Pythagorus: Hesperus and Phosphorus (Evening and Morning Star)

Pythagorus is believed to have established (grounded ?) the belief (assertion ?) that Hesperus is Phosphorus and Phosphorus is Hesperus.
This is not to say that "Evening star" means "bearing the dawn" [Φωσφόρος, "bearer of light"].

First note that this is astronomy prior to experiment (Galileo) and astronomy prior to enhanced observation through instrument (Galileo's telescope or Newton's reflector telescope.)

To what extent can the Pythagorean "thetic" achievement be derided by Heidegger as more counting by a zealot?  Indeed, Heidegger's opposition to number is astonishing given the early work of Husserl.

Heidegger affirmed the value of "orienteering" for the hiker in the hills.  His Lage of Germany in geo-politics is in a pincers that is East and West (but not clearly so - see my notes on Heidegger and Taoism and the possibility that Heidegger envisaged the Chinese embracing his thought as an alternative to the trinity of Marxism, Buddhism and Confucianism.)

Consider the model of the telescope used by Herschel to discover Uranus.  Removed the telescope.  What remains is a device for taking line of sight: it depends on properties of triangles.  But need it be numeric?

Consider the use of "Wegmarken" - say, notched sticks to mark the height of the planet Venus on successive days.  With the season, such a row of markers would lie along different lines of sight.  Those lines of site require marking a standpoint - a viewpoint.

The Entdeckung which provides the "thetic" insight into the identity of the two stellar objects is not trivial even today.  In Australia, for some Aborigines, the appearance of Venus in the sky is as significant as the first glimpse of the new moon to Moslems.  In Canada, it has emerged that there is a confluence between the views of Christian aboriginal natives and traditionalist natives that the First People reject Darwinian evolution in favor of creation.

The critical objection to Darwin had been the age of the earth and the critical defense in that regard was that the sun could not have been "burning" for millenia.  We come back to Heraclitus and fire.

Venus is not blazing.  Gazing on Venus in a telescope will not blind you within seconds.  This is not mere practical knowledge with regard to the use of equipment.

What was not available to Pythagorus were the phases of Venus.  Would these have been mere "phenomena" for mention rather than grounds for assertoric thesis and a spur, a goad, to theoria?

While pondering my project on Mercury and Anschauung, I happened to return to one of my personal discoveries: the lovely blue "snowball" nebula classified as NGC 7662.  On the night that I could not resist observing that single object - happened upon by chance, I was with others at an organized "dark sky" site.  I do not now recall if I was using an 8" SCT or a 6" refractor (I was not keeping a logbook of observations and achievements.)  With a 24" telescope such as my daughter may use at college, this would not be a lovely blue circular haze among more-or-less pin-point stars: it would have a visible structure.  With the Hubble photograph it was "unveiled" and with the LBT on Mount Graham there may be an even finer image.

The distance to NGC 7662 has been problematic - not that the distance could be given in more than orders of magnitude with a theory of error - and expressed as Parsec or as AU.

How long would a student persist in looking to identify the moons of Venus?  How many repeat observations over what period of time?  What would be the responsibility of the teacher?  What are our values in this regard?

What Heidegger could not envisage was the poet astronomer.  The poet with an axe, chopping wood, yes.  The poet who laboured as a forester, yes.

Herschel was a musician, perhaps not so unlike Pythagorus.  The music he composed is now utterly neglected, forgotten.  His sister is forgotten where Nietzsche's sister is remembered.

note: observation, asterism, constellation
note: the future of Ursa Maj. for observers on earth.
note: Heidegger on Greek portrayals of female goddess
note: Herschel's lively imagination
note: Heidegger's scorn for differentiating and classifying versus the achievement of Edwin Hubble