8 - A Symposium
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Summary
After my philosophical sojourn I was walking down the street one day toward the university and was greeted by a colleague.
You're back! he said.
– Yes, I replied. Back to the land of the living.
– Are you sure? You hesitated.
– Well, I'm not so sure I can come back.
– Can't come back? Don't tell me you found another job.
– No. But things have changed.
– They haven't changed much, have they?
– Perhaps not. But enough so that I can't quite get my bearings.
– It's the same old place, don't worry. You'll be back in the swing of things soon enough.
– Maybe. But I almost feel like a stranger. It'll take some imagination to figure everything out again.
– Oh, you won't need any imagination to figure this place out.
– But I can't rely on memory anymore. Or at least not as much as I used to.
– Going senile, are you? Doesn't matter. All you have to do is keep your eyes open. Things will be obvious enough.
– Ah, but there's more than meets the eye, my friend.
– Good god, you're not getting paranoid, are you?
– No, I'm only my usual skeptical self. Without any memory or imagination we'd be confined to an itty-bitty here and now.
– All right, all right. You've gone philosophical on me. And at this hour. I haven't even had my coffee yet.
– But I just got back from sabbatical. Besides, a little imagination never hurt anybody.
[…]
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- Information
- Human GoodnessPragmatic Variations on Platonic Themes, pp. 274 - 288Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006