We are considering:
i. The sky is blue.
-- where the subject (of the sentence) was brought up by Omar K.
In a message dated 5/18/2015 2:49:37 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Is the sky blue? ... Everything we see we see as the color it is not.
The sky is every color except blue.
---
This seems right. This philosopher I like (he taught at Oxford for some
time) used to say that
ii. A British pillar box seems red, and it possibly is, but then (+> if
you think of it), literally, a British pillar box is ANYTHING but red.
The same philosopher (who taught at Oxford) used to make fun of Moore (who
taught at Cambridge). Moore had said,
iii. There's a pink hand before my eyes; therefore material objects exists.
But that's hardly conclusive.
As for 'sky', that's not in the Graeco-Roman philosophical lexicon,
'caelum' is.
And I have to grant the Ancient Romans were confused about it. ("The sky's
the limit" is never used by Cicero in his speeches).
It's from "cavilum", root in "cavus"; cf. Sanscr. "çva-", to swell, be
hollow; Greek "κύω", "κοῖλος". So it's not like we are talking of the
stereotypical Wittgensteinian object in the Tractatus (an apple), or the
stereotypical Tarskian exemplifications (snow is white, grass is green).
Lewis and Short wrote, for Oxonians, a Latin-English dictionary (published
by Oxford University Press), which is sometimes helpful (implicating
sometimes not). They define 'caelum' as:
1) the sky
but also
2) heaven
and surely
iv. The heaven is blue.
sounds harsh.
Also
3) the heavens (as in "Good heavens!" But cfr. the slight harhness to "the
good heavens are blue today, but they might be reddish tomorrow" -- it's
all in the scattering).
Also
4) the vault of heaven (in Lucrezio, "Della natura delle cose" alone more
than 150 times).
On top of that confusion, the Ancient Romans worshipped "Caelus", son of
Aether and Dies, of whom I suppose one could say was 'blue' when sad and red
when angry.
The Greeks, who copied a lot from the Romans (after they -- the Romans --
conquered them) translated 'caelum' as 'ouranos'.
Liddell and Scott wrote, for Oxonians, an English-Greek lexicon (published
by Oxford University Press) which is sometimes helpful (+> sometimes not).
They define 'ouranos' as
1) heaven
Also
2) vault or firmament of heaven
3) sky
4) the seat of the gods, outside or above this skyey vault, the portion of
Zeus
5) the heavens
6) the universe.
7) a region of heaven and climate.
8) anything shaped like the vault of heaven.
9) vaulted roof or ceiling.
10) roof of the mouth, palate.
11) a tent, or pavilion.
So it's not your stereotypical Kantian ding an sich.
On top of that, copying the Romans, the Greeks personified 'ouranous' with
a capital "O" now, he became:
Uranos, the son of Erebos and Gaia.
And again, we can say that he was blue when he was sad and red when he was
angry (or blushing).
In any case, it does not seem like Husserl was thinking 'sky' when
philosophising about the phenomenology of this dictum he thought 'synthetic a
priori': that colours belong in THINGS.
Cheers,
Speranza
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