Issa Spyglass

Perhaps Heidegger was misled by his Japanese aristocrat student: Issa did not say "telescope".  He was speaking of a "spyglass".

He must have waited his turn with his 3 coins - but what was he expecting to see as if near?  Fuji-san?

That three-kanji combination is now archaic, but was not in 1790.

---

Arendt, Venus and Telescopes: Galileo or Kepler or Newton?

In Chapter VI of The Human Condition Hannah Arendt makes no distinction between the refracting telescope of Galileo and that of Kepler (let alone the Newtonian reflector.)

There is, of course, a world of difference.  Galileo's "telescope" was an improved "glass" or "tube" - a spyglass - such as an artillery officer might use.  He likely first constructed one using spectacle lenses.

Heidegger - when he first taught on science and instrument-makers - was not wearing spectacles.

What Galileo was reporting to Castelli was that Venus had the phases of the moon. This was a crucial defeat for geocentrism as a theory (as a fact - as opposed to mere theory - the Earth and Sun move approximately about their common center of mass - which happens to be within the radius of the Sun.)

What Kepler predicted was the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun (but it was not in fact visible in Europe that year of 1631 (and Kepler already dead) - but the transit of Mercury was.)

The next transit of Venus is June 6, 2012 after which there will not be another for more than 100 years.

What Arendt soft-pedals is that these phases of Venus and transits of the Sun were phenomena in the very sense in which that word was used by Greeks speaking of the night sky. But in Kepler's case, his telescope was not a mere spyglass: the "image" was not the "normal" view of a spyglass. Kepler used a subjective lens with a short focal length and an objective lens with a long focal length; Galileo's subjective lens was concave; Kepler's was not. Kepler's "image" was inverted - but the field of view was wider and provided eye relief - essential to those wearing spectacles. But Kepler's view of Venus would have been plagued by false colors (unlike Newton's.)

Heidegger would have noted that an early telescope maker was none other than an instrument maker. But was Galileo's inclined plane an instrument distorting the things as given?

And those who sought to be the first to name the moons of Venus?

Some of these remarks I will add as annotations at http://phil.aule-browser.com/arendt.htm

cf: Heidegger, "Die Frage nach der Technik" in Vortraege u. Aufsaetze

Ge-stell u. entbergen

My children tell the story of how we walked on the grounds of the great dinosaur museum after a rain.  A small piece of shale had slid down to the path.  I turned it over to expose the most exquisite fossil (I shall not describe it.)  When all had seen it, I placed it down, again not exposed, a mere piece of stone, unmarked, on the edge of the path.

In the early days of science, it would have been a curiosity to display in our collection.  In the hey-day of paleontology, who knows - something to put forward in an article in a journal? Photographed. Sketched. Catalogued.

But Heidegger cannot account for the other great man of Goettingen: Gauss.  Gauss did not try to be the first in everything, to have it all to ihis credit.  Much of what he discovered, others would be left to re-discover.

In the Heidegger account, Darwin ought to have come home with all his drawings and notes and specimens and then when he had it all pieced together, had a laugh, and then headed off to church with his wife where he might engage in genuine exchanges with his fellows.

And what of the poet?  Should the best of Hoelderlin have gone unpublished?  Should Brod have burned Kafka?  What was the rush of Heidegger to protect his papers as the French forces approached?

Noteworthy is that the volume of GA with the Tecknik essay also has no index.  This makes it a nuisance for readers to track down where Arendt got her bit on apparatus and where the bit on Heissenberg (look at the date Heidegger cites - 1954 - is that not the year that Born was finally recognized?)  I will set that staright over at phil.aule-browser.com/arendt.htm

Has Heidegger told us why he cannot resist publishing?  What could be more Ge-stell than the fine binding and flawless printing of yet another exemplar of a book. You can see it there, in the Klostermann window, on display.  Heidegger did not lug about the fonts with him, as did Kepler.

Why was it not enough for the Greeks to have gone on repeating Homer?  Can Heidegger not see the organized scrolls of Alexandria as Bestände? Feu, said Pascal.