Description acceptable. J. L. Austin’s Sense and Sensibilia uses the example of this phenomenon to illustrate the difference between veridical and illusory experience. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this physical phenomenon that Book 10 of Republic attributes to a “weakness in our nature” that allows us to be misled by appearances. Socrates uses the example of this phenomenon to justify the banishment of poets and painters who deal in illusion.
ANSWER: refraction [accept descriptions of a stick or oar appearing bent in water]
[10e] Sextus Empiricus, a member of this school of thought, argued that a refracted stick demonstrates the unreliability of our senses. This branch of skepticism was named after a philosopher from Elis.
ANSWER: Pyrrhonism [or Pyrrhonian skepticism; accept Pyrrho of Elis]
[10m] This thinker wrote, “to make a crooked stick straight we bend it in the contrary way” in “Of Managing the Will.” Pyrrhonism inspired this thinker’s skeptical motto, “what do I know?”
ANSWER: Michel de Montaigne
<S, Philosophy>