Generalizing the Disappearing Act: A Reply to István Aranyosi Roy Sorensen Received: 13 October 2008 / Accepted: 28 October 2008 / Published online: 18 November 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008 Abstract In “The Reappearing Act” István Aranyosi postulates a new way of seeing to solve a puzzle posed in “The Disappearing Act;” an object that is exactly shaded can be seen simply by virtue of its contrast with its environment – just like a shadow. This object need not reflect, refract, absorb or block light. To undermine the motive for this heretical innovation, I generalize the puzzle to situations involving inexact shading. Aranyosi cannot extend his solution to these variations because he needs to conserve principles of camouflage. On the bright side, the solution to the puzzle that I propose in my book Seeing Dark Things does extend to these variations. Keywords Shadow . Paradox . Vision . Hole . Crack . Perception In the early universe, glowing plasma uniformly illuminated everything. All was white. This universal ganzfeld changed color in the same sequence as cooling white-hot steel. From white, the universe went yellow, then red, then dark. The Dark Age began 400,000 years after the Big Bang. The plasma, which had been sole source of illumination, cooled into atoms (mostly hydrogen and helium). There were now, loosely speaking, clouds of hydrogen. Collectively, the melee of atoms constituted an all-encompassing fog. This fog was co-extensive with the darkness. 1 Exactly Shaded Objects Was the universal fog an exactly shaded object? It meets István Aranyosi’ s requirement of lacking a surface in contact with light. It meets his condition of Acta Anal (2009) 24:11–15 DOI 10.1007/s12136-008-0041-1 NO41; No of Pages R. Sorensen (*) Department of Philosophy, Washington University, One Brookings Drive, Campus Box 1073, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA e-mail: sorensen@wustl.edu