Philosophy Now Forum

In everyday life, people see my brain turning over and rarely take me on.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

Earlier I was wondering if the beach scene described by Anja Steinbauer in her editorial Philosophers on the Beach was metaphorical. Well, yes, because the scene consists of images that logically could not have taken place.

In everyday life, people see my brain turning over and rarely take me on.

The above quote is metaphorical since literally one cannot see a brain turning over. Nevertheless, it is a colorful notion. And that's what metaphors are, colorful notions.

spike wrote:

"The Enlightenment is a myth."

chaz, I am just going by that ludicrous statement of yours.

But you do not understand the meaning of myth.
The best myths are true. That's the point of them.
The trick is not to forget what is and what is not a myth, and to understand the underlying assumptions that have given rise to the myth and to know when the myth becomes out of date.

For example the idea that there was a Celtic race that inhabited ancient Europe is a myth. I has many consequences and incommensurable facts attracted to it. But it is fundamentally racist in its creation and high time for review.

Anyway, the Scottish Enlightenment wasn't represented on the beach, that mythical, metaphorical beach on the Baltic.