Seeing the Same Thing

Abstract

It was clear in the preceding chapter that if one interpreted “seeing the sun” as “having a normal retinal reaction to the sun,” then our thirteenth and twentieth century astronomers do indeed see the same thing. But we noted a good many objections to interpreting seeing in this way. We found many cases where it could be established that a person’s retinal reaction to the sun was altogether normal, and yet the person would not be said to be seeing the sun—because of distraction, hypnosis, intoxication, somnambulism, paresis, etc.