He gives us the idea that our thoughts can reach further, help us explore beyond where we are, as though we are sending out our thoughts as scouts, or building out of them bridges into the dark. We can try to understand mysteries by building with what we have, rather as though we can measure a pyramid's height by setting up a stick and waiting till its shadow equals its height and then measuring the shadow of the pyramid, so that the thing we cannot measure is measured. Finally, and implied in that analogy, he gives us the idea that these things are not only the property of the person who sees them after working at them. Instead, she can show how she did it in such a way that the procedures convince us that she is right. Voila, philosophy is being invented in such a way that arguments and teaching are important to it.
Existence is water.
Welllll, okay, T., if you say so. But there is some way in which common sense is endangered by philosophy, and so Thales helps to raise that issue as well. 1998 September 1.