"If he was essentially a thinking machine, then he needed to be serviced."
— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)
Author
Work Title
Date
1992
Metaphor
"If he was essentially a thinking machine, then he needed to be serviced."
Metaphor in Context
When Victor sat down again he pictured himself thinking, and tried to superimpose this picture on his inner vacancy. If he was essentially a thinking machine, then he needed to be serviced. It was not the problems of philosophy but the problem with philosophy that preoccupied him that afternoon. And yet how often the two became indistinguishable. Wittgenstein had said that the philosopher's treatment of a question was like the treatment of a disease. But which treatment? Purging? Leeches? Antibiotics against the infections of language? Indigestion tablets, thought Victor, belching softly, to help break down the doughy bulk of sensation?
(p. 83)
(p. 83)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Quotations drawn from Edward St. Aubyn, The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk (New York: Picador, 2012).
Date of Entry
09/25/2015
