Abstract
Sorensen’s celebrated problem about the eclipse of Near and Far is given a solution in which what is seen is Far, silhouetted. Near cannot be seen, as it is in the shadow of Far. A silhouette is a shadow. The so–called “Yale Puzzle” is a linguistic confusion.
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Notes
Sorensen 2008.
S.Todes and C. Daniels (1975), pp. 203–216, and Sorensen, p. 54 and p. 98.
See S. Todes and C. Daniels (1975) for a version of the puzzle with the definite article in (3).
For this use, see for example “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons”, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmes: ‘[A] lithe, dark figure, as swift and active as an ape, rushed up the garden path. We saw it whisk past the light thrown from over the door and disappear against the black shadow of the house.’ The OED sense 2a given for “silhouette” is “An object seen as a dark outline against a lighter background; a dark shadow of something.”
References
Marlan, S. (2005). The black sun: The alchemy and art of darkness (p. 84). College Station, TX: Texas A &M University Press.
Sorensen, R. (2008). Seeing dark things: The philosophy of shadows. Oxford: OUP.
Todes, S., & Daniels, C. (1975). Beyond the doubt of a shadow: a phenomenological and linguistic analysis of shadows. Selected Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, 5, 203–216.
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Westphal, J. Silhouettes are Shadows. Acta Anal 26, 187–197 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-010-0102-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-010-0102-0