The Human Condition Chapter VI "World Alienation"

When Harry Frankfurt published his book "Truth" he may have been thinking of this book.

Chpater VI of The Human Condition opens with a quote from Kafka.

The opening section of the chapter is "World Alienation", which I quote:

Three great events stand at the threshold of the modern age and determine its character:
...
the invention of the telescope and the development of a new science that considers the nature of the earth from the viewpoint of the universe.

The 3rd great moment is the telescope in astronomy (we ignore that the events that matter in the early history of observational astronomy concern establishing certain facts by description and by drawings prior to testing any hypotheses.)

Initially Galileo's importance was to the military - for the angle at which to set a canon for greatest distance. Galileo's improved telescope was a boon for the artillery and the tactical commander.

But was the invention of the telescope on a par with global navigation and the Reformation?  There she is almost certainly mistaken as we can see with the continued rejection of Darwin based on the age of the sun until Gamow, Hoyle and others had explained that the Sun is not oxidizing a fuel (and so can be more than 5000 years old and not have "burned up" its own mass as fuel.)

What was important was the inclined plane experiment and the concept of acceleration seen in terms of distance and time.  Next in order may be Lavoisier defeating Phlogiston by experiment.

It is not that I have an experimental bias - far from it.

Arendt repeats the old saw that Kopernik had no great impact (spread by another popularizer without regard to the historical facts: the documents, once reviewed by an historian of ideas, now show otherwise.)

What is worse is her sheer ignorance on so many historical matters critical to any phenomenological contribution to astronomy and modes of experience in natural science.

The solution is to present in adequate layout her texts - both the 1st and 2nd edition ( the 1st edition has a worthless index) and just ignore the introduction pasted onto the 2nd Ed.

Geophysics: 1956 marks the major break-through in plate techtonics.

Evolution: Arendt conflates the evolution of the earth with that of our species in one and the same sentence.

Arendt conflates all relativism with Einsteinian relativity.

Arents conflates mathematics and mathematical physics (wholly ignorant of Bryn Mawr's Emmy Noether and the role of non-arithmetic symmetries and groups to GTR.)  See Heidegger on science as classification, measurement and calculation.

Arendt conflates mathematical physics with experimental physics across both celestial mechanics and particle physics.

Arendt shows no sign of knowing what Maxwell had achieved (she repeats Heideger's claim which he made on television of what can no longer be comprehended.)

Arendt conflates "fixed point" with ":Archimedian point" with Mach on no privileged point.

Arendt repeats misconstruals of Galileos' own views.

Arendt appears not to know that two orbiting masses orbit about their commonpoint of mass (would she have known where this point lies?)

Arendt appears not to know that Plato knew the view of Pythagorous that Hesperus is Phosphorus.

Arendt seems to believe that uranium does not occur naturally (and so was ignorant of the actual WORK done by Pierre and Marie Curie with pitchblende.)

The 1st ed. has no reference to Heidegger but is riddled with almost direct quotes from him and includes the capitalization of Being.

Arendt appears not to know the basis for Einstein's Nobel prize (see her comments on matter and energy.)

Arendt appears not to have read books which she quotes based on her remarks about relativity: the role of invariants is lost on her.

Arendt seems unaware of how non-Euclidean geometries arose (this is not a matter of arithmetic, measurement or calculations but an issue which her Plato would also have acknowledged concerning a premise.)

The work of a seminal thinker.

Arendt was as anthropocentric as Heidegger- perhaps even more so.  The use of her word "creature" could mislead the naive reader.  See Heidegger on animals.

Arendt has amassed in a single chapter such a wealth of falsehoods, false dichotomies, fallacies, suppressed premises, pointless polemics, deliberate distortions and yet not a reference to her source: Heidegger.

As a philosopher she fails to distinguish instrumentalism, pragmatism, mechanism, physicalism, naturalism - all in the Heidegger tradition (see Heidegger on Erich Frank.)

Heidegger never sat his exams in science and math.  Arendt was a political ignoramus before 1930.  She bungled her work as a commentator on some of the most appalling events and outcomes of the 20th Century and she utterly bungles her learned assessment of the "modern age".

Any poet who has ever looked at the moon through a telescope will know what I mean.

With regard to Galileo, even an a world with no moon (no tides - so likely no tidal pools so likely no terrestrial life) and with a thick atmostphere with no view of a sun - and especially a foggy world in need of telescopes and accurate artillery - would might have an experiment in acceleration of lead shot on a smooth inclined plane, navigation using the polarization of light and Maxwell.

The answer is to layout some of her most outrageous claims in plain view in web pages designed to facilitate the documentation of bullsh*t.  This I will get rolling at http://aule-browser.com/

The reviews of the book at SEP, IEP and wikipedia should bring all of those encyclopedist efforts into question -especially the "peer-reviewed" bullsh*t.  Truth is worth the effort and the work required - and collaboration, not singular individuals as is the model at SEP and IEP.

see Jocelyn Benoist and others on the triumph of Heideggerian bullsh*t as philology, etymology and classical scholarship in French philosphy.  Theology in disguise is a dark travelling companion.

Humor: Arendt also warns that we may explode the entire planet.  Luckily the CERN collider was not named in her honor.

Arendt seems to think the phenomenology of "heaviness" is impugned by distinguishing weight from mass.  She was not a student of Stumpf or Lipps but did spend a few months attending Husserl's lectures (himself a former assistant to Weierstrass and influenced by Bolzano who is something of a parent to "modern" science and to the theory of the militarist state.)

Is there any indication that Arendt ever read Mach, Poincaré or Bolzano?  Was knowing Aristotle in the Greek a basis for a critique of twentieth century physics let alone mathematical physics in the western world?  If she only knew Mahomet in Arabic, it might be enough: see the Fatwa that helped end new science in the Islamic world.  Compare the view of the Vatican on astronomy during the past 150 years and its current contributions to astronomy.
See: Robert Musil dissertaion on Ernst Mach
See: Arendt on the watchmaker.

Truly curious: Arendt quotes Russell from a secondary source.

Fact: in a letter to Heidegger Arendt claims to read Merleau-Ponty only in 1972.

For a defence of Descartes see various. On the claim that the early is superior to the later, see Heidegger.  Compare this view to Locke as a Cartesian versus Hume (Locke being "prior" to Hume as were Parmenides and Heraklit prior to Plato and Aristotle. CF Heidegger on Aristotle's physics in Wegmarken/Pathmarks)

Humor: the great collection (assemblage) of Seba becomes the first museum (Kunsthaus) of Peter I's Saint Petersburg.  Linnaeus follows shortly thereafter.  See the role of classification and the Cepheid variables in the discoveries of Edwin Hubble.

Remark: see the evidence for dark matter with regard to the role of patient, observant women in astronomy.
A seminal thinker and seed spilled on the ground.  Or was it on the bench?