"Consciousness is like a bottomless lake in which ideas are suspended at different depths."
— Peirce, Charles Sanders (1839-1914)
Place of Publication
Cambridge
Publisher
Harvard UP
Date
1958
Metaphor
"Consciousness is like a bottomless lake in which ideas are suspended at different depths."
Metaphor in Context
Consciousness is like a bottomless lake in which ideas are suspended at different depths. Indeed, these ideas themselves constitute the very medium of consciousness itself. Percepts alone are uncovered by the medium. We must imagine that there is a continual fall of rain upon the lake; which images the constant inflow of percepts in experience. All ideas other than percepts are more or less deep, and we may conceive that there is a force of gravitation, so that the deeper ideas are, the more work will be required to bring them to the surface.
(§533)
(§533)
Categories
Provenance
Reading Jerold J. Abrams' "Philosophy after the Mirror of Nature: Rorty, Dewey, and Peirce on Pragmatism and Metaphor." Metaphor and Symbol. 17.3 (2002): 227-42. p. 232.
Citation
Peirce, C. S. The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. vol vii. C. hartshorne, P. Weiss, and A. Burke, Eds.Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1958. (§533).
Date of Entry
08/11/2005
Date of Review
03/15/2009
