquid. Probably George Harrison's best composition. One of the great love songs.
Hic venit sol. YouTuber comment: "The Beatles are an antidepressant. This song is a great example!"
Intus te sine te. Another great Harrison song.
I have borrowed from here and here. There may be errors in the Latin. I am not enough of a Latinist to be sure.
I just now noticed that the following two sentences are interchangeable salva significatione:
Gluttony is to be avoided
Gluttony ought to be avoided.
A curious linguistic tidbit, possibly of philosophical use later, possibly of no such use at all. But interesting either way. So I note it en passant.
Addendum (literally, something to be added or that ought to be added)
Seldom Seen Slim e-mails:
I see that you've just discovered the obsolescent gerundive or future passive construction in English."Gluttony is to be avoided" = "Gluttony is a thing to be avoided" = Gluttony is something we should/ought to avoid" (pretty much equivalent statements).But now are any of these statements at all? How do they differ from the directive "Avoid gluttony!", which is plainly no statement at all.
Related articles
Here, with a response by McGinn. Merits the coveted MavPhil imprimatur and nihil obstat.
In fairness to Churchland, it is her letter, not her, that Cavell calls "hysterical." A politically incorrect word these days, I should think. Isn't 'hysterical' etymologically related to the Latin and Greek words for womb? According to the Online Etymology Dictionary:
One of the purposes of this site is to combat the stupidity of Political Correctness, a stupidity that in many contemporary liberals, i.e., leftists, is willful and therefore morally censurable. The euphemism 'undocumented worker' is a good example of a PC expression. It does not require great logical acumen to see that 'undocumented worker' and 'illegal alien' are not coextensive expressions. The extension of a term is the class of things to which it applies. In the diagram below, let A be the class of illegal aliens, B the class of undocumented workers, and A^B the intersection of these two classes. All three regions in the diagram are non-empty, which shows that A and B are not coextensive, and so are not the same class. Since A and B are not the same class, 'undocumented worker' and 'illegal alien' do not have the same intension or meaning. Differing in both extension and intension, these expressions are not intersubstitutable.
To see why, note first that there are illegal aliens who are not workers since they are either petty criminals, or members of organized criminal gangs e.g., MS-13, some of whose members are illegal aliens, or terrorists, or too young to work, or unable to work. Note second that there are illegal aliens who have documents all right — forged documents. Note third that there are undocumented workers who are not aliens: there are American citizens who work but without the legally requisite licenses and permits.
So the correct term is 'illegal alien.' It is descriptive and accurate and there is no reason why it should not be used.
Now will this little logical exercise convince a leftist to use language responsibly and stop obfuscating the issue? Of course not. Leftism in some of its forms is willfully embraced reality denial, and in other of its forms is a cognitive aberration, something like a mental illness, in need of therapy rather than refutation. In a longer post I would finesse the point by discussing the cognitive therapy of Stoic and neo-Stoic schools, which does include some logical refutation of unhealthy views and attitudes, but my rough-and-ready point stands: one cannot refute the sick. They need treatment and quarantine and those who go near them should employ appropriate prophylactics.
So why did I bother writing the above? Because there are people who have not yet succumbed to the PC malady and might benefit from a bit of logical prophylaxis. One can hope.
Hope for the best. But prepare for the worst.
From what appears to be a reputable source:
Cognitive Dissonance Theory, developed by Leon Festinger (1957), is concerned with the relationships among cognitions. A cognition, for the purpose of this theory, may be thought of as a ³piece of knowledge.² The knowledge may be about an attitude, an emotion, a behavior, a value, and so on. For example, the knowledge that you like the color red is a cognition; the knowledge that you caught a touchdown pass is a cognition; the knowledge that the Supreme Court outlawed school segregation is a cognition. People hold a multitude of cognitions simultaneously, and these cognitions form irrelevant, consonant or dissonant relationships with one another.
[. . .]
Two cognitions are said to be dissonant if one cognition follows from the opposite of another. What happens to people when they discover dissonant cognitions? The answer to this question forms the basic postulate of Festinger¹s theory. A person who has dissonant or discrepant cognitions is said to be in a state of psychological dissonance, which is experienced as unpleasant psychological tension. This tension state has drivelike properties that are much like those of hunger and thirst. When a person has been deprived of food for several hours, he/she experiences unpleasant tension and is driven to reduce the unpleasant tension state that results. Reducing the psychological sate of dissonance is not as simple as eating or drinking however.
The above, taken strictly and literally, is incoherent. We are first told that a cognition is a bit of knowledge, and then in the second quoted paragraph that (in effect) some cognitions are dissonant, and that if one cognition follows from the opposite of another, then the two are dissonant. But surely it is logically impossible that any two bits of knowledge, K1 and K2, be such that K1 entails the negation of K2, or vice versa. Why? Because every cognition is true — there cannot be false knowledge — and no two truths are such that one follows from the opposite of the other.
The author is embracing an inconsistent pentad:
1. Every cognition is a bit of knowledge.
2. Every bit of knowledge is true.
3. Some, at least two, cognitions are dissonant.
4. If one cognition follows from the opposite (the negation) of another, then the two are dissonant.
5. It is logically impossible that two truths be such that one follows from the negation of the other: if a cognition is true, then its negation is false, and no falsehood follows from a truth.
The point, obviously, is that while beliefs can be dissonant, cognitions cannot be. There simply is no such thing as cognitive dissonance. What there is is doxastic dissonance.
"What a pedant you are! Surely what the psychologists mean is what you call doxastic dissonance."
Then they should say what they mean. Language matters. Confusing belief and knowledge and truth and related notions can lead to serious and indeed pernicious errors. A good deal of contemporary relativism is sired by a failure to make such distinctions.
'Racism' and 'racist' are words used by liberals as all-purpose semantic bludgeons. Proof of this is that the terms are never defined, and so can be used in wider or narrower senses depending on the polemical and ideological purposes at hand. In common parlance 'racism' and 'racist' are pejoratives, indeed, terms of abuse. This is why it is foolish for conservatives such as John Derbyshire to describe themselves as racists while attempting to attach some non-pejorative connotation to the term. It can't be done. It would be a bit like describing oneself as as an asshole, 'but in the very best sense of the term.' 'Yeah, I'm an asshole and proud of it; we need more assholes; it's a good thing to be.' The word has no good senses, at least when applied to an entire human as opposed to an orifice thereof. For words like 'asshole,' 'child molester,' and 'racist' semantic rehabilitation is simply not in the cards. A conservative must never call himself a racist. (And I don't see how calling himself a racialist is any better.) What he must do is attack ridiculous definitions of the term, defend reasonable ones, and show how he is not a racist when the term is reasonably defined.
Let's run through some candidate definientia of 'racism':
1. The view that there are genetic or cultural differences between racial groups and that these differences have behavioral consequences.
Since this is indeed the case, (1) cannot be used to define 'racism.' The term, as I said, is pejorative: it is morally bad to be a racist. But it is not morally bad to be a truth-teller. The underlying principle here is that it can't racism if it is true. Is that not obvious?
Suppose I state that blacks are 11-13% of the U.S. population. That cannot be a racist statement for the simple reason that it is true. Nor can someone who makes such a statement be called a racist for making it. A statement whose subject matter is racial is not a racist statement. Or I inform you that blacks are more likely than whites to contract sickle-cell anemia. That too is true. But in this second example there is reference to an unpleasant truth. Even more unpleasant are those truths about the differential rates of crime as between blacks and whites. But pleasant or not, truth is truth, and there are no racist truths. (I apologize for hammering away at these platitudes, but in a Pee Cee world in which people have lost their minds, repetition of the obvious is necessary.)
2. The feeling of affinity for those of one's own racial and ethnic background.
It is entirely natural to feel more comfortable around people of one's own kind than around strangers. And of course there is nothing morally objectionable in this. No racism here.
3. The view that it is morally justifiable to put the interests of one's own race or ethnic group above those of another in situations of conflict or limited resources. This is to be understood as the analog of the view that it it morally justifiable to put the interests of oneself and one's own family, friends, and neighbors above the interests of strangers in a situation of conflict or limited resources.
There is nothing morally objectionable in his, and nothing that could be legitimately called racism.
4. The view that the genetic and cultural differences between races or ethnic groups justify genocide or slavery or the denial of political rights.
Now we arrive at an appropriate definiens of 'racism.' This is one among several legitimate ways of defining 'racism.' Racism thus defined is morally offensive in the extreme. I condemn it and you should to. I condemn all who hold this.
May a linguistic conservative such as your humble correspondent coin new expressions? Of course. A conservative is not one opposed to change as such, or linguistic change as such. A conservative is one who is opposed to unnecessary, or idiotic, or deleterious changes –- the kind our dear liberal friends love to introduce. An example of a change that was unnecessary was the renaming of the Western Division of the American Philosophical Association to ‘Central Division’ some years back. I couldn't care less about the useless and politically correct A. P. A. nowadays, but at the time the change rankled this curmudgeon for two reasons. First, the change is wholly unnecessary: given that there is a Pacific Division and a Western Division, one would have to be consummately stupid indeed not to realize that the former is to the west of the latter.
Second, this wholly unnecessary change obliterates an interesting piece of history, namely, that the A.P. A. once had only two divisions. Should Case Western Reserve University change its name because the Western Reserve region of Ohio is practically in the East nowadays?
By the way, that strange name is an amalgam of 'Case Institute of Technology' and 'Western Reserve University.' Case Institute of Technology was where Michelson and Morley in 1881 conducted the famous experiment that put the ether hypothesis out of commission. When I was a Visiting Assoc Prof of Phil there in 1989-1991, I got a thrill out of conducting some of my classes in Morley Hall.
True, ‘Western Division,’ was a misnomer – but only if one takes it as a description in disguise as opposed to a logically proper name the meaning of which is exhausted by its reference. Recall Saul Kripke’s old example of ‘Holy Roman Empire’ from Naming and Necessity. The entity denoted was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. But that did not prevent the phrase in question from functioning as a proper name. Similarly with ‘Western Division.’
The first footnote to Patrick Toner's "Hylemorphic Animalism" (Phil. Studies, 2011, 155: 65-81) reads:
The more common spelling is "hylomorphic," but David Oderberg has convinced me to substitute this spelling. After all, the Greek term in question is hyle, not hylo.
By this reasoning we should write 'cruxade,' 'cruxiform,' and 'cruxial' instead of the standard 'crusade,' 'cruciform,' and 'crucial.' After all, the Latin term in question is crux, not crus or cruc.
Furthermore, why not write 'hylemorphec' rather than 'hylemorphic'? After all, the Greek term in question is morphe, not morphi.
Why don't we write 'polisology' and 'polisics' rather than 'politology' and 'politics'? After all, the Greek term in question is polis, not polit.
And why don't we write 'morphelogy,' and 'gelogy' and 'gemetry' rather than 'morphology,' 'geology,' and 'geometry'? After all, etc.
What am I missing?
For a conservative there is a defeasible presumption in favor of traditional ways of doing things. Note 'defeasible.' Conservatives are not opposed to change; they are opposed to unnecessary and foolish and deleterious and change-for-the-sake-of-change change. You could say that they are opposed to Obaminable change.
Addendum (18 May)
Ed Feser writes,
I had this debate with David years ago and initially defended "hylomorphism" precisely on the conservative grounds that that is the standard usage. (You'll notice that in my book Philosophy of Mind I use "hylomorphism.") However, "hylemorphism" is not David's invention, and when I was writing the Aquinas book I found that some (though of course not all) of the old manuals did indeed use "hylemorphism." So there hasn't in fact been uniformity on the spelling. Hence I decided "Fine, what the heck." I'm not committed to it the way David is, though.
I am aware that 'hylemorphism' is not Oderberg's invention and that this spelling has also been used. But unless I am badly mistaken, the 'hylo' forms occur more frequently that the 'hyle' forms. So while Oderberg's usage is not an innovation, it does go against standard usage. That's one consideration. Another is euphony. The 'hylo' compounds roll right off the tongue; the 'hyle' forms are slightly 'stickier.' But your tongue may vary. And then there are the considerations adduced above.
It just now occurs to me that there is one instance where the 'o' would be out of place. Edmund Husserl speaks of hyletische Daten, the translation being 'hyletic data.' Here the 'e' satisfies the exigencies of euphony quite nicely.
This is surely no earth-shaking matter. But on one way of looking at things it is wonderful that civilization has advanced to such a point that large numbers of people can spend time discussing such a scholarly punctilio.
Years ago an acquaintance wrote me about a book he had published which, he said, had "made quite a splash." The metaphor is unfortunately double-edged. When an object hits the water it makes a splash. But only moments later the water returns to its quiescent state as if nothing had happened. So it is an apt metaphor. It captures both the immediate significance of an event and its long-term insignificance.
Here is a question for those of you who champion the linguistic innovation, 'hylemorphic.' Will you also write 'morphelogical' and 'morphelogy'? If not, why not?
'Morphology' is superior to 'morphelogy' in point of euphony. For the same reason, 'hylomorphic' is superior to 'hylemorphic.'
But even if you disagree with my last point, you still have to explain why you don't apply your principle consistently.
Why don't you write and say 'morphelogy,' 'epistemelogy,' 'gelogy' (instead of 'geology'), etc.?
We linguistic conservatives are not opposed to change, but we are opposed to unnecessary changes. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Addendum (8 April 2014)
Patrick Toner writes:
Loved your post on the spelling of hylemorphism. I must disagree on the charge that the 'e' spelling is a novelty. I say this without any firsthand evidence. But Gideon Manning has a paper that covers the appearance of the term. According to him it showed up in English in 1888. By 1907, at least, there is an 'e' spelling of the term, in the translation of some scholastic volume into English. (DeWulf, maybe?) So both spellings go back almost all the way to the origin of the term in English. Manning himself uses the o spelling, but claims both are legitimate.
I make or imply essentially three claims in my post. The first is that the use of 'hylemorphism' is an innovation. I now see thanks to Toner that this claim is mistaken. So I withdraw it. The second claim is that 'hylomorphism' is superior to 'hylemorphism' in point of eupohony. I stick by this claim, though I admit it is somewhat subjective: one man's euphony is, if not another man's cacophany, then at least the other's non-euphony. The third claim is that the fans of 'hylemorphism' and cognates do not apply their principle consistently. For as far as I know they do not go on to say and write 'epistemelogy,' etc.
Here is a fourth point. Although the use of 'hylemorphism' and cognates is not wrong, and is not an absolute innovation (as Manning documents), it does diverge from the more common use at the present time. So what is the point of this relative innovation?
Am I missing something?
I am now reading Juliet Macur's page-turner of a portrait of Lance Armstrong, entitled Cycle of Lies. I found a review at The Guardian, and this sentence:
The picture of Armstrong that emerges from Neal's testimony is not a flattering one: he starts out a yob and his behaviour only degenerates.
Here is a definition of 'yob':
A thugish young male.Sid Vicious was a yob…but, you know, people change…they get older, wiser…they mature…Sid's no longer a yob; he's dead.
This is not an April Fool's joke.
Blind review is a standard practice employed by editors of professional journals and organizers of academic conferences. The editor/organizer removes the name of the author from the manuscript before sending it to the referee or referees for evaluation. My present concern is not whether this is a good practice. I am concerned with the phrase that describes it and whether or not this phrase can be reasonably found offensive by anyone. There are those who think that the phrase is offensive and ought to be banned. Shelley Tremain writes,
For the last few years, I have tried to get the APA [American Philosophical Association] to remove the phrase “blind review” from its publications and website. The phrase is demeaning to disabled people because it associates blindness with lack of knowledge and implies that blind people cannot be knowers. Because the phrase is standardly used in philosophy and other academic CFPs [Calls for Papers], it should become recognized as a cause for great concern. In short, use of the phrase amounts to the circulation of language that discriminates. Philosophers should want to avoid inflicting harm in this way.
Let's consider these claims seriatim.
1. "The phrase is demeaning to disabled people . . . " Well, I am a disabled person and the phrase is not demeaning to me. As a result of a birth defect I hear in only one ear. And of course there are innumerable people who are disabled in different ways who will not find the phrase demeaning.
2. " . . . because it associates blindness with lack of knowledge and implies that blind people cannot be knowers." This is not just false but silly. No one thinks that blind people cannot be knowers or that knowers cannot be blind.
Besides, it makes no sense to say that a phrase associates anything with anything. A foolish person who is precisely not thinking, but associating, might associate blindness with ignorance, but so what? People associate the damndest things.
To point out the obvious: if the name has been removed from the mansucript, then the referee literally cannot see it. This is not to say that the referee is blind, or blind with respect to the author's name: he could see it if it were there to see. 'Blind review' means that the reviewer is kept in the dark as to the identity of the author. That's all!
3. ". . . it should become recognized as a cause for great concern." Great concern? This is a wild exaggeration even if this issue is of some minor concern. I say, however, that it is of no concern. No one is demeaned or slighted or insulted or mocked or ridiculed by the use of the phrase in question.
4. ". . . use of the phrase amounts to the circulation of language that discriminates." One could argue that the practice of blind review discriminates against those who have made a name for themselves. But that is the only discrimination in the vicinity. I said at the top that this post is no joke. What is risible, however, is that anyone would find 'blind review' to be discriminatory against blind people.
5. "Philosophers should want to avoid inflicting harm in this way." This presupposes that the use of the phrase 'blind review' inflicts harm. This is just silly. It would be like arguing that the use of 'black hole' inflicts harm on black people because its use associates blacks with holes or with hos (whores).
In the early-to-mid '80s I attended an APA session organized by a group that called itself PANDORA: Philosophers Against the Nuclear Destruction of Rational Animals. One of the weighty topics that came up at this particular meeting was the very name 'Pandora.' Some argued that the name is sexist on the ground that it might remind someone of Pandora's Box, which of course has nothing to do with the characteristic female orifice, but in so reminding them might be taken as a slighting of that orifice. ('Box' is crude slang for the orifice in question.) I pointed out in the meeting that the name is just an acronym, and has nothing to do either with Pandora's Box or the characteristic female orifice. My comment made no impression on the politically correct there assembled. Later the outfit renamed itself Concerned Philosophers for Peace ". . . because of sexist and exclusionary aspects of the acronym." (See here)
Glenn Reynolds reports on successful pushback against such outrages as the FCC's "plan to 'monitor' news coverage at not only broadcast stations, but also at print publications that the FCC has no authority to regulate."
I hereby introduce 'obamination' to refer to those abominations perpetrated against the populace by big government, whether perpetrated by the POMO prez himself or by any liberal fascist. Every obamination is an abomination, but not conversely.
The Obaminator himself claims not to be for big government. We already know, however, that he is the most brazen liar ever to occupy the presidency. Here's more evidence. And here is documentation of Obama's mendacity in refusing to own up to his own call for a fundamental transformation of America.
From The War on Truth (emphasis and a bit of ascerbic commentary added):
How can we explain intelligent, articulate, intellectually vigorous people stuck in time, repeating themselves endlessly like robots? Even if the diversity crusade hadn’t become an embarrassment and a sham, the sheer mindless obsession of it suggests a seriously neurotic institution. Yale doesn’t lack diversity, just rationality. Of course it lacks intellectual diversity, but that problem has been solved by shipping “diversity” off to redefinition camp. American English is feeling a lot better, thank you, now that it’s been lobotomized by political hacks. (Covered by Obamacare!)
[. . .]
The good thing about the “diversity” problem is that you can obsess over it forever with no risk of solving it, because it is insoluble—based as it is on a wholly implausible lie. The diversity kingpins aim for group representation in all academic fields based on a group’s numbers in the student population, and in America (eventually the world) at large. But why would anyone suspect that both sexes and all races and nationalities have approximately the same skills at everything? And the same interests in everything? And the same physical qualifications for everything? Doesn’t diversity imply (for lack of a better term) diversity?
No!—and that’s the best thing about the diversity crusade. It is actually an anti-diversity crusade, waged by people who detest diversity. Its goal is to suppress diversity of every sort. Yale women must behave just like Yale men: must major in the same things at the same rates, go out for sports in the same numbers, get the same jobs, make the same money, care to the same extent in the same way about children, family, money, power, sex, and everything else. So why are there “Women’s Studies” departments? Because (dammit!) women and men are totally different! So why is there a diversity campaign? Because women and men are exactly the same!
The United States accomplished the amazing feat of virtually extinguishing race prejudice in a single generation, between the late 1950s and the early ’80s. It was a superb accomplishment, on the order of the Moon landings. But young Americans get no chance to take pride in it: We don’t just suppress the facts, we lie about them. We teach our children from kindergarten up that America still struggles with prejudice against approved minorities and women, when they can see with their own eyes that prejudice in favor of approved minorities and women is everywhere—in education, industry, and government. How are they supposed to learn that it is important to tell the truth? How will they learn what the truth means?
This problem is not keeping the Obama regime up nights. A Hillary administration would be equally indifferent.
War on Truth is the Obama administration’s middle name, and sometimes seems to be its actual goal. Releasing the toxic phrase “War on Women” into the political atmosphere was a risky move for the left—they have got away with it only because Republicans are so timid and lazy. That Republicans are antiwoman is an absurd lie, and what does it say about Republican women? Are they dupes or traitors? Or just dumb broads? (You know how women are about politics. Hopeless.) There was a time when honest Americans of every political type would have exploded at the sheer, filthy dishonesty of the phrase. No more. American culture is changing.
BV: It is indeed. Clear proof is that Obama gets away with his repeated outright lies, his Orwellianisms and his nine-to-five shuck and jive. Something is wrong when even conservative commentators refer to his brazen lies by saying that the POMO prez "misspoke."
While the Obamacrats rave on about the War on Women (believing that abortion poses an ethical question being tantamount, after all, to mowing down young girls in the street as they emerge from the shelters in which they have gathered, cowering, in fear of Republicans)—while they denounce the War on Women, Obamacrats have been merrily waging a war on jobs, a war on small business, a war on the best-by-far health care system in human history, a war on America’s international influence and prestige, a war on economic recovery, a war on energy independence, a war on the Constitution, and many other battles around the edges. But the War on Truth matters most, hurts most, and will be remembered longest.
Do Republicans care about the cultural mainstream’s real prejudice against white boys? Not in the least. Will Republicans challenge the diversity racket, the “affirmative action” con game that still dominates so many important institutional decisions? Americans dislike affirmative action and always have, but Republicans are too scared to speak up. Elections are approaching. Let us at least hear about this war on truth, from every last Republican candidate, for every office, at every level, every day. American culture, society, civilization are at stake. Please.
The chickenshit RINOs are too much enamoured of their perquisites, power, and pelf to take a principled stand on anything. They are go-along-to-get-along, kick-the-can-down-the-road types out for themselves first and foremost, and the Republic be damned. They are as republican as the Dems are democratic.
I can't believe that this old 16 September 2004 post from my first weblog languished there so long before being brought over, today, to my newer digs.
……………
My cat Caissa – named after the goddess of Chess – was feeling under the weather recently, so I took her to the vet for some blood work. The twenty-something receptionist at Caring Critters was nice enough but she stumbled over my name. But I was in a good mood, so I didn’t mind it too much. She didn’t even try to pronounce it which I suppose is better than mangling it. I don’t cotton to being called Valenzuela, Valencia, Vermicelli, Varicella, Valparaiso or Vladivostok. Don’t make me into an Hispanic. In these parts, if your are not Hispanic you are an ‘Anglo.’ That doesn’t sit well with me either.
Perhaps I should be happy that I do not rejoice under the name of Znosko-Borovsky or Bonch-Osmolovsky. Nor do I stagger under such burdens as Witkiewicz, Brzozowski, or Rynasiewicz. The latter is the name of a philosopher I knew when he taught at Case Western Reserve University. Alvin Plantinga once mentioned to me, sometime in the late '80s, that he had been interviewed at Notre Dame, except that ‘rhinoceros’ was all Plantinga could remember of his name.
Actually, none of these names is all that difficult if you sound them out. But apparently no one is taught phonics anymore. Damn those liberals! They’ve never met a standard they didn’t want to erode. I am grateful to my long-dead mother for sending me to Catholic schools where I actually learned something. I learned things that no one seems to know any more, for example, grammar, Latin, geography, mathematics. The next time you are in a bar, ask the twenty-something ‘tender whether that Sam Adams you just ordered is a 12 oz or a pint. Now observe the blank expression on her face: she has no idea what a pint is, or that a pint is 16 oz, or that there are four quarts in a gallon, or 5,280 feet in a mile, or 39.37 inches in a meter, or that light travels at 186, 282 miles/sec, or that a light-year is a measure of distance, not of time.
Even Joan Baez got this last one wrong in her otherwise excellent song, Diamonds and Rust, a tribute to her quondam lover, Bob Dylan. The irony is that Joanie’s pappy was a somewhat distinguished professor of physics! In a high school physics class we watched a movie in which he gives a physics lecture.
I was up in 'Flag' (Flagstaff) a few years back to climb Mt. Humphreys, the highest point in Arizona at 12,643 ft. elevation, (an easy class 1 walk-up except for the thin air) and to take a gander at the moon through the Lowell Observatory telescope. While standing in line for my peek, I overheard a woman say something to her husband that betrayed her misconception that the moon glows by its own light. She was astonished to learn from her husband that moonlight is reflected sunlight. I was astonished at her astonishment. One wonders how she would account for the phases of the moon. What ‘epicycles’ she would have to add to her ‘theory’!