"If one must use metaphorical language, then let the metaphor be this: the mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the world. (Or, to make the metaphor even more Hegelian, the Universe makes up the Universe--with minds--collectively--playing a special role in the making up.)"
— Putnam, Hilary (b. 1926)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
Cambridge
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Date
1981
Metaphor
"If one must use metaphorical language, then let the metaphor be this: the mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the world. (Or, to make the metaphor even more Hegelian, the Universe makes up the Universe--with minds--collectively--playing a special role in the making up.)"
Metaphor in Context
In short, I shall advance a view in which the mind does not simply 'copy' a world which admits of description by One True Theory. But my view is not a view in which the mind makes up the world, either (or makes it up subject to constraints imposed by 'methodological canons' and mind-independent 'sense-data'). If one must use metaphorical language, then let the metaphor be this: the mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the world. (Or, to make the metaphor even more Hegelian, the Universe makes up the Universe--with minds--collectively--playing a special role in the making up.)
(p. xi
(p. xi
Categories
Citation
Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge UP, 1981).
Date of Entry
03/19/2012
